Got Dogs?

Hey all!
Into my second week now with the fur babies and things are going ok.
I have two dogs in the house--border collies.
Charlie doesn't care about the critters.
Chelsea is obsessed with the critters. She just wants to stare and stare. She is a proven dog around small critters. She's been nose to nose with many small fuzzies and only ever wants to stare.

Up until about a week ago she would press her nose against the bars of the cage and follow every detail of the gliders' movements. Until Harley got tired of that, walked up to the bars, placed her little hands on either side of Chelsea's nose and bit the heck out out of it.
Haha. Chelsea now keeps her nose off the bars.

Right now Chelsea's standing orders are, "No Touch". She can look...but no touch. This is working for now. I have not allowed her too close the gliders.
The gliders are ok with that...they are not *afraid* of the dogs, but they are wary.
Over time I want to get the dogs and gliders comfortable enough with each other that they are not obsessing, or nervous about each other.

My question goes out to the other dog owners. What are your experiences keeping Dogs and Gliders? What are some to-do's...and to-not-do's...
Experiences with dogs and gliders?

Any info much appreciated.
Thanks!
Dave

Ah...here are the dogs in question...


I'm not planning on endangering the gliders by trying to get them to ride the dog or anything. These dogs are well trained and listen very well...but they are still dogs. How do you guys deal with the mixed family? :-) Did you find that the presence of dogs coming and going effected the bonding process?
Thanks!
Dave

we have 2 german shephards and 1 beagle. We had 2 gliders for 8 months and 2 more added mid November.
Our policy is dogs stay away from gliders, but the cage is in a room the dogs can be in, they are well trained and know the gliders are off limits. But that is when we are home, the dogs sometimes do things when we are not home that they are not allowed to do.
But for the safety of the gliders the dogs cant sniff them or go near the cage.
One glider got away from us to go explore, he went across the couch and landed on the carpet, about 4 feet in front of the dog, the dog was told to stay, the dog then looked up at the ceiling and wouldn't even look at the glider. Which is what they have done when we put treats on the floor and make the dogs wait for them, they get so bothered they can't even look at the treats but instead look at the ceiling.

The only dog Fevy ever sees is a deaf pug that is unaware that Fevy exists, but I have had dogs and small pets without any issues in the past. It depends a lot on the animal (training, prey drive), but my biggest concern is if the suggie ever escapes. With my cat, I didn't want her to view him as something new and exciting or think it was okay to chase him. She also knows commands which is always handy. I know a lot of people would prefer the animals not know of the other's existence though and that seems to be an equally good call. I think as long as you are using sound judgment and caution, having interspecies households is fine.

I just wanted to give you encouragement by saying that two of the dogs I had growing up were fantastic. I specifically remember one instance my lovebird getting startled and flying across the room right in to the dog's face, and she just turned her head to me like "why?" and absolutely didn't threaten the bird at all, just looked a little bit annoyed that the bird had hit her in the face. I don't know how your dogs will do, but from experience I know that at least some dogs can be really great around small animals!



Unfortunately I don't have any experience with dogs + gliders, just dogs + other small creatures. I believe one of the things my family did was just get the dogs used to having the small animals around so much that they didn't give them a second glance.

I have two dogs, a dachshund and a vizsla. Both breeds are meant to be hunting dogs, but I'm sure it's been many generations since relatives of my little peanut of a dachshund actually went hunting. My vizsla hunts often but she is a bird dog. I would trust her with these gliders long before I would the dachshund. The vizsla shows much more interest but it is much more wanting to play. It's a very different look than she gives to the pigeons.

One night one of my males got out, he was smart enough to run back to the top of the cage just in case, but the dog just watched him like normal. They don't trust her and crab if she gets too close. That's fine with me. I would rather be safe then sorry. The dogs are so much bigger they could easily hurt the gliders even by accident.

I would never allow the dogs to be near the gliders, specially when the gliders are out and about.

Not only do you have the possibility of the dog going after the gliders, but even the most docile dog could accidentally step on a sugar glider and severely injure the glider.

Hey everyone! Thanks for all the replies.

I am fortunate in this dept as I have two pretty easy dogs. Charlie watches from a distance, but doesn't want to get close. He and Gizmo are the same that way--they like to keep their distance from each other.

The other dog, Chelsea, is obsessed with small animals. The fish tank has a permanent dog-chair in front of it--so Chelsea can watch the fish--which is pretty cool to watch. When she can't get animals to watch in real life, she watches videos.

But with small fuzzies and birds--I'm not sure if it's some kind of maternal thing--she just wants to get close and stare...stare stare stare.
If something doesn't move for a while she will gently poke it with her nose. She is proven in this behavior many times, with cats, mice rabbits, lizards etc...stare stare stare.

This is a great place to start, but I need to make sure that they are ok, even when I am not home. In case someone were to get out of (or into) the cage when I am not around.

The goal is to get to a place where the dogs and the gliders are basically *bored* with each other.

Working on the cage the other night and had the gliders up on the diorama. Well Harley took a spill and fell off the top--landed 18 inches in front of Chelsea's face.
Just that calm stare...

Harley and Chelsea know each other a little bit--early on, Chelsea would press her nose against the bars of the cage to watch.
Harley decided that was too much for her personal space and gave Chelsea bite on the nose. Ouch!

The gliders seem to be mostly unconcerned with the dogs around the cage--they will play and eat, and go about their business pretending that the dogs aren't even there.

At one point Harley actually ran down from my shoulder to my leg, to give Chelsea a sniff on the nose. That was NOT on the agenda, and it was a little scary--but they had a few seconds of sniffing each other nose to nose and then Harley came back up to her spot.

Not sure Chelsea will ever be fully bored--but at least she won't be spastic and jumpy. She sits by the cage and runs in to tell me if the gliders wake up.

So as a general rule, the gliders and the dogs don't interact, but they do need to get acclimated to each other--and that is going well.

Hehe...the dogs do seem to be a little jealous of all the glider time going on right now. :-)

I have a cat similar to Chelsea. She loves small animals. She used to sit on the rabbit's cage and just watch. The rabbit ignored her, but she would follow him around like an obsessed fan. She now sits and watches the gliders too. When I clean the cage, she inspects every item that I pull out. She has to sniff every toy, hammock, and pouch.

She got a little jealous before our gliders arrived. The day we set up the cage she started sleeping in our bed at night -she's not a small cat. She will sometimes wait outside the bathroom while we do bathroom bonding with the suggies.

Although I know her personality, and trust her to be good, I still limit her interactions with the gliders to watching from a distance. And only while supervised. I close up the gliders' cage cover every night before I go to bed.

They will never get bored of them. They might get a little used to them, but never bored. Just like after 6 years my dog will never get bored of trying to chase the cat to play every time she sees it lol. It's all in fun but with the size difference between gliders and dogs even fun could hurt them.