Introducing a New Dog into Your Home

Hello!

I have had a few fosters and adopters contact me recently about how they should introduce a new dog into their home, so I thought I would write about it today. Introducing a new dog into your home is a very important part of adopting or fostering. First and foremost, the meeting between the new dog and your current pets is critical.

If you are adopting a dog, you want to take both yours and the other dog to a neutral place, on leash, to meet each other. If you are fostering you probably won’t have this luxury so make sure that they are meeting outside on leash.

Tips for Leash Meetings

• Calmly walk the dogs towards each other, don’t let them pull to get there, try and calm them with some redirecting and treats before they can sniff one another
• Let them meet for 3 seconds (1 alligator, 2 alligator, 3) and walk them apart (no matter what) and distract each dog, if this meeting goes well you can let them extend their greeting to a good sniff. Here is a more in depth article about the 3 second rule: http://www.thrivingcanine.com/letting_dogs_meet_the_three_second_rule
• REMEMBER: Make sure to be holding the leash so the dogs cannot get tangled together, that can put a lot of stress on dogs who have never met before. You also want to make sure that both dogs have an escape route, this is very important inside, you do not want your dog or the foster to be trapped in a corner or back of a room.
• Once you feel confident that the dogs will get along, you can take the leash off, but you may have to do this for a couple of days before that happens. It all depends on both dogs body language, loose, wiggly body, ears loose, tail wagging, play bowing, etc. Sometimes I will keep my foster’s leash on for the first few days, just in case I need to redirect them outside if house training is involved, or if they are having a hard time coming and going through the door.

If your dog is having some issues with the new one, set some boundaries for your foster, like no going up on the couch, their dog bed, your bed, (depending what your house rules are of course), or sharing their toys. This will make your dog feel more secure knowing that you are not just letting this unknown dog in to take up all of their space. You may have to keep their meetings to  a minimum at the beginning if they are not getting along. You can either keep your foster in a separate room, or behind a barrier of some kind (like a baby gate). Having them in the same room but behind a gate is good because then your dog and the foster can still sniff and get used to each other without it being too much.

A good friend of mine is an AMAZING whelping foster, meaning that she takes in pregnant dogs and helps them through their pregnancy, birth, and care of mom and pups afterwards. She said that it always helps to bath the dog before having them meet her pack because then her dogs have something to recognize. Dogs have an amazing sense of smell so having the new dog smell as similar to your pack as possible, will definitely help the transition process.

Wish, available for adoption through Earthdog Terrier Rescue of Manitoba

What not to do

• Never introduce your dogs off leash
• Never introduce them in a small area inside with no escape routes
• If you get a very timid or scared dog, don’t introduce them right away, Let them get settled in their own space and then you can start the intros.
• Do not introduce your entire pack at once, do one dog at a time

Are you a foster or an adopter? What has worked for you in the past? Let me know in the comments below!