Helping a dog adapt to apartment living?
April 23, 2017 12:20 PM   Subscribe

Our 8 year old dog will be transitioning from living her whole life in a moderate sized house-with-yard to an apartment (70% of the size) with cement patio. Suggestions on making this as stress-free as possible for her?

Obligatory dog photo! Our pup Pancake is in for a big surprise. We're having to move at the end of May for Reasons and have just signed a lease for an apartment. (Finding any place to rent that didn't have breed/size restrictions was not an easy task.) She is used to a midday romp in the yard, bookended by morning and evening walks. We'll be living about a quarter mile from a large dog park, but it's not convenient for a 10 minute mini-adventure.

We will do a pretty easy-going transition for her for the move itself. She's going to stay at her favorite boarding facility while we pack. We'll be working from home when possible in the first days of our new living arrangements. I'll be keeping her walk and food routine. She's VERY reliant on routine and gets noticeably agitated when we deviate too much.

Am I over-thinking this? (I am. I'm fixated on this instead of my wedding in 6 days because that's already planned and I'm a project manager at work and at home.) I've never lived in an apartment with a dog.

In conclusion: I want to maintain this feeling. How do I minimize dog stress and human stress over dog stress?
posted by komlord to Pets & Animals (7 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: Replace the midday romp with another short walk plus inside playtime (fetch, tug, whatever she likes). She'll love it! Don't worry!
posted by metasarah at 1:05 PM on April 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Congrats on your upcoming nuptials!

And metasarah is right. The important thing is to replace that routine with another routine that is just as fun, but doesn't need to be exactly the same.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 1:09 PM on April 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


You can start replacing the romp midday with a walk right now, or transition from romp into walk until it's all walk. The change from house to apartment, with all the new places and smells, plus your own (and spouse's) changes in routine, will be forefront on the dog's brain, which is a little computer designed to study everything, detect patterns, and determine which available behaviors will maximize rewards. Just like our brains. All the changes at once will be disorienting at first, for her and you, but she'll absolutely get that new routines are the order of the day. Dogs are good adapters; that's why we keep them around. (And vice versa.)

This project will be waiting for you after your wedding, and very likely it's going to seem a lot more soluble after the wedding (and honeymoon or anything similar) project is complete.
posted by Sunburnt at 1:27 PM on April 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh hi, Pancake! What a cutie.

I moved last year to a duplex that technically has a backyard, but it's kind of shit, so my dog and I don't use it. She was used to having mid-day romparounds (and just sunning times) too. And like yours, she's a high-energy dog, albeit quite a bit older (Border Collie/Lab mix, pushing 12.5).

We walk a *lot* more than we used to, which is great for both of us. We also get dog interaction time in when we can (she's not the best at this, but we know which dogs in our hood are okay with it and which ones aren't). This did take some time (and a few oh crap I'm so sorry moments, but I'm trying to do the best for her).

If you have friends in the area that are dog-friendly and have secure backyards, there's no shame in at least asking if you could take here there every once in a while (bring food or beer or whatever). You also didn't mention dog parks. Coya's super hit-and-miss on them, but we had one in our former city that was rarely used (converted little league baseball fields) that we went to with our great dane/weimar friend and they had a blast there.
posted by Ufez Jones at 2:42 PM on April 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I don't mean to scare you, but I went through what is pretty much the worst case scenario of this two years ago. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes.

I adopted Moose when he was 10 weeks old. He is a rescue dog. I lived in a studio apartment in Manhattan. There was one other old dog in the building, who died a couple of months after Moose was born, so from then on, Moose was the only dog in the building. We lived there for a year and everything was fine. He went to daycare with a woman on my block on Tuesdays and Thursdays and stayed home Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I lived near two dog runs, and he'd go have a run most days.

Then my girlfriend and I decided to find a place in Brooklyn for us to move into together. Her lease ended, so she moved into the studio with us for a few months, while we found a place. Everything is still great.

We find a new apartment, and it's in a bigger building with 20-30 dogs in it. We arranged for one of us to always be at home with him for the first few weeks. He did not adjust well. He was very territorial with the other dogs in the building. Just getting on the elevator made him a huffing, puffing mess as each time the door opened he was freaking out there was going to be a dog there. He ended up with separation anxiety and was barking his head off when he was home alone. We kept thinking he just needed more time to adapt, so we dramatically increased his exercise to try to tire him out enough to where the anxiety wouldn't take hold. This took it's toll on us as well.

After about six months of this, we finally ended up seeing two behaviorists/trainers. I really wish we had done that right off the bat. We got independent opinions from them, but they were both almost entirely in agreement. Things we should have done:

1) Start the new routine right off the bat. Don't make the first impression of the new apartment be that the humans will be home all the time in this new place.
2) If there are other dogs in the building, lean into it. Proactively reach out and try to set up walks and playtime at the dog park. It may be awkward to be that forward, but it's better than the alternative of having your dog being super reactive to the other dogs who live in the same building as you.
3) When he clearly wasn't adjusting well, we should have got professional help ASAP. It would have saved us a lot of frustration.

We're about ten months past that now, and we're in a better place. Moose has a very set routine and is very manageable, but we still need to be vigilant when we enter and leave the building. I get sad whenever we take him to our parents' houses, and he's visibly less anxious than when he's at home, but that's our reality for now.

Again, my intention isn't to scare you, but to provide a cautionary tale. If you take one piece of advice, it's that if something feels off in the first few weeks, get a professional involved and nip it in the bud.
posted by AaRdVarK at 3:09 PM on April 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


I've done this. It'll probably be a harder transition for you than for her, to be honest (in that it will add an extra walk/outing to your day, and if she wakes you up in the middle of the night you can't just let her out). She'll probably be weirded out to be in a new space altogether, but probably won't miss the yard if you find another way for her to burn off that energy.

I would suggest that you'll want to count on taking her to the dog park on a daily basis (a quarter-mile away? I'm jealous!). She might not turn out to need it, but it might be extremely helpful in burning off energy and giving her space to walk around and sniff things at her leisure. I take my apartment dog to the dog park almost every day and now that he is an adult dog, it sometimes is just 10 minutes for him to poop, sniff some other dogs' pee, and jog around a bit and then he's done.
posted by lunasol at 3:31 PM on April 23, 2017


Best answer: Of course your dogs comfort is more important that your wedding...

I would transition her to a midday walk right now. Also start to take her to the new area if you can, so it's not too unfamiliar for here once you get there. Also take her to the dog park now and when you move. It may not be convenient, but you can always just do it for a few weeks after the move and reduce visits from there. She might be able to make new doggie friends which will help her transition, as they will be familiar to her. And lots of treats. If she obsesses on anything like stuffed kongs, start a daily habit that takes her from now through the transition.

Pancake is adorable!
posted by Vaike at 8:01 PM on April 23, 2017


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