Introducing a second dog

sand088 · Apr 27, 2009, 05:42 PM

I have a female Pug, age 1.5 yrs
I will be bringing home a little sister for my Pug
Does the new Pug need her own crate? How do I introduce them?
Are there some tips or a website to tell me the do's and don'ts so my first Pug doesn't end up hating the new one.
We decide to get the 2nd Pug for her to keep her company during the day and I just want to do it right.
Please help!:)

Silverfoxkit · Apr 27, 2009, 05:54 PM

One thing you may want to take into consideration is the existing dog's training. Is your first dog housebroken? Any bad habits? Puppies are monkey see - monkey do if your dog has bad habits you may want to strive to correct them before bringing the puppy home, like wise the puppy is also apt to pick up good habits so a well trained first dog is a handy tool in training the puppy.

You also want to make sure your dog is of sound health before exposing a puppy to her.

I would suggest introducing the new puppy on neutral ground so your first dog can get to know the puppy before bringing it home into her territory. Mind you not to make this a place where other dogs frequent if the puppy has no had all of its vaccinations.

Chances are your dog is going to try and make it clear that she is the boss and teach the puppy her place. She may try to pin or hump the little one, but as long as they are not hurting each other you may want to let them be. Dogs need to feel secure in their roles so once the puppies new place has been established both dogs will most likely be calmer with each other.

I would suggest separate crates.

shazamataz · Apr 27, 2009, 10:49 PM

With all of our dogs we have just put the new puppy in with the other dog and had no trouble ,you just have to watch them and tell them off if one os being too pushy. They will establish who is the dominant one pretty quickly.

While we have been pretty lucky a lot of people say the best way to introduce a new dog is to set up a wire barrier across a doorway so they can sniff each other and get used to each other without and disagreements.

A separate crate is a must as your older dog will want to have some alone time away from the puppy and this gives her her own space at night.