Tips for Keeping a Big Dog in Your House
After adopting our Newfoundland we had to make very few changes. The biggest change was opening up rooms, so that she could maneuver and we could get through also. That meant a little furniture rearranging. Nothing big, a “lets move the couch over here” and a “That chair would work better there.” Otherwise simple. It also worked out well for when they all decided to start playing. The new floor plan gave them room to wrestle without knocking stuff all over the place. It didn’t take us long to work out the kinks. We figured out early some very easy and fairly inexpensive ways to keep our gentle giant and the other three large dogs in our home.
The most important and probably most expensive tip is obedience class. Large dogs can be hard to control when full grown, so obedience class can help you learn to handle your pet, plus it’s a great way to bond with your dog and build a great relationship with your pet. A well-behaved dog is much easier to have in your home.
Keep anything you don’t want broken, eaten, or otherwise ruined, out of your dogs reach. Baby gates are a great way to keep the dog out of rooms you don’t want them in, until they learn to stay out of rooms, with my Newfoundland, we found out quickly that we couldn’t leave food on the counters unsupervised. Even with my lab/golden retriever cross this had never been and issue, we just made sure that no food was left on the EDGE of the counter, but with the newfie she can reach the entire counter without even having to jump up.
Two of my four dogs also use crates. They are not totally trust worthy while I am gone or unable to watch them. I can’t find a crate big enough for the newfie, so sometimes she gets shut in the bathroom. Crates or specified areas in the home are a great way to keep your large dog out of the way when you have company, at dinner time or when you need to do house work without your dog trying to attack the vacuum cleaner.
My last tip for people who have large indoor dogs is exercise. A tired dog is a good dog. You will have less issues with your pet getting excited, and possibly destructive.
Having a large dog as an indoor pet really isn’t hard as you may think. I had panic attacks for two weeks after getting our lab/golden retriever cross. He was 75 lbs when we brought him home, he just seemed so huge. Then one day I looked at him and thought “did you shrink?” with our Newfoundland it took about two days to get over her size, now she just doesn’t seem that big at all. It may take sometime to adjust to having a large dog in your home, but I bet you’ll get through it quickly and both you and your dog will be happy with the arrangement.
