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Introducing a new puppy to our current puppy. Nervous.
We have a 9 month old Blue heeler and border collie mix. He is a great dog! Not agressive at all! But is very high energy and is the reason we are buying a home with a big yard! And we will be closing in a month and that is when we will get our new puppy. Currently three weeks old and I'm nervous about introducing them. I don't want Flash (the 9 month old) to hurt Zorro (the 3 week old) by attempting to play with him.
Suggestions?
Flash was a shelter puppy and our intention was to get him a play mate from a shelter that was close to his age once we moved in, but my friend adopted a dog from a shelter and when she went to have her fixed, found out she was pregnant! So we're taking one of her little ones. ( : They are huskey and by the looks of the puppies Rotties.
Re: Introducing a new puppy to our current puppy. Nervous.
First, don't take the puppy away from the mother until it's over 8weeks old, preferably closer to 12 weeks if possible. They learn a LOT of things from the mother and siblings at that time, esp. bite inhibition. The dog will be likely to have behavior issues if you take him home much sooner than 8 weeks.
Take your dog on a walk with the new puppy when you bring him home. Have someone with the new puppy out on the sidewalk or a park or where ever you want them to meet - on neutral ground, not straight away in your house or back yard. Let them sniff/smell/greet/walk the area together and get used to each other.
What we did when we brought our new puppy home to our dog, was to let them meet and walk, then they spent an hour or so in the back yard, sniffing and smelling and whatnot. THEN we finally brought the puppy into the house. It only took my dog a little bit of time to realize she could not body check the puppy (5 months old at the time) and we just had to watch and keep an eye on them.
Best of luck to you
I don't know much about puppy development, but I think 3 weeks is too young to introduce them. They probably have barely have begun to walk, I'd be worried about your dog passing a disease (even something simple like a cold), etc. I'm not sure when the best time would be to introduce, maybe at least 6 weeks.
And as PP said, don't separate him from his littermates until 8-12 weeks.
They won't be meeting each other for quite a few weeks. And he's four weeks today, so he'll be about 9-10 weeks old when we bring him home. They've met already but me holding the puppy and a friend holding Flash. And we just let him smell him. But once he comes home with us I just don't want Flash to get all protective and everything. We got the puppy for Flash to have a play mate. I just want to make sure they bond.
I think it will be okay with doing it at our new house because both dogs will move in at the same time. Flash will stay with my parents while we move stuff in then they'll both come so we can have time to watch them play in the fenced in yard (because I'm paranoid they'll get out).
3 months, yeah.
3 weeks? NOpe. Absolutely not.
Wait until the pups are 3 months old. Pups need to be near their mothers -- they're taught certaint things.
I don't know how this is different with puppies, but this is how we introduced my new dog to my parents dog (I was living with them at the time)
We put my parents' dog (Skye) outside when we first brought my dog (Mac) home, so that Mac could smell the entire place without Skye there first.
After a few hours, we put Mac in his crate in the middle of the living room.
Ok, here's the part where you're going to laugh.
We then let Skye upstairs, and acted like he "found" this new dog for us. We acted super excited, gave him treats, and then gave him a lot of attention while he sniffed the cage for a minute or two.
We then let Mac out of the crate so they could get to know each other. We continued to praise Skye for this amazing puppy he found for us!
I read this somewhere online, and while we spent half the time laughing at how stupid we felt, it seemed to work. Skye is far less jealous of Mac than he is of other dogs who come to visit our house, and Mac doesn't seem to be as interested in playing/interacting with any other dogs as he is with Skye. Maybe this is just a random coincidence, but the introduction process was so easy I'd do it again.
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