dogs at wheaton labs in 2019-2024

I still think that the answer to this question will be 40 times easier when a few dog people get together and make "dog village" ...


That said, the people coming here with their dog are probably thinking that they won't be here long enough to fiddle with that.  They just wanna be here with their dog.  

Since this question will come up about 40 times this year, here is my latest and greatest position:

- I don't want a dog here that will growl or bark at anybody.  Or bite.

- I don't want dog fights (in case two different people bring two different dogs)

- Jocelyn has developed a relationship with a feral cat.  I don't want that cat threatened, scared off or hurt.  And keep in mind that the cat is pretty skittish.

- I don't want a dog wandering off property.   Not into the county road, and not onto neighboring land

- I don't want to see a dog being abused in any way.  


The dog village stuff super solves a lot of this.  But while nearly everybody with a dog wants to have dog village here, they don't want to do the work.  Oh well.


Okay, all that said, there are some dogs that fit into all these boundaries without a problem.  And there are some dogs that don't.  If your dog will fit, then it will be cool!  Bring your dog.

paul wheaton wrote:
- I don't want a dog wandering off property.   Not into the county road, and not onto neighboring land

FYI, and in other words, our property is not fenced in a way that will keep dogs in or keep dogs out. Neighboring dogs have wandered through our property (despite actively discouraging them, though it does seem to happen a bit less now).

If you are familiar with wheaton labs, you might know that we have one fenced paddock. This paddock is not a good place for dogs. We tried putting a dog in there once and he was so distraught at being separated in a strange place that he started trampling my garden plants, climbing and pushing on the fencing, and climbing the hugel-berms (degrading, eroding, and further trampling baby plants) to try to get out.

paul wheaton wrote:I still think that the answer to this question will be 40 times easier when a few dog people get together and make "dog village" ...

Oh, some people assume dogs can be in the/any house with them, and we didn't clarify that here.

We do not allow animals of any kind in the Fisher Price House. I'm apologetic about this, and tend to (over) explain that I have 6 to 20 people who share my home with me (that I end up cleaning up after) and having animals in here, too, would be just too much for me. Plus, a LOT of people have pet allergies and we get so many different visitors that we don't want to make the FPH a problem for them.

Dogs have been in the library, and on the leather couch in there, though I REALLY don't like dogs on furniture, and I would prefer that does not happen. I don't know what it is, but when I had dogs 20-30 years ago, they learned to never get on the furniture - which seemed normal and common to me. It seems almost more common now that dogs are allowed on all the furniture.

We have allowed and probably will still allow dogs in the cabins, if the cabins aren't rented out or occupied by an instructor or other resident. Though now that I'm writing this, I am reminded that I have sheets to repair from the last dog in the red cabin who chewed the corners of the sheets and put holes in them...sigh.

Somebody asked about dogs today and I came here to see what we have written.  Still good!  So I updated the subject line to include 2023.

Sometimes people write to me to tell me what breed their dog is and I get the impression they want me to say "your dog now has my blessing to be here forever - all is silky smooth!"  But I can't do that.  

Most of the time, people bring their dogs and everything is smooth!  Everybody loves the dogs.

And sometimes it is not smooth.

And when it is not smooth, about half the time, the dog owner insists that it is smooth and it is definitely NOT.  Ugh.  

The key to this is:  it is smooth when it is smooth.  And it is not smooth when it is not smooth.  And the ability to predict smooth in advance does not work 100% of the time.  



Next up:  about 30 people have said that they will build dog village first thing when they arrive.  So far, there isn't even an incomplete dog village.

Finally:  about 6 people have said that they will build dog village as part of the time in bootcamp.  That is not how bootcamp works - chances are that the bootcamp projects will be something else.


Overall:  when the dogs are good, I feel like our whole community is richer having the dogs here.  

(never mind, I just saw there was a link to a whole other thread.  Followed.  Read.  Am now up to speed)

Can you say more about what the vision for "dog village" is?   I'm not that familiar with wheaton labs or how it all works so I'm not sure what the concept is..  are we talking about an area where visitors can stay WITH their dogs without interrupting or compromising the rest of the operations?   Or something more like a place where the dogs stay separately like some sort of dog park/ dog hotel area?  

Heather Staas wrote:
Can you say more about what the vision for "dog village" is?   I'm not that familiar with wheaton labs or how it all works so I'm not sure what the concept is..  are we talking about an area where visitors can stay WITH their dogs without interrupting or compromising the rest of the operations?   Or something more like a place where the dogs stay separately like some sort of dog park/ dog hotel area?  

like this?

https://permies.com/t/57228/permaculture-projects/dog-village-wheaton-labs