Adding another dog to your pack is an exciting time. It can also be a little stressful because you want to make sure that your current dog accepts your new puppy.
Sometimes when you bring a new puppy home the current dog immediately accepts the puppy and it super excited to have a younger brother and sister. And this is a possible scenario.
The more likely scenario is that your current dog will be standoffish to the puppy. This is completely normal and a common way for an adult dog to deal with a puppy (in fact, take note on how well your older dog gives the puppy boundaries by simply ignoring them. We could take a few lessons from this).
The good news is, the vast majority of the time the dogs will figure it out. That being said there are lots of things that you can do to make the “warm-up” time go more smoothly.
The first thing to note is that this “warm-up” time could be a day or two or could take weeks! Don’t rush it and let your current dog set the pace. How they interact in the first few weeks home is not necessarily how they will always interact.
In this episode, I talk about a few things you can do to help make this initial time together go smoothly.
- Walks, walks, and more walks
- Tire the puppy out before you let him/her interact with your current dog
- Balance allowing them to interact with giving your current dog some space from the puppy.
- Manage food and toys to reduce any competition that might arise.
Listen and enjoy!
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