Introducing Your New Pup to Other Pets

• Introducing Your Pup to Your Other Dogs
• Your Older Dogs are NOT Babysitters
• Cats
• Other Pets

Introducing Your Pup to Your Other Dogs

To be blunt, most adult dogs are not fans of baby pups. With their boorish behavior and sharp teeth, puppies often annoy or bully adults. Responses vary from passive acceptance to ignoring them to aggression. Adults that simply want puppies to stay away from them will often correct pups that misread or ignore their signals, enter their personal space, or steal their things. Those corrections can frighten and harm pups, causing long term problems with the dogs’ relationships. So go slowly introducing your pups and allowing them to interact. THERE.IS.NO.RUSH!

Pick the Right Time

Your new pup and your other dogs do not have to physically interact the day you bring your pup home. It’s an exciting day and your pup may be overly active or frightened, and thus not at its best. Let them see each other through the ex-pen but don’t put them together if you aren’t prepared to introduce them and supervise carefully.

No Food for Introductions

Do not use food during this initial introduction because one of them may become obsessive about or protective of the food. Better to avoid temptation and instead use quiet praise and petting to reinforce your older dog for tolerating the puppy.

Go for a Parallel Walk

The key to a good introduction is to have the dogs do something, ideally, go for a walk. Pushing dogs together and standing around watching them tends to make some very uncomfortable and can result in anxiety and even fights. This is particularly true for adults and very small puppies. So, plan a short walk, even if it is just around the block.

1. Introduce in a Neutral Location

Introduce your dog to your new puppy in a neutral location where your dog is less likely to view the newcomer as an intruder. Take them to an area with which neither is familiar, such as a park, a neighbor’s yard, or even a street in front of your house.

2. Hold the Pup While the Dog Investigates

Each dog should be handled by a separate person. Have one person hold the older dog on leash while you hold the pup in your arms. Let the dog sniff the puppy if it wants, but do not force it to interact with the pup. Don’t worry, it knows the puppy is there. Quietly praise your older dog for being polite and/or curious. Once the older dog is satisfied, put the pup on the ground away from the dog and on leash, keeping the puppy from approaching the adult. There is no reason for the dogs to touch each other.

3. Go for a Parallel Walk

Parallel walking is when dogs walk near or parallel to each other but are kept from touching or interacting by the leashes. We use this technique to gets pups and dogs safely near each other.

Head off on a walk with the dogs either walking beside each other or with the puppy following the older dog. The goal isn’t that they interact physically, only that they spend time getting accustomed to each other. Allow the older dog to sniff the puppy if it is normally good with puppies. Do not allow the puppy to run up to or jump on the adult. The vast majority of the time, the older dog ignores the puppy after an initial sniff. This is normal and is the ideal situation. Do not demand that the older dog pay attention to or engage with the puppy.

4. Be Aware of Body Postures

Watch carefully for body postures that indicate an aggressive response, including hair standing up on the dog’s back, teeth-baring, deep growls, a stiff-legged gait, or a prolonged stare. If you see such postures, interrupt the interaction immediately by scooping up the puppy and getting the dog interested in something else.

5. Keep It Short

This walk doesn’t need to be long. In fact, 10 minutes is usually more than enough before heading home. If you drove, put the pup in a crate in the car. By the time you get home, the older dog will have figured out the puppy is coming along.

6. Take the Dogs Home

When you go home, let the puppy in the house first, allowing it time to investigate this exciting, new place. We firmly believe that puppies should be supervised and on leash from the beginning at home so you can show them appropriate behavior in the house. Give the pup a short tour and let it explore before putting it in a crate or x-pen in the house.

Now, bring the adult dog in and allow it to investigate the pup’s smell in the house. The pup should be confined with a crate or x-pen most of the time, so start now. Be aware that restricted spaces such as hallways and doorways are more likely to cause aggressive interactions since the dogs are less able to give each other space. After the first meeting, you want your older dog to expect “good things” to happen to it when the puppy is around. Your older dog should get praise, attention, play, and treats when the puppy is visible, even if contained. Spend some time with your older dog and tell it how wonderful it is for tolerating the youngster. Praise the dog whenever the puppy is around and let it correct the puppy when the pup is obnoxious. (See the Puppy Scream video below.)

Your Older Dogs are NOT Babysitters

Older dogs should not be seen as babysitters nor should they be forced to tolerate those puppy teeth constantly; puppies usually pester adult dogs unmercifully. Do not allow your puppy and dog to be unsupervised until your pup is four or five months old. Before four months of age, puppies are not good at recognizing subtle body postures from adult dogs signaling that they have had enough. Keep your puppy contained in an exercise pen or crate so that your older dog has time away from the new arrival.

Well-socialized adult dogs with good temperaments may set limits with puppies with a growl, snarl, or snap-correction; it is important that you do not stop this. These behaviors are normal and not only should be allowed, but they should also be encouraged. Let your adult dog growl a warning or two, or even put the pup on its back. It may sound terrible but if no biting takes place, your dog is only teaching the pup some well-needed manners. However, you should step in quickly if the older dog grabs or bites the puppy.

A puppy should not be left alone with an adult dog until it is housebroken and the adult dog has shown you that the puppy is not in any danger. Be sure to give the adult dog some quiet time away from the puppy, and perhaps, some individual attention as described above.

You should also be cautious of rough play between an older dog and a young puppy. As resilient as puppies are, they can be seriously hurt in a playtime accident. Most broken legs in puppies are caused by roughhousing with older dogs.

Introducing in Multiple-Dog Households

If you have more than one resident dog in your household, introduce the resident dogs to the new puppy one at a time. Two or more adult dogs may have a tendency to gang up on or simply run over the newcomer. Start with the least dominant or most amiable dog, the one that will be most likely to take to the puppy. Then go through this introduction process one dog at a time.

Feeding Multiple Dogs

Mealtime can be one of the times of highest anxiety in a multi-dog household. Start teaching appropriate meal manners right from the start because most pups were fed from the same bowl as littermates. Thus, they have no idea of appropriate meal manners.

Think through the rules that make sense in our house with your dogs. For example, a rule could be dogs are not allowed to approach another dog’s bowl until that dog is done with its meal and moved away. Another rule is that dogs won’t stand near or stare at an eating dog. We teach these rules by supervising every meal and physically restraining pups and dogs with leashes, crates, or x-pens initially.

We have also found that providing each dog with a regular location for their meal helps maintain civility during mealtimes. Although we expect our dogs to eat anytime we request them to, they are usually fed in the same place and in the same order when we are home. You can begin these routines as soon as you get your puppy home.

Aggressive Dogs

If your dog is known to be aggressive or intolerant toward puppies, keep them physically apart until your pup is sturdier and has had the opportunity to meet other adult dogs with good temperaments. Adult dogs that are not well-socialized or that have a history of fighting with other dogs may attempt to set limits with more aggressive behaviors, which could traumatize or physically harm the puppy. It is better to delay the introduction than to cause lifetime problems for your pup.

You can still do the parallel walk introduction described above but if you see any aggressive behavior from the older dog, call it to you to break off the introduction. Just as you would not go out of your way to introduce children to felons, do not let your puppy know there are mean dogs in the world for a good while. Early attacks on pups have been shown to cause lifelong aggression and/or anxiety in those pups, so protect yours.

The Puppy Scream

A correction from an older dog is very likely to elicit the “puppy scream.” This sound is protective since most dogs will move away from a screaming puppy. If your pup was corrected for inappropriate behavior by an older dog, do NOT pick the pup up and calm it. Let the lesson sink in so that the pup learns polite canine interactions. In addition, do not correct the adult dog for teaching the lesson. All of you will be grateful that it did. However, if the puppy was innocent but traumatized by something and you hear the Puppy Scream, pick it up and calm it until the screaming stops. This will reduce the chance that they will imprint on whatever frightened it. This is particularly important if it was a child, adult person, or dog.

Watch this video below to see a very tolerant adult border collie finally correct a truly obnoxious Australian Shepherd pup that is not listening to his requests to be left alone. After the correction, you’ll hear the Puppy Scream, the very specific vocalization we hear from pups. In this case, the owner knew the puppy deserved the correction and wanted her to learn from it, so she did not go cuddle the pup. If instead the trauma had been caused by a child tripping over the pup, the owner’s reaction would have been to pick up the pup to calm and reassure it.

Cats

Puppies naturally chase cats and most cats hate it. Cats deserve more respect than your puppy will naturally show so your puppy will need clear instruction from you about what is appropriate behavior around cats. Young puppies (younger than 3 months) are unlikely to harm an adult cat but cats can hurt pups badly with their claws and teeth.

DO NOT just bring your new puppy inside and turn it loose to chase your cats. Instead, keep your puppy confined so that your cats can get accustomed to the new addition without having to interact. After time goes by, let them interact with your puppy while you hold the tagline or on leash. If the cat runs from the puppy and the pup tries to chase, tell it “leave it” and keep the pup from chasing. If the pup gets overly excited, give it a time out in the ex-pen or crate.

Once your pup is old enough to have some freedom in the house, always give your cat an escape route so it get away from the pup, either by jumping over a baby gate or getting onto a piece of furniture.

A word to the wise, there are few things more attractive to dogs than cat food and poop. Move the cat food up on a table or counter or put it in a room the puppy cannot access. Litter boxes will need to be well protected to keep inquisitive and hungry puppies out.

Other Pets

We recommend highly controlled interactions between puppies and other pets, from horses to gerbils. Many dogs are bred to have very high prey drive, which is triggered by the movements of prey animals, such as rabbits, chickens, ducks, hamsters, gerbils, and pet birds. Some dogs will NEVER be trustworthy around such pets, although they can learn to tolerate their presence with human supervision. It is better to be safe than sorry; let them live happily apart.

Horses, goats, and cows can injure curious puppies. Although we encourage you to let your puppy see these animals, we do not recommend any free interaction between them until your puppy is older and has a good amount of obedience since it only takes one kick to damage a puppy for a lifetime.