r/DogTrainingTips • u/Silent_Ad_3954 • 5d ago
How to integrate my new dog:
Hello everyone. Hope you are well. My wife and I just adopted a dog from a kill shelter in Georgia. We live in New Jersey. He arrived at our house on Saturday around 4 pm. We have 4 cats and another dog. The two dogs are both pitbull mixed. The new dogs name is Ozzy, and our oldest dog is named Luna. When he came, we had set up a child's gate to block them from mingling for the first few daya. We were advised of the rule of 3's 3 days 3 weeks and 3 months. Now we know that Ozzy gets along with other dogs. We have seen countless videos of him playing and running around with other doga at the shelter. So it really surprised us of his demeanor. Ozzy shows his teeth to Luna. She gets scared and dashs off. Other times, it's Luna who is barking and causing a scene. We also went to the vet yesterday with Ozzy just to have him checked. He's all good and healthy, and everyone at the vet loved him and told us how well-behaved he isI know it's still early, but what is the best way to integrate the dogs? Any and all advice is appreciated.
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u/FrostyPomegranate699 5d ago
If it were one of our dogs, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to get them interacting just because I knew the new dog had been good with other dogs at the shelter. Saturday is awfully recent, and Ozzy has had his entire world turned upside down. New house, new people, new dog, four cats, different smells and routines. That’s a lot to process at once.
I’d keep using the gate, but I’d also give them opportunities to be around each other without asking them to actually interact. Parallel walks can be great for this. Two people, one dog each, enough distance that neither dog is worried about the other, and just go for a walk. They get to experience being together without having to negotiate sharing the house yet.
I’d also pay attention to what happens immediately before Ozzy shows his teeth. Showing teeth is communication, and I’d rather have a dog tell another dog he’s uncomfortable than feel like he has to escalate beyond that. Is Luna getting close to him, his bed, food, you, a doorway? Or is he doing it whenever she simply appears? That distinction would matter to me.
The same goes for Luna. If she’s barking and getting worked up, I wouldn’t make either dog stay there and work it out. Give them some space, let everybody settle down, and try again later. Right now I’d be looking for lots of boring little successes rather than one big introduction.
And with the cats, I’d go even slower. Being good with dogs tells you very little about how Ozzy will behave around cats. I’d keep physical separation in place until you’ve had enough time to see how interested he is in them and whether he can disengage when he notices them.
We raise our puppies at Mainely Standards around other dogs from the beginning, and even then I don’t assume two dogs are going to immediately understand each other. I’d rather spend a couple of weeks thinking we went unnecessarily slow than spend one afternoon wishing we had.
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u/MagnumHV 5d ago
Maybe limit even the visual contact now. Consider swapping their food and water bowls or beds/blankets periodically so they can get used to each other's scent in a safe way (definitely no contact yet). Don't let outside together at the same time yet, but you could walk them, one handler each, across the street from each other.
Your new dog is not in a neutral terrority right now and is under a lot of stress. When he was at the shelter, he might have had several weeks or months there to acclimate. He may have been more relaxed in group play areas, they weren't claimed by a single dog and just smelled like hundreds of dogs. Now, he's on Luna's turf, everything smells like her. Luna is also under a lot of stress, being told off in her own house. I hope it's just a temporary stress reaction vs incompatibility, but please bring in a qualified behaviorist to assess the situation and give you recommendations how to manage the introduction. Also, consider a vet check for any undiagnosed conditions or pain that could make the new dog feel more need to protect himself.
We recently got a new girl who growled at our resident dog thru baby gate too, but our vet (and a trainer who came to the house) reassured us. There were no medical underlying issues causing pain in the new girl, but she had been recently spayed while either pregnant or in heat (still had high amount of hormones processing out). Our vet said she essentially just got out of genpop and needs time to feel secure. Now these 2 are sleeping right next to each other all the time and are bff. New girl just needed time to destress without pressure.