Why Half a dog?

Half a dog?

Of course, you can’t have half a dog.

But two households could have half a dog each, as long as you’re willing to take it in turns. This is a little blog about why you might want to do that and how you might do it. It’s more than just “share a dog” as well as being a better name.

So this is a blog about owning half a dog, but it does only work if you have someone willing to own the other half!

How we got here

About seven years ago, I really wanted a dog. My wife was less convinced.

“What do we do when we go on holiday? What about when everyone’s just busy? The kids will love it sure, but they’ll get bored and forget to walk it. And if your health deteriorates it will just become a problem”

I have a medical condition (an incurable cancer) that could very easily “deteriorate”, and periodically does. And she’s right that would be a problem. She’s right about the rest too.

Meanwhile, 40 miles away live my sprightly septuagenerian parents. They’ve had previous dogs but they hadn’t replaced their last one. Their reasons were similar. They travel a lot (my sister, niece and nephew live in Latin America). They could envisage times when it would be a significant inconvenience. On occasions my health has created quite challenging short and medium term child care needs in our house, and my parents have been brilliant at dropping everything to come when we need them. And - though we never discussed this in overt terms - I’m sure they worried that a dog would outlast their ability to cope with it.

We all liked dogs. But none of us was going to get one.

I began to imagine a solution. None of us wanted a whole dog, but all of us could probably get a lot of benefit from half a dog. What if we shared a dog, that spent significant periods of time in each house, but that therefore also meant each house had half its time dog free? Would it work for us? Would it work for the dog?

Knowing there’s an online community for pretty much everything, I googled a bit. But while there’s plenty of “borrow my doggy” stuff, it’s much harder to find stuff about what I was thinking of.

This would not be a dog owned by one and lent to another. It would be a co-owned, entirely shared, dog. A condominium dog. We live nearly two hours drive apart (40 miles, two hours? London traffic!) so it would not be a dog that flitted back and forth informally or every few days. This dog would spend meaningful periods - months - in each home. We’d each be dog owners… but only half the time.

This way, we'd both have back up, overcoming all our obstacles to dog ownership. And we'd be able to give a dog - I reckoned - a life which is as enriching and secure as any.

So, that’s what we did. Our dog, now six years old, is settled and happy… with two lives, in two homes. This little blog tells how we did it. Maybe it will inspire you to do the same?

The benefit

Get this right, and everyone's a winner!

For owners

You get all the dog, some of the time.

Dogs are loving, loyal, fun. They’re a reason to get out of the house. They’re company. They’re someone always waiting when you get in. Someone who’d always like to play. Someone who’d like to curl up at your feet.

Not only do you get that, but half the time, you’re dog free.

Much as I love my dog, I also enjoy the periods when I don’t have to get up and walk her in the morning, and when we can go out late without needing to hurry back to let the dog out. But if those are the main "benefits" you want, I’d suggest not having a dog at all.

With a bit of planning you never need to use kennels because you time things like holidays for the periods when you don’t have a dog.

Having an intermittent dog means she’s always exciting, always anticipated, missed, welcomed. She never becomes furniture. My children are always excited to see the dog. She gets more love, more attention, because she never gets boring. She’s never a chore. We’re always grateful to have her.

And for the dog?

Two loving homes. Twice as many places to explore. What's not to like?

What dog?

Having only done this the once I can’t give any meaningful analysis of the relative merits of breeds for this purpose.

Things to consider?

There’s the usual issues facing any prospective dog owner, such as the dog’s size, its requirements for exercise, and whatever your personal dog aesthetics. You’ll need a solution that suits you both which requires a bit of thought, and maybe compromise. I live in the inner city, my parents in a small village. They could probably manage a bigger dog than I could. And they don’t work so they could reliably walk it more. On the other hand, they aren’t young, and they’ve had smaller dogs in the past. So we decided on a smaller size, which certainly works for me. Out aesthetic preference would be for a “small big dog” rather than a “small dog” And fortunately, we agreed on all of that!

But we also considered our specific circumstances. It would be easier for us all if our half dog was a breed that was relatively easy to train. And some breeds have a reputation for forming a very strong bond with a single owner. For the dog’s sake, as well as our own, we needed to avoid one of those. This is a job for a happy go lucky, friend to all, type of dog.

In the end we bought a working cocker spaniel. She’s a truly fantastic dog and we couldn’t have made a better choice. She’s got lovely temperament anyway, and she’s really good at her living arrangements - always excited to arrive at her other home, and barely seeming to notice when the departing boss leaves.

People have different attitudes to dogs and breeds. And pedigrees are crazy expensive. Since the covid dog explosion, prices have jumped from hundreds to thousands of pounds. My only observation on getting a puppy with no pedigree for this arrangement is I’d want to know its ancestry well enough to have some idea of temperament - in particular, that it’s unlikely to be stressed by bosses coming and going.

And if you’re picking from a litter, pedigree or not, now’s a good time to pick the one in the middle. Not the most boisterous, which may push the boundaries. (Ours tries her luck sometimes with what she can get away with in different houses). And certainly not the shyest, most insecure. (Not a good time to take pity on the runt of the litter.)

Getting the puppy

We agreed I would be the purchaser.

The breeder I chose to buy from was a careful, responsible breeder. Don’t get a dog from anyone else! She breeds genuinely working gun dogs in the rural south west, and treated the purchase process as an interview for me! She already needed a bit of reassurance that our city lifestyle would not mean the dog being left locked at home. (That's a very valid concern, and I'm glad the breeder cared enough to ask about it. My health limits how much I can work, so time is a thing I have. If you’re going to leave it alone all day while you go out to work… please don’t get a dog). I decided not to announce my half dog plan to her. I think she’d be delighted to see how her puppy has grown up. But it was an unusual plan, for which I couldn’t produce good evidence or precedent. And I didn’t want her to turn me down.

From what I could glean about dog psychology and what seemed practical for us, I began to imagine a dog that moved every couple of months. That, I hoped, would be both structured enough for us, and flexible enough too. And while I’m no expert on animal behaviour, I hoped this would enable the dog to just settle in to each home, and not be unsettled or insecure.

So the puppy came to our house at two months. And stayed with us for just two months before moving again to my parents’. Two months later, she returned to us. And for a while we kept very tightly to that sort of timetable. For her sake as much as ours. We’ve been more relaxed as the years go by. That said, she’s just had two rather longer than normal stays (due to me being ill), and we’ve agreed to get her back in the two month rhythm again. I think it’s best for her, and us, in general. But being able to be flexible about it is obviously a bonus.

Our dog’s name is Chewie (short for Chewbacca - brown and hairy). If you’re following my half dog philosophy then even the dog’s name needs to be agreed between you. It’s important that you both feel equal ownership, and naming is part of that. This was easy for us because everyone was happy to defer to my kids!

Owning half a puppy

There's a few decisions you'll have to make together when you take possession of your half of the puppy.

Sleeping arrangements

We jointly elected to house train our puppy using a crate. I know others have different views - do what’s right for you. But importantly, if you’re half-dogging you have to agree. The crate worked well because it migrated with the dog, so she always had her identifiable, scented, space.

We don’t use the crate any more. And after a while we decided it would be easier to have a bed in each house to reduce the stuff you need to transport (she sometimes moves home by train). When the dog leaves, I use it as an opportunity to tidy up and “de dog” our living space, otherwise we feel bereaved rather than released! But I avoid washing the dog’s bedding. So her smell is always there for her to come back to.

Health

She did her initial puppy vet visits with us, but in the end we settled on one main vet relationship for shots and check ups. And she does that with my parents. We transfer back and forth any medication or healthy lifestyle requirements. For example, she had a tooth problem recently, and we now feed her carrots to help her clean her teeth - and obviously this stuff works best if both households do the same.

Insurance

We decided to insure her. This is not the place to discuss the merits or not of pet insurance. Except to say a dog loved by more people is probably disproportionately likely to get money thrown at its health problems. On your own you could be pretty ruthless, if you were that way inclined, if it came to a point where medical stuff was getting disproportionately involved and expensive. But (excuse this sounding brutal) you can’t euthanise half a dog. So we decided to insure, so that money would never force that decision to create conflict between households. We can - when the time comes - worry about it only from the perspective of the dog’s welfare.

Insurance companies are fine about our living arrangements, but want to be informed of the addresses where the dog spends significant, regular, time.

Tags and chips

The people who register dogs’ microchips can also cope with holding more than one set of contact details.

You’ll need to buy two sets of collar tags, and remember to swap them over on moving days.

Living arrangements

There's really nothing complicated about the living arrangements for a half dog. You just need to agree on things between the two households.

In our experience the dog is surprisingly good at adapting and remembering the “rules” of each house. Look cute at my parents house and someone might go throw you a ball. Look cute at my house and a child will smother you in hugs. My parents are earlier risers than me - and the dog expects it. Our London life involves a very doggy-social park. My parents' life involves walks on the woods. The dog seems to positively thrive on both. I worked very hard on socialising her as a puppy, since I knew this would be an issue for me. I also did a lot of “townie” desensitisation by exposing her to traffic, train platforms and so on. Simply not relevant where my parents live.

You’ll need to agree on a diet - including whether the dog gets treats. Our dog’s diet isn’t identical in her two homes. My parents give her a biscuit at bed time, which I don’t. We occasionally give her tasty left overs, my parents don’t (cooking for two, it’s not really relevant to them.) But neither of us would feed her from the table - I suspect it would be quite difficult for a dog to adapt to that if one house did it but the other didn’t want to. As long as both halves agree, it's pretty straightforward.

But her main food is exactly the same. She’s on a dry food regime which is by far the easiest for a mobile dog. She often travels with a few pre-measured meal portions decanted into unused poo-bags. Wet food would be trickier, but perfectly do-able if that were necessary. And some dogs are happier that way. For the same reason of giving her continuity - which is a good thing digestively too! - we agreed on a specific brand of food and flavour. That way we can keep stock in both houses. Another thing to not have to transport. And another element of continuity for the dog. That’s the essence of the half dog plan - keep as much as possible as consistent as possible, so the dog feels secure.

We share "rules" as far as possible, to give the dog a reasonable chance of understanding what's expected of her. She is not allowed on furniture, or upstairs in either of our houses. Your dog, your house, your rules - but some amount of consistency between the two households is really going to help the dog!

I suspect there’d be some ability to be a little flexible if your rules were a bit different. Our dog clearly does have some understanding of each home as a distinct place and to some extent adjusts her behaviour. But crucially, if the dog can’t adjust, both households need to align - otherwise there’s human conflict and canine confusion.

Training

Having a well trained, reliably recalled, dog makes such a difference to the quality of your life. But it does require effort when they’re young. You’ll need to align on that. I don’t fancy your chances of a well trained dog if you halve it with a chaotic untrained household! That was never going to be a problem for us, as we all inherited our approach to dogs from my farmer grandfather, whose dogs were always impeccable.

We decided that we’d both treat training like an individual task - not rely on the other house to do it for us. It’s as much about training the owner as the dog. We took different approaches. My dad took the dog to classes, where she showed off just how bright spaniels are, if they’re playing hunt the treat in the company of pugs and French bulldogs! I did training by myself - I had a lot of time. I want a dog that comes when called, doesn’t roam too far without checking in, never jumps up, never begs, never goes on furniture… Agree what your aims are, and both work towards that. If you do go to classes, the trainers need to understand that they can’t impose their language or routines onto you and your dog because of its living arrangements. The trainers my dad went to were fine with that.

You’ll need to agree what command words you’re working on and accompanying hand signals, and exactly what the dog is expected to do. We got our dog confused between my kids’ trick command “high five!” [palm presented fingers upward] requiring a paw touch, and my parents’ recall command “touch!” [palm presented fingers downward] requiring a nose touch, because the hand gesture is similar, and each household was teaching one but not the other, so the dog didn’t learn the distinction. She’s still a bit confused by that, which is our fault. But we got the basics right. (I don’t know whether my parents appreciated my choice of “Donald Trump” as the command word for toileting!)

In my experience training half a dog has been more difficult in just two respects. Getting your dog to walk to heal is a laborious discipline anyway. If several people walk the same dog (ours is walked by seven of us), then the dog’s behaviour will tend to the lowest denominator. But that’s not an absolute rule. Dogs will behave according to what they think the owner requires and to some extent behave differently for different individuals. Chewie is better behaved for me in this respect than for my kids, but then I walk her more often, and I’m more willing to keep stopping if she pulls. Her slack-lead walking is okayish - though when she’s excited, she forgets and pulls a bit. If I had to walk her longer on a lead (the park is only next door, and then she’s off), then I’d work on it harder. We’ve reached an equilibrium which seems to suit all 7+1 of us.

If you do have problems with a dog that pulls, buy a “halty” type harness that is anchored under their head not at the back of their neck. That way if they pull they find they turn their head. So the dog shares your incentive of not pulling. They’re perfectly comfortable for the dog to wear. It’s not a muzzle, or a choke. If your half dog is struggling to understand what’s required of her, because she’s working with multiple bosses, then this could help. We used one for a while, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do so again if I thought it was necessary.

The other issue - the only thing I’d say is a negative impact of our arrangement - is a tendency to guarding. Chewie spends two months in rural isolation, and then is abruptly immersed in all the diversity of a Lambeth park. Big dogs, small dogs, nice dogs, less nice dogs, obedient dogs, untrained dogs, single dogs and packs of dogs. We did have a couple of times where, after transition, she got it into her head that she should chase off small dogs with lots of aggressive noise. She doesn’t like the sound of pug and bulldog breathing, which doesn’t help! I’m prepared to believe this is a consequence of the life we have constructed for her. She feels a need to bond, especially when she’s just relocated, and the sudden intensity of canine company requires a bit of adjustment, and gives an opportunity for guarding instinct to kick in. She has to remember that we don’t need guarding, and that other dogs pose no threat to us.

My approach to reducing guarding behaviour is to make an elaborate effort of greeting other dogs, so mine can see that I can pet two dogs at once, and that the other dog is in no way a threat. When a small dog approached, I’d make sure I reached it as soon as my dog did (so, she spent a few walks on the lead for this purpose), and then pet and praise both dogs. We quickly established that other dogs were welcome, and their presence was rewarded. It’s a bit of an elaborate charade, but it achieved the required change in behaviour very quickly.

So, a bit of diligent management addressed this problem the first time it occurred. At the subsequent transition (ie four months later), I addressed it proactively without waiting for any evidence that she might consider guarding. And now all it takes is verbal reminders from me, and even that only for a couple of walks until she’s back in the swing of it. I wouldn’t describe this process as “settling in” because I see no signs that she’s aware of or bothered by moving. She’s settled from the moment she arrives, which is part of the joy of the arrangement. Guarding is just an instinctive dog behaviour, and sometimes she needs a reminder of the rules!

We get similar guarding behaviour if we stop for a picnic and I just accept that she’s actually happier, on those occasions, on a lead. If I had a whole dog, I might try to train it out of her. But I have half a dog. And if that’s the only compromise it requires from me, I can live with that.

Transitions

We’ve never really had an issue with moving-house day.

All other things being equal, we do moves by the outgoing boss dropping her off at the incoming boss’s house, rather than the incoming boss coming to collect her. That way there’s no transition disruption. She’s always delighted to arrive at either home and just makes herself at home.

Whereas if she’s settled at home and the other owner turns up to take her away... why would she want to leave? That said, circumstances frequently make it easier to do things that way round, and the dog doesn’t seem to care.

Personally, I normally don’t say goodbye to her when I leave. I really think this way she barely notices. Both houses feel like home. She never feels she’s being taken.

Over time, we’ve really streamlined the possessions she needs to take with her. A bag of grooming tools, that’s about it.

We gave up taking her toys from one house to the other because this mostly just worked out as my parents buying her things and her losing them in the undergrowth of our garden. Now she has a couple of toys at each house, and that works fine. Dogs don’t need many toys, but she instinctively likes to have something in her mouth when she greets people, so it’s important, I think, to make sure she has access to a toy for this purpose, wherever she is.

There’s not much else to say. We make the transitions routine, and the dog takes it all in her stride. I’ve never seen any sign to suggest she’s impacted by her living arrangement. I don’t think dogs entertains thoughts along the lines of  “strange, where did so-and-so go?”. She goes bananas with excitement when she meets the other boss who she hasn’t seen for a while. She goes bananas when she arrives at the home she hasn’t visited for a while - charging round every corner of house and garden checking out scents. She sometime has to make a bit of an effort, at ours, to clear out the cats and foxes that have moved in to the garden during her absence!

I genuinely believe we have a dog that’s as well adjusted and happy as any could be. When my parents and my family spend time together, we normally still have an assumption about whose dog she is at that moment. I’m sure the dog finds it unusual that she sometimes has two bosses around at the same time, but really it works smoothly for everyone.

Did it work?

In six years the dog has never had to spend a night in kennels. My parents have been able to make trips to Latin America. We’ve had holidays.

I love the dog, but I also love being dog free. I miss her terribly for about a week when she leaves. You just notice when the dog isn’t there, nose at every door and under your feet. But I get over it, and then I enjoy the liberation. I normally put her stuff away out of sight, so it feels like I don’t have a dog, rather than that I’ve just lost one.

My kids love the dog, maybe all the more, because of this arrangement. They’re always so pleased to have her back. And then, just when their attention is waning, she’s away again, and they’re pining for her.

We all love the dog - and the arrangement has always worked pretty smoothly. We’ve mostly kept to a two month - two month rhythm. But we’ve flexed that on occasions. I estimate we’ve each had dog custody for at least 15 intervals by now. It’s completely routine for us all. Most importantly, it’s utterly unremarkable routine for the dog.

If this has inspired you to do the same, good luck!