Being a pet owner can be hugely rewarding, but it also comes with its own set of challenges. You might have visions of returning home to your pack of animals with their unconditional love and affection, but without putting in the effort, your harmonious household will be hell.
If your pets don’t get along, there can be barking, hissing, scratching, or even full-on fighting. Luckily for you, this article is here to help you find a way for your furry friends to get on well.
Survey Your Space
Even humans don’t do too well when they are cooped up with others in a space that is too small or unsuitable for their needs, so why would you ever expect your pets to manage?
You will also need to think about storage space, as more pets come with more food, more bedding, more litter boxes, more toys… you get my drift. So, space is number one to think about if you are thinking about bringing any more furry friends into your family home.
Cost Up the Costs
Likewise, increasing the number of animals who share your home with you will also increase the costs you are having to spend on things such as pet healthcare, insurance, and food.
If you cannot care for your animals properly you should not take them on, so take a look at your budget before bringing any new pets into the mix and consider whether or not it will be responsible of you. Don’t forget to include the costs of anything they chew up or damage!
Read Up On Different Breeds
The key to a harmonious household with multiple pets is knowing which breeds will be the best fit for sharing a living space, and which breeds just do not get on at all. For example, while cats and dogs can sometimes get on, there are certain breeds that cannot be trusted.
This can include breeds like whippets, greyhounds, terriers, and other types of hounds as they are all bred for hunting. Trying to pair these animals together will only cause your cat stress and can be stressful for you as well if they do not get on at all, which they likely won’t.
Blended Furry Families
Once you have established whether or not the animal breeds you are considering are suitable enough to try and include them both in your growing brood, you will need to find out whether or not the individual animals are actually able to get on with each other.
This requires introducing your animals. With the arrival of any new pet, you must make sure that you are extremely patient with pets old and new while they get used to the new addition.
Our basic advice includes giving them a chance to sniff and check each other out prior to bringing them home for good. Give your pets separate space to begin with and ensure they are supervised at all times. Not all pets will get along, of course, so do keep this in mind.
Feeding Time at the Zoo
Different animals have different feeding habits, which means it is important to cater to each of your pets dinner time needs if you want to avoid a feeding frenzy like you’d see at the zoo.
Take cats and dogs, for example. Dogs are usually pretty quick at getting through what you have given them in their bowl, but cats can often take their time at meal times and may even decide to leave their food until later. To make sure that your cat actually has a meal to come back to, you must make sure that your pets eat separately, preferably in different rooms, too.
Love Your Pets Equally
Time management is one of the most important things to remember when you have multiple pets, as each of them will need to receive their required amount of attention and care.
This is especially true when it comes to training (provided you don’t want to live in a household full of chaos where the animals run things…) so make sure you are able to set enough time aside for each of your furry friends. If you don’t have enough time to see to all of their needs yourself, you may need to hire help like a dog walker or a pet sitter.
If you follow these tips, there’s no reason why you can’t have the blended furry family of your dreams!
