Bringing a new dog into a home is always an exciting time. While much has been written on bringing puppies into the home - very little has been written about bringing new adult dogs into the home. This should help you make some decisions that will ease the transition. Pet owners often underestimate the kinds of problems that can occur if mistakes are made. This can be a difficult if not dangerous situation if it's not handled correctly.
Many people think they can just bring a new dog home and let the dogs work things out themselves. For the lucky ones this works out OK, but more often than not people find themselves in the middle of a dog fight and wonder what went wrong.
Dogs are pack animals. The average pet owner does not have a clue about how strong the genetic pack instinct is that floats just under the fur of their lovable family pet. The addition of a second or third dog into the home often triggers a genetic pack drive or RANK DRIVE. Many people are shocked and confused when they see the level of aggression that their sweet family dog is capable of.
There is usually more than one thing going on that result in these problems. To name just a few: a house dog is often territorial; there can be rank or dominance problem between the new dogs; or there can be inter-male or inter-female issues that result in aggression.
During the first weeks the only time our dogs are around one another is when one is in a crate and the others are loose. We know when they are beginning to accept one another when they begin to ignore one another. Your goal here is to show the existing house dogs that this new dog is now part of your pack. Once that happens you can start to think about how to introduce the dogs outside of the crates. We always handle introductions with both dogs on leash with a dominant dog collar. It's best not to do this inside the house. Many times a prong collar correction can over stimulate a dog and result in redirected aggression. This means a stressed dog attacking either the handler or the other dog. During the introduction we want to take drive out of a dog. We handle the introduction by taking the dogs for walks together.
Dogs use their body language to communicate so take a little time and learn a little bit about dogs body language.
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INTRODUCING A NEW
DOG TO YOUR HOME
Submitted by Antionette Strydom
Written By Ed Frawley
Antionette is our resident cooking and crafts contributor. A wonderful grandmother, mother and a wife she loves been creative, enjoys gardening and above all spending time with her family.