We want to make sure this goes smoothly because we don’t want to traumatize a young puppy; we also don’t want to stress out an older dog. Usually, what to do to start is do it through a fence or some kind of a barrier; that way you’re sure that nothing is going to happen.
If your older dog has issues with aggression, then consult a trainer and have a trainer help you and come out to the house, because you want to make sure that it goes right.
Starting Through a Barrier
When you’re introducing the puppy to an adult dog, you always want to make sure the puppy has a way to get away from the adult dog because you don’t want to overwhelm a young puppy. Get the adult dog behind a barrier and walk over with the puppy and let him come up and sniff.
Introducing Your Puppy To The Older Dog Should Be Fun
What you’re looking for is body language out of both of them. If you see that your adult dog is freezing or has hair up, those are things that you want to watch for. If your adult dog is growling, you’re obviously not going to move forward. Nice relaxed body language, mouth open, tail wagging, and a puppy just sniffing around and not bothered by it- that’s really good.
Moving to a Leash Walk
The next step is to go ahead and put the adult dog on a leash. Just walk them together; don’t let them interact really, just get them comfortable walking near each other. If your puppy is spicy, you don’t want to overwhelm the adult dog by letting the puppy come up and be too nippy with her.
Letting the Puppy Off Leash
This is again where you have to know your adult dog; if you know that your dog is sometimes leash reactive, then you’re not going to let them say hi on leash. If the adult dog is comfortable on a leash, then what you’re going to do is actually let your puppy off the leash and keep the adult dog on a leash.
Try to keep the leash loose; this way the puppy can go up and sniff and say hi, but the puppy can also move away if the puppy gets nervous.
If the puppy gets a little nervous, keep the adult dog back and that way the puppy can add some distance and then approach again when he feels more comfortable.
Building Trust Gradually
You just want to make sure the puppy understands that the big dog’s not going to hurt him and you want him to build trust and confidence. Usually, stay at this stage for a few days. Especially if you’re going to have a working dog that you need that relationship with, and even with pet dogs, you want to make sure that the puppy is looking at you for direction and not the other dog.
If you let them get too bonded with each other, then the puppy doesn’t build a close relationship with you, and they can also create separation anxiety if you ever have to separate the two dogs, and the puppy doesn’t become confident on their own because they just follow the adult dog.
Usually, let puppies have limited interaction, take them for walks together, turn them loose in the backyard for 10 minutes or so every day, but besides that, when the puppies are in the house, usually have the puppy set up in an exercise pen; that way they can see the other dog, they can sniff, but they can’t play too much.
Once your puppy loves you more than the other dog, then you’ll let them have more access with each other, but you want to make sure you build a relationship with yourself first and then with the second dog.
Managing Feeding Time
Eating is another really important thing to look for. Generally, don’t feed dogs together; with puppies, usually they’re getting hand-fed or fed in a crate. By feeding them separately, they never have to compete for food so it’s never a problem.
If you give a steak dinner and every day someone starts stealing your food, eventually you’re going to go back off, this is mine. You don’t want your puppies to get put in that situation; you want them to know there’s plenty to go around, there’s no reason to guard.
By feeding them separately, they learn that it’s never going to be an issue. It’s a lot easier to prevent it and just feed them separately than to wait until they get into a fight over food and then try to fix it later.