Pooch and Mutt's expert trainer, Jon, has taken us through, step by step, the best way to introduce a bounding young puppy to a senior dog.
Bringing a new puppy into the family might be the right thing to do to insert some pep back into your senior dog. But with such contrasting temperaments from the get go, their initial introduction will need a slow, gradual and strategic approach.
How to introduce a puppy to a senior dog
- It's important that the relationship between your older existing dog and your new puppy gets off to a good start, as it sets the foundation for the rest of their lives together.
- To get off to a good start and avoid any needless conflict, tidy away any dog food or toys prior to any introduction.
- The introduction and early meetings should all be supervised until you are confident that there is an appropriate level of respectful behaviour between the dogs.
- The ideal place to introduce new dogs is out on a walk. Don’t do this unless your puppy is fully vaccinated at this point. You can use your garden instead.
- Be sure to put a training line on both dogs so that you can control over excitement or anti-social behaviour.
- As a rambunctious pup, they will have little to no boundaries. It's important we set the tone and boundaries of this and future meetings. Just like a parent with young children, we need to be clear about what is and isn’t ok for your pup.
- Using the training leads, let your puppy and older dog check each other out as dogs do, sniffing etc.
- Once they have had a chance to say hello, instigate a degree of separation by encouraging the puppy to break off and explore the garden.
If all goes well, repeat this scenario frequently, increasing the time the dogs spend together in line with the dogs getting on appropriately.
- Inside the home in the first few days, make use of puppy pens and dog gates in-between socialisation training. If you maintain strong and consistent boundaries, most dogs will learn to coexist at least in a tolerant way.
- Don’t leave the dogs together unsupervised until you are certain their behaviour warrants it.
- Closely supervise feeding times, making sure both dogs have space, time and peace to eat.
- Some dogs will clash, simply due to genetics. We can’t make two dogs be friends, but we can expect tolerance.
- After persistent training you are still struggling, we strongly recommend enlisting the help of a professional trainer.
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