The Art of Introducing Dogs (9 page)

Organise dog sitters. These can be family, friends, relatives or professional pet sitters who can come to your home at specified times if you are simply not able to take the required amount of time off work to implement this plan properly.

Ask your boss if you can work part time during the ‘home alone program’. Depending on what you do for work, you may even be able to work from home which makes the program easier to implement.

Ensure that you leave home as you would do when you go out, to work or shopping etc. Dogs watch and listen for cues that you have left or have arrived home. Take the car if you drive or walk up the street if you don’t. Leave the area otherwise your dog may hear or smell you which may cause distress.

Day 1–5
Stay at home with the dogs so they are fully supervised and managed. After the first five days you can then begin to implement the home alone schedule to ease your dogs into spending time alone. Set the video and/or tell your neighbors, give 3–4 enrichment items per dog and leave and return calmly every day.

Every dog or puppy is different so you will need assess how well your dogs are handling the time alone and adjust the separation times as needed. Never rush the time spent alone, it is better to take things really slowly than to leave the dogs home alone too quickly and for too long. Ideally build up by 30 minutes only per day. Once you reach 3 hours, most dogs can cope with time alone being extended by one hour increments.

In no time your dogs may actually look forward to you leaving just so they can run around and find all the chew toys, treat balls, chickens wings or drumsticks etc., that have been hidden around the yard. Only when you disappear do all the fun toys and treats appear.

Importantly, make sure your yard is secure with tall fences to prevent your pup or dog from jumping out or digging under. Padlock all gates, ensure there are several shady areas and shelter for protection from rain and adverse weather. Provide several water sources so that cool, fresh water is always available and provide two or more outdoor beds. If you leave the dogs indoors when you go out, in addition to the above, ensure the newcomer is trained to use an indoor toilet so that she can relieve herself while you are gone.

Implementing a home alone program not only assists your current dogs to get used to being left home alone, it is also a great foundation for any major life changes that your dog/s experience. You can and should use it any time a new dog is introduced into the home. In the future, the loss of one dog can leave the other suddenly alone. You can go back and re-implement the home alone program for the remaining dog to get them comfortable to their new life on their own. Likewise, if you move house, the home alone program should be used again to get your dogs to feel comfortable in the new home. Dogs do not instinctively know that they have moved to a new home. Owners commonly move on the weekend and go back to work on Monday leaving their dogs to feel like they have been abandoned — hence they dig out or jump a fence to ‘get home’ again. For this reason, every time you move house, the home alone program should be implemented. You will find that your dogs will cope better and be less distressed if they have a strong foundation using the home alone program. Each time you implement it over the course of their life when a major change occurs, the dogs will adapt faster and you will be dramatically reducing stress in their lives.

Just like the introduction process, proceed slowly with implementing any home alone program. You are not only getting the new dog used to being away from you, you are also slowly introducing the dogs to living together, without you to intervene in their interactions.

If at any time you are concerned that your new dog or puppy is not adjusting to being home alone despite carefully following this schedule, do not hesitate to contact a dog behavioural trainer or veterinary behaviourist as your new dog may have a form of anxiety that causes it greater than normal distress at being separated from family members.

Know when to abandon or rehome

If you did all your homework on what type of dog, play style etc. your dog would best ‘fit’ with and you hopefully selected a dog that is well socialised with little or no socialisation baggage and you planned out the introduction as well as slowly introducing home alone time, you will soon have a picture of peace and harmony with your two best friends resting at your feet and feeling comfortable with each other. But what do you do if things don’t seem to be going as planned.

During the introduction process there may be a few minor disagreements over a resource—usually food or a toy or hopefully at the very worst, a puncture or two (accidental nicks preferably). All is not lost when this happens as most disagreements or minor fights between well socialised dogs are simply ritualised displays which equates to more noise than anything else. If possible, work out what went wrong and manage the situation to prevent any further issues. For example, if the fight was over a bone, remove the bones and in future separate the dogs before giving further bones by using baby gates, crates, house and yard.

What if it is more serious and ongoing and you have had one or more trips to the vet? First act quickly and contact a veterinary behaviourist or dog behavioural trainer to assess the situation. Ensure they have had experience with this type of problem, before enlisting their help. This is not a simple training problem and the health and welfare of one or both dogs is in question. An experienced veterinary behaviourist or dog behavioural trainer will tell you the likely outcome based on their experience and knowledge. If the situation is salvageable, you will need to work with the trainer to implement a training and management program straight away. For escalating problems or ones that do not appear to be resolving despite following the training and management plan, you need to seriously consider rehoming even if the dogs have lived together for years. If the problem is more recent consider abandoning the introduction. The dog behavioural trainer or a veterinary behaviourist will advise you when or if this is necessary.

There are many people who live with dogs that are not compatible. It is very stressful and draining on everyone when this occurs. Some dogs must live completely separate from other dog/s in the home. Rotating time in the house and yard for their entire lives, because one dog does not like the other. When making your decision about what course of action to take, place yourself in the dogs position and see what you would want if it was you that lived in that way.

Living life in constant stress because you are under continuous threat of attack, abuse or harassment is truly not a nice life. Think of the stressful events in your own life. How did you feel while it was happening and how did you get relief from the stress? By moving house, leaving a job or relationship? Dogs cannot make these changes on their own. They rely on us to be diligent and responsible in the choices we make for them.

Dogs appear to cope better than people in these situations but that is primarily because people often incorrectly read the signs that one or both dogs are giving. I often see young dogs seeking the approval of an older dog only to be growled or snapped at. The young dog persists to approach this older dog despite repeated ‘attacks’. Bystanders see this behaviour and say ‘well the puppy can’t be too stressed about it because he keeps coming back’—of course he keeps coming back because it is an instinctive drive for a young dog to try to appease and be accepted by the older dog. Just because the pup keeps coming back does not mean that he is not stressed or oblivious of the aggression directed towards him. Likewise, the older dog who is clearly giving distance increasing signals is also getting stressed as his signals are ignored. If you want to know more, there are many resources available that detail stress in dogs and the resulting behaviours that are displayed. Just as with humans, chronic stress can lead to deterioration in health, so the faster you act, the better it will be for your dogs and for you.

If in doubt about a course of action, remember that the health and welfare of the dogs concerned should be your primary focus. If one or both dogs is living life with constant tension and stress, being subjected to attacks, harassment or bullying, being denied a life that is happy, relaxed and fun—then you need to take responsibility and rehome one of the dogs so that they can both have the life they deserve where they can be free of fear and stress. It may break your heart to give one up or you may feel that you have failed, but remember, this is not about you, it is about your dog/s and you have a responsibility to do the best for them even if it does mean you have to let one of them go. In the long run, it may be best for everyone concerned.

If you have had to rehome a dog/puppy or abandon an introduction, it is not the end of the world. Try to determine why this particular introduction or combination did not succeed. Was it because you missed some vital warning signs in one or both dogs, or you saw a problem that you thought could be ‘fixed’ or managed by training only to find that the problem got worse over time despite your best efforts. It really isn’t all that surprising that not all combinations of dogs will be compatible. Think of how many people you dated in order to find the ‘one’. Humans are a highly social species like dogs, but we don’t necessarily like or want to live with every person we meet. In fact, some people with opposing personality types would be a recipe for disaster if they were forced to share the same space every day of their lives.

Once you have analysed why the dogs were not compatible or the introduction had to be abandoned, you can then make an informed decision as to whether you should attempt any further introductions. Go back and read Chapter one to recap on the types of things you need to consider before making a decision to introduce your dog to another and vice versa. See also the case studies in the pages that follow for stories of successful and not so successful introductions.

If after recapping the information in Chapter one, you feel that your dog is still a suitable candidate for living with another dog then my advice is to wait for at least 3–6 months before attempting any further introductions. This allows your dog’s stress levels to come right back down and life to return to normal after any kind of stressful or traumatic event. In the meantime, begin researching prospective dogs/puppies/breeds again with your new found knowledge of what didn’t work. Then start all over again and take it slowly, because as that famous saying goes, “slow and steady wins the race”. I just couldn’t agree more.