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Who Has 2+ dogs?
We're HUGE pet people. We've had a mini schnauzer (Milo) for a little over 5 years, and we're talking about getting another dog... I am absolutely torn about it, though. I really don't want to do anything to upset Milo, but I can't decide if he'd like having another dog around, or tolerate it or just plain hate it.
Milo mainly sleeps all day, but I think it's mostly because he's bored. We walk him, but he rarely wants to play with us (he's super weird) or cuddle or anything like that. He wants to "wrestle" with us for maybe 10 minutes a day, and then he's done.
He's been around my parent's dogs, but they're 10+ year old basset hounds that outweigh him easily by 60 pounds- So even if they were inclined to play, not ideal playmates. He's been around H's mom's dogs, an older lab and a lab puppy, and the puppy just terrorized him. When we take him to the dog park, he'll sniff other dogs, but he mainly just observes them.
I wish I could just borrow a similar sized dog from somewhere for a week to just see how it would go, no strings attached. I'd feel HORRIBLE if we got a dog from the humane society that we would have to take back 
Anyone have any insight/ advice?
Re: Who Has 2+ dogs?
I have two dogs, both about 50 pound mutts
When we got our second dog (Chloe), our first dog Rex was 1 year old and Chloe was about 3 months old. I was really worried about how they would act towards each other at first since Rex tends to be dominant. When I brought Chloe home I left her in her crate while I let Rex out to sniff her and see what was going on with her. This way Rex didn't feel threatened with having her in the house and it made it easy for them to get to know each other without too much overbearing physical contact.
Getting Chloe was one of the best discussions we made. Rex would get so restless and annoying at times because he just wanted to play and we wanted to relax or sleep. Now they have a play buddy and it takes the pressure and guilt of not being able to give them so much attention at times. I would look into docile breeds and stay away from getting a puppy. Milo will eventually get used to the other day but it might take longer than other dogs. If you do get another dog, maybe meet for the first time in a park or neutral area so Milo doesn't feel that the new puppy is coming into his space.
I knOw with the humane society around here you have to do meet and greets with the dog you want to adopt and any current pets to avoid situations exactly like that. See if your humane society does something similar! Good luck. I'd love a second dog, we have a 4 year old Bassett, and sometimes i think he'd enjoy the company, and part of its just cause I'd like another dog. But we don't have a fenced in yard and I don't think I could handle two dogs indoors all the time.
Good luck to you though!
i love dogs and our next one will be a rescue.
H is dying for another dog, but we also don't have a fenced in yard and I REALLY don't want to have to walk two dogs or have two dogs wrestling in the house all the time. I'd love to get a second dog one day when we have a house and fenced in yard.
I agree that any good humane society/adoption agency will let you introduce the dogs first. And don't feel bad about having to give a dog back if it doesn't work out. It would be worse for you and your dogs to be unhappy. I've had two friends who have had to give up or replace dogs and now both dogs and friends are much happy and in better situations. I'm not going to say it wasn't tough, but sometimes things don't work out and it's the best option in the end.
Thanks for all the feedback ladies
Our humane society does allow meet & greets, but I have a pretty good idea of how that will go with Milo (he'll sniff, pee on everything worth peeing on, and then ignore the other dog)- I'm more worried about what would happen as far as living together and sharing toys/ space/ people.
Mainly asking because we did go and meet a little dog tonight- We think it would be better to get a female and I love dogs with mustaches and that combo is really rare at our HS, so we figured we'd better hop on it. She seems really sweet and compatible with Milo, so we put a hold on her- We kind of figure there's really only one way to find out how he'll react.
We can take Milo by on Friday (she's getting spayed tomorrow) to meet her, and we're planning on not getting our hopes up and go from there.
Side note- The new little dog seems to be in LOVE with H. He's more on the fence than I am, so I'm hoping she can win both the boys over
We got our second dog, Nero (a mini poodle/bichon mix), when he was 3 months old, and our first dog, Ezra (a Cavalier/bichon mix) was about a year old. Ezra wanted nothing to do with Nero at all at first. We brought Ezra with to an adoption event to see how he got along with the puppies, but he wanted nothing to do with any of them, so we picked the one that wanted everything to do with him. :-P During the car ride home, Ezra practically climbed out the window trying to get away from Nero. He basically looked at us like "umm, what is this thing in my house?" when we got them home.
After about a month, Ezra finally stopped running away from Nero (which was really hilarious as Ezra is 17 lbs and Nero was a whopping 3 lbs at the time), and they started playing tug of war and chasing each other around the house. Now they wrestle like pros, and I can't imagine only having one dog. Yes, it's double the work and it can be stressful at times, but they're so fun together. Plus I don't feel as bad when I have to leave them at home when I go to work, because at least they have each other to stay occupied and not get lonely.
It might take awhile, but I'm sure the dogs will warm up to each other. As long as they don't show aggression towards each other during the meet and greet, I think things will be fine.
Planning Bio! Updated 05.02.12