# Ep 135 The Secret to Calm, Stress-Free Multi-Dog Walks

An episode of [Help! My Dog: The Podcast. Dog Behaviour & Training Strategies that Work!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1721245241), 1 Jul 2026, 12 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2287608/episodes/19420602-ep-135-the-secret-to-calm-stress-free-multi-dog-walks.mp3

Your dogs are brilliant on their own, so why does everything fall apart when they’re together?! If you’ve ever found yourself wondering why your dogs can listen beautifully individually, but suddenly become over-excited, distracted or completely forget everything they’ve learned as soon as they’re walking side by side, you’re definitely not alone! This week, we’re exploring our top tips for stress-free multi-dog walks, including some easy ways you can help them rediscover their ability to think and focus in each other’s company. We’ll explore key steps to building successful teamwork, from getting their brains back into their bodies to some useful skills you can grow to prevent them from constantly winding each other up! Calm, enjoyable walks here we come! ................ Whether your dog is unpredictable with other dogs or predictably bad… Whether it looks like freezing, barking, lunging or running away… Whether you are just starting out on your dog-owning journey or your dog has been labelled as having a “behaviour problem”… … this episode is for you and is going to give you huge insights! Want to join the Help! My Dog Online HUB? Here's the link: www.helpmydog.com/hub Dr Tom Mitchell is a world-renowned veterinarian, behaviourist and dog trainer and director of the Behavet behaviour clinic (rated Excellent on Trustpilot), which sees over 400 pet behaviour consultations each and every month no matter where you are in the world. In 2023, he founded Help! My Dog, an online dog behaviour learning platform to help even more owners all over the world and show that dog behaviour transformation is not only possible but it's FUN, with the right know-how! Make sure to subscribe/follow the podcast for the free weekly episodes! Useful Links: Follow Help! My Dog on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpmydogofficial/ Schedule a Consultation with Behavet: https://www.beha.vet/ Follow Behavet on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/behavet

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_00: We've got stress-free individual dog walks now, right?
[0:02] SPEAKER_00: Which I bet there was a time where you thought, I don't think this is ever gonna happen.
[0:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[0:07] SPEAKER_00: Well, we've done that.
[0:08] SPEAKER_00: Now it's about the stress-free multi-dog walks, which that plan that I've given you will absolutely get you that.
[0:14] SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, a warning.
[0:17] SPEAKER_00: The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some young listeners.
[0:22] SPEAKER_00: This is real life, and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic.
[0:27] SPEAKER_00: So listen on at your own peril.
[0:30] SPEAKER_00: As a veterinarian, dog behaviourist, best-selling author and trainer, over the past decade, I've had an obsession with transforming the behaviour of dogs, understanding their brains and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home.
[0:45] SPEAKER_00: I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality.
[0:51] SPEAKER_00: In fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog Gorse was bitten by a dog 20 times her size.
[0:58] SPEAKER_00: And suddenly our life of stress-free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner.
[1:09] SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
[1:10] SPEAKER_00: Tom.
[1:10] SPEAKER_00: This is the Help My Dog Podcast, and this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you, and having a few laughs along the way.
[1:21] SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Help My Dog Podcast.
[1:25] SPEAKER_00: And in today's episode, we are diving into a listener's question.
[1:29] SPEAKER_00: Now, it goes a little bit like this: Hi Tom, I've completed your 10-day Help My Dog Walks a Stressful plan, and both dogs have made brilliant progress.
[1:38] SPEAKER_00: That's great, that's so good.
[1:39] SPEAKER_00: Um, now Buddy no longer reacts to other dogs, and Tony, I love these names, and Tony is much more engaged with me.
[1:48] SPEAKER_00: Okay, cool.
[1:48] SPEAKER_00: They are two great outcomes of that 10-day plan.
[1:52] SPEAKER_00: That's brilliant.
[1:53] SPEAKER_00: Um, so Buddy no longer reacts to other dogs, and Tony is much more engaged with me.
[1:57] SPEAKER_00: Well, until Buddy is with us.
[2:00] SPEAKER_00: Okay, so when you've got two of them together, you're not seeing the same results as you would individually get it.
[2:05] SPEAKER_00: How do I grow successful walks with them both together, please?
[2:09] SPEAKER_00: All right, so this is a really common one, um, and um, and one that I think I'm glad you've asked this because I think it's really worth us having uh an episode exactly on this struggle.
[2:21] SPEAKER_00: So you've done absolutely everything right, in that now what we've got is we've got two individual dogs that when they are by themselves, they are making, um, they've made great progress, buddy's no longer reactive, Tony is engaged with you, brilliant.
[2:36] SPEAKER_00: Um, and that is the starting point for if you want stress-free multi-dog walks.
[2:41] SPEAKER_00: Well, actually, it has to start with teaching each individual dog the necessary skills.
[2:46] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[2:47] SPEAKER_00: And now what we're at the stage of is bringing both of those dogs together and hopefully making sure that we can get the same skills with them both together.
[2:56] SPEAKER_00: And that's a nice way to look at it is almost look at it as the skills that they have individually is is the foundation for the skills that they will collectively have together.
[3:06] SPEAKER_00: Now, the reason why their behavior is not the same and their skills are not the same when they're both together is probably because their arousal's much higher, because they're, you know, they're both together, and you know, they've got this history of potentially having kind of, let's say, triggered each other and revved each other up because one dog gets excited, that makes the other dog get excited, because the other dog's got excited now, the first dog's got even more excited, and you can be in this like vicious cycle.
[3:36] SPEAKER_00: And effectively, we have kind of um three, I guess three things to think about here.
[3:43] SPEAKER_00: The first thing to think about is often when two dogs are walking together and they've had a history of excitement and over excitement and reactivity when they're both on the same walk, what can often happen is that their brains can literally leave their head and their brains in next week.
[4:01] SPEAKER_00: And all of those amazing behaviors and skills that you've taught them individually, they can't practice, they can't access because their brain is not even with them, right?
[4:10] SPEAKER_00: So, first thing that we're gonna do, okay, step one of three, right, is that we're going to look to anchor their brains back in their head, okay?
[4:20] SPEAKER_00: Now, the way that we're gonna do this is similar to how you would have learned to do that in the 10-day plan with them individually.
[4:28] SPEAKER_00: And that is we're going to teach them a behavior that requires precision, that requires thought, and requires them to be present in the moment in order to be able to do that behavior.
[4:41] SPEAKER_00: And what that does is gets their brain back in their head so that they can function.
[4:46] SPEAKER_00: And the behavior that I think we're gonna use in this instance is teaching them to put their front feet on a very specific object.
[4:54] SPEAKER_00: And that object I would suggest is like um a lightweight yoga block or a lightweight book or something that they can fit their feet on.
[5:02] SPEAKER_00: It needs to be lightweight because you're gonna carry this into your walk in the initial stages.
[5:06] SPEAKER_00: And so, what you're gonna do is before you even leave the house, both of your dogs will know this behavior already because you've already taught them it in the 10-day plan, is you are going to individually pop that object down, and dog number one's gonna put their paws on it, awesome, feed them, throw a piece of food away so they they they take their feet off.
[5:27] SPEAKER_00: You're gonna pick the object up and present it to dog number two.
[5:30] SPEAKER_00: They're gonna put their put their feet on it.
[5:33] SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
[5:33] SPEAKER_00: We've got brains in skulls right now.
[5:36] SPEAKER_00: Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna attach a lead to each dog, okay, which is a predictor of going for a walk, which is gonna be then a challenge to them and a challenge to whether they can stay in the moment, and you're gonna do the same, almost like a little temperature check, right?
[5:51] SPEAKER_00: Dog number one, can you put your feet on the the um on the object?
[5:55] SPEAKER_00: Nice job, buddy.
[5:56] SPEAKER_00: Now throw a piece of food away.
[5:58] SPEAKER_00: Tony, is your brain in your skull?
[6:01] SPEAKER_00: It is awesome.
[6:02] SPEAKER_00: Feed, feed, feed, throw a piece of food away.
[6:04] SPEAKER_00: Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna progress the walk a little bit.
[6:07] SPEAKER_00: Open the front door, don't go out, just open the door.
[6:10] SPEAKER_00: They're on lead.
[6:11] SPEAKER_00: Have we got brains in skull at that point?
[6:14] SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
[6:14] SPEAKER_00: Now let's step out.
[6:16] SPEAKER_00: Have we got brains in skull?
[6:17] SPEAKER_00: And initially, that might be your walk, your entire walk, right?
[6:22] SPEAKER_00: Actually, is we only made it out two steps, yeah?
[6:25] SPEAKER_00: Um and then we're like, awesome job, call it a day, end on a win, we're done, right?
[6:29] SPEAKER_00: But what you're gonna be able to do is you're gonna be able to build that out into more of what looks like a walk, right?
[6:36] SPEAKER_00: And you're going to be able to do that less frequently as you see that they're they're focusing on you, they're engaging with you.
[6:43] SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, what is what part of what we're doing here is currently the reason why their behavior's deteriorating is because Buddy's primary question as he goes out on that walk is probably what's Tony doing?
[6:58] SPEAKER_00: When's Tony gonna get excited?
[6:59] SPEAKER_00: When's Tony gonna bark?
[7:01] SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, Tony's primary question is what's Buddy doing?
[7:04] SPEAKER_00: When's Buddy gonna get excited?
[7:06] SPEAKER_00: Where when is he gonna react to a dog?
[7:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[7:08] SPEAKER_00: And what we're doing is we're replacing those questions with instead, where's the object?
[7:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, where's my owner?
[7:15] SPEAKER_00: When is my owner gonna put that object down?
[7:17] SPEAKER_00: And that gets them present, it gets them grounded, and it gets their arousal levels way more under control.
[7:22] SPEAKER_00: Step number one.
[7:24] SPEAKER_00: Step number two, you may have heard me talk about this thing called a dimmer switch before.
[7:30] SPEAKER_00: If every, you know, you've listened to even just a few of these episodes on the podcast, a dimmer switch.
[7:35] SPEAKER_00: And the idea of a dimmer switch is that every dog has an internal arousal regulation system that decides that that hopefully is fine-tuned enough that when a small thing happens, they get a small increase in arousal.
[7:48] SPEAKER_00: When a big thing happens, they get a big increase in arousal.
[7:52] SPEAKER_00: The problem is that many dogs, their arousal regulation system goes goes a bit haywire.
[7:58] SPEAKER_00: It it's it becomes faulty.
[8:00] SPEAKER_00: And small events trigger huge increases in arousal.
[8:03] SPEAKER_00: And they end up with more of a light switch that's either off or on, right?
[8:07] SPEAKER_00: Rather than dimmer switch, where we've got all these different levels that we can play around with.
[8:13] SPEAKER_00: As part of the 10-day plan, you would have done a little bit of dimmer switch work, teaching your dog to have this dimmer switch that's more fine-tuned.
[8:20] SPEAKER_00: The thing is, when you put two dogs together, it's almost like we have to re-establish the dimmer switch, right?
[8:27] SPEAKER_00: We have to make them go up a little bit in arousal, then down a little bit in arousal.
[8:32] SPEAKER_00: And what I would do is I would actually start to build this into your sessions where they're putting their front feet on the object.
[8:40] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[8:41] SPEAKER_00: So it might be, for example, that on day five of implementing this plan that I'm giving you, that you go, you know what, Buddy and Tony, they're doing really well.
[8:51] SPEAKER_00: So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get them a little bit excited, yeah, but not too much, just a little bit excited.
[8:56] SPEAKER_00: Let's get them to level 20 rather than level 1000, right?
[9:00] SPEAKER_00: And then I'm gonna go, object on the floor.
[9:02] SPEAKER_00: Can you can you stay grounded?
[9:04] SPEAKER_00: Can you keep your brain and your skull?
[9:06] SPEAKER_00: Awesome, you can do it.
[9:07] SPEAKER_00: Let's bring the energy back down a little bit.
[9:09] SPEAKER_00: But then let's bring it up a little bit, yeah?
[9:11] SPEAKER_00: And then let's bring it down a little bit.
[9:12] SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, always testing is your brain in the moment.
[9:16] SPEAKER_00: What you'll probably find as you start to do this is you might overshoot at times, yeah?
[9:21] SPEAKER_00: And you you you know, you get them a little bit excited by maybe, I don't know, going a little bit faster paced, or you know, making a particular noise, or you know, looking like you're gonna play a game.
[9:32] SPEAKER_00: And what will happen is Buddy will get excited.
[9:34] SPEAKER_00: That will make Tony excited because Tony's got excited, Buddy's gonna get even more excited, and you're back in that like vicious cycle of like, oh my god, arousal levels are escalating, right?
[9:44] SPEAKER_00: And what you do is you just take note of that and you go, okay, I pushed it a little bit too far.
[9:49] SPEAKER_00: We need to work at a slightly lower level until we build this dimmer switch that little bit more.
[9:53] SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
[9:55] SPEAKER_00: And so you're gonna over time build this dimmer switch so that they're really resilient to these little events that are gonna happen on a walk, like seeing another dog, or I don't know, seeing a cat under a car, or hearing a noise, and they're going to give appropriate increases in arousal that aren't going to rebound off each other and escalate.
[10:15] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[10:16] SPEAKER_00: And then, so now what we've got is we've got brains in skull, we've got arousal levels where we want them to be.
[10:23] SPEAKER_00: Now we're out on our walk and we're building out our walks to um to a you know a nice, a nice level.
[10:29] SPEAKER_00: And at that point, that's when you might start to introduce a layer of disengagement, okay?
[10:36] SPEAKER_00: So all those disengagement strategies and games that you learn in the 10-day plan that teach your dog um to disengage from other dogs, disengage from distractions, ignore cats and squirrels and birds or whatever else, right?
[10:50] SPEAKER_00: You're actually just going to play those games, right?
[10:53] SPEAKER_00: And one game that within that 10-day plan that we we talk a lot about that's really good for multi-dogs because it works really nicely from a logistical point of view with multi-dogs is the rewind game.
[11:06] SPEAKER_00: So your walks will start to become more about teaching your dog, hey, I see that dog over there, or your two dogs, I should say, I see that dog over there.
[11:15] SPEAKER_00: That means disengage and you're gonna do a rewind.
[11:17] SPEAKER_00: I see that person over there playing football.
[11:21] SPEAKER_00: Your job is to disengage and you do a rewind to remind them.
[11:24] SPEAKER_00: And when you've got those three layers in, you're gonna see that all those amazing results that you had with them individually, you're going to get with them combined in the same space, right?
[11:34] SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited to hear how you get on.
[11:36] SPEAKER_00: Buddy and Tony have done the hard work, right?
[11:39] SPEAKER_00: You've done the hard work, I should say.
[11:41] SPEAKER_00: And now it's about kind of just bringing it together and following that very kind of methodical plan so that you can get to having enjoyable multi-dog walks.
[11:51] SPEAKER_00: We've got stress-free individual dog walks now, right?
[11:54] SPEAKER_00: Which I bet there was a time when you thought, I don't think this is ever gonna happen.
[11:58] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[11:58] SPEAKER_00: Well, we've done that.
[11:59] SPEAKER_00: Now it's about the stress free multi dog walks, which that plan that I've given you will absolutely get you there.

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