Intro/New to Fostering Question (long)

hz80408

Hi ladies,  I followed this board briefly a while ago (and introduced myself) and now I'm back.  If I recall several of you have experience fostering so I wanted to say hi.

 We have a 3yo male English bulldog named Oscar and just received our first English bully foster, Knucklehead (7.5 yo).

This is Osc:

The organization gave us a home introduction document use for adopters when bringing the dog into their home, but I'm just wonder if you have any personal experience/advice with bringing a foster into your home when you already have a dog/pet?  Last night we just did a walk; having each dog pass by each other and stop to say hi/sniff.  Both dogs tails were wagging.  Then we took Osc into the house in the bedroom and let Knucks come in and sniff around the rest of the apt.  Otherwise, the dogs haven't seen each other (one is always in a bedroom with door shut). So far, so good. Is slow process of integration like this best?

Here's Knuckleheads pic, he's a sweetie:

RedheadBaker

Yes, a slow introduction is best. 

When I brought home my last foster dog, we did the long walk.

Once home, if both dogs were in the same room, both were on leashes. If I was the only one home, I would "crate and rotate" -- one dog would be with me; the other dog would be crated (or gated in a separate room).

After supervised interactions on-leash and they seemed comfortable with each other, I would let my resident dog off-leash. Our foster pittie REALLY wanted to play and this way my resident could play when she wanted to and walk away when she wanted to without him pestering her.

Eventually (after 2 days of on-leash interactions, then three days of resident dog off-leash), the pittie was allowed off-leash as well.  

KatiesCats

Sounds like you're doing everything right!

We foster retired racing greyhounds (picking up our 27th foster tonight; his name is RX Tornado), and usually do a short walk around the block with everyone, meeting on neutral territory, before bringing everyone inside at once.

We generally let everyone mingle right away, but then again, greyhounds are super mellow, well socialized dogs who are used to being in close quarters with lots of other dogs.  We keep a close eye for a few days and make sure new dog knows his/her place (i.e. don't get on Nite's couch, don't go in Cal's crate, don't chase the cats).  We don't keep them separate for any real period of time, after we do a quick walkthrough of the house on leash.  We've only had one issue in all of our fostering, and it was a boy who had serious "space" issues (a female crowded him at the bottom of the stairs, and he bit her leg).

Yay for fostering!  And I'm glad you posted pics; both boys are adorable!

hz80408

Thanks ladies!  I think tonight once H is home we'll do a walk together so we can each handle a dog and maybe depending how that goes we'll monitor how long to keep the seperate inside the home.  We've already realized that foster is smart enough to take down the baby gate divider (although I don't think we put it up securely); but we'll see how it goes!  Leashes indoors for a couple of days was mentioned in our training guide, that seems like a wonderful idea! Thanks again!

eta: Katie- wow on the foster count!  That is amazing; congrats!