adopting dog

johnnyb6

Hi I have a 4 year cavalier who is a total pet. He is totally plasit and totally spoiled. He sleep in our bed and only goes out for toilet and walks. I am now going to get another dog who is a 2 year old Terrier who was rescued as he was living rough for 4 months and was hard to catch. I really wanted him when I saw him roaming the street of near by town. He needs the love and attention we can give him. I just wondering can anyone give us any advice on how we should go about introducing him to our guy and how we should go about getting him to settle in.


Thanking You

Hooked

We're getting our second dog next week and like you, it's a male meeting a male. We have been warned about same sex pairings not getting along... But it can work. Neutering and other factors to consider.

That aside, the one piece of advice that keeps popping up is to introduce on neutral ground.

minipink

I was in a similar situation when I suddenly acquired a foster dog that I found and was unclaimed. She was totally untrained and unused to being a family dog. I have a 2 year old lab who is a total baby, she loves other dogs but is a total drama queen. I crate trained the foster dog. The crate was a sanctuary for her when she got too overwhelmed but it also let my dog have her space when needed. It also really helped with the toilet training and stopped any issues with food sharing/anger. Now I was lucky both dogs were very placid and loved each other from the start and my dog pouted for a week when we found Lexie's forever home but that's what worked for me. You'll find your new dog will pick up on a lot of what your current dog does and copy. I'm no expert and I'm sure you'll get lots of extra advice from the other posters.
Congrats on your new arrival and well done for giving him a chance!

johnnyb6

Hooked wrote: »

We're getting our second dog next week and like you, it's a male meeting a male. We have been warned about same sex pairings not getting along... But it can work. Neutering and other factors to consider.

That aside, the one piece of advice that keeps pooping up is to introduce on neutral ground.

Thanks for the help. My dog is neutered and new dog will be neutered before we get him. I was also told to have my dog meet new dog outside of house and bring him home then. We not to bring him straight into out own dogs territory. One of us going to take time off to get him settled in and keep eye on things. It feels like bringing new baby home.

aonb

what kind of terrier is the newcomer? You will hopefully be lucky and they will get on fine from day one. I would borrow a crate if you can - if the new dog is 2 years old, it will depend on how it all goes, but a nice warmly lined crate could help with the introductions. When they meet for the first time, I would bring them for a nice long walk together - get them well exercised/take the edge off the newcomer!! Well done to you for taking in this new dog. I hope it all goes well with the introductions. Let us know how it goes

VonVix

Well, I can't say I have experience doing this, but I can tell you what I would do.

Can you give the cav a long walk, and at the same time someone else is giving the terrier a walk, towards the end of the walk you meet in the middle for a nice introduction?

Another thing too, try and make the terrier's presence a pleasurable experience for your cav (and even for the terrier being around the cav too). Say when they meet and everything goes to plan, they give each other a good bum sniff, give them each a small treat.

Another thing too, do you know how they both are with other dogs in general? Specifically dogs they are not familiar with? You need to be careful with introductions if one dog is quiet/laid back if the other one is very playful, a playful dog getting in the face of a quiet dog can lead to some agitation (and potentially some snapping). If one of them is jumping around all over the place while the other one is moving away or just looking at him like "you eejit..." and keeping his mouth tightly shut, take the excited one away for a moment (don't say anything, just walk away calmly) wait til he calms down and then try to reintroduce again.

Of course it depends all on the nature of them as individuals, you will know best with your cav, but it's something to keep in mind.

sotisme

I have one dog, a 7 year old cavalier and I had to introduce him to a new (foster) greyhound at Christmas.

Ideally, we would have introduced them on neutral ground when on a walk, but by the time she arrived that day, it was late and there wasn't time for this.

Luckily they got on, although I would strongly recommend never leaving your new dog alone with your cavalier, unless they've known each other (and never had any problems with each other) for weeks.

Make sure to give your cavalier lots of attention following the other dog's arrival. This will help prevent jealousy. My cavalier, as timid as he was, was jealous and displayed this by ignoring the greyhound and trying to look "down in the dumps". Just because your cavalier doesn't show aggression to the new dog doesn't mean he's not jealous!

By the time the greyhound left, my cavalier had started to forget to put on his "sad" face and was learnig to get on, and enjoy himself without sulking due to her presence.

Big well done for taking in a rescue dog, and best of luck

johnnyb6

I will take all ye have told me into account. I have a problem in that our new guy was never trained to lead and never had collar on. I might get him to walk with harness instead. My cav is great with other dogs and by what the animal welfare centre tells me , the new dog runs into corner when other dogs bark. I hope this is good thing