Will My Dog Get Along with a Puppy?
The truth is, in our experience, there is no way to ensure that your dog gets along with your puppy. There are way too many variables to consider; many of them out of our control. The MOST important, is your dog’s temperament; However, please realize that the question of “Will my dog get along with a puppy?” is extremely common.
I have stated that there are many variables that we can’t exercise management over, but there are a lot of matters that we do have control over, our dog’s environment.
Through environment adjustments we can make things better or at least increase the odds of our canines getting along with one another.
Why We Do Not Conduct Evaluations for the Dogs Getting Along in the Same Household
Many Nassau & Suffolk County owners request in-home evaluations to help them determine if their dogs will get along with one another. Many Long Island dog trainers will conduct an evaluation of your dogs, perhaps they’re seeing something that we are unaware of.
We mention this because if you are set on having a professional dog trainer come to your home to do an evaluation for you, to help determine “will your dog get along with a puppy,” we do not want to mislead or dissuade you into thinking that it is common practice among dog trainers to not perform evaluations with respect to dogs in the same household.
However, at the same time, we feel that we owe you an explanation why we do not perform this service. So, here goes……
Predicting How Dogs Will Get Along in the Same Household
It would be great if we could predict how two or three dogs would get along with one another in the same household. It would solve a lot of problems and relieve a lot of pet owners’ anxieties.
Before delving deeper into this topic, I’d like to make an observation – inquiries like this, usually come from responsible pet owners. So, hats off to you!
The reality is our predictions on the question of will my dog get along with a puppy in the same household is similar as predicting if a couple would be a fit for one another and for how long.
You need not be a psychologist to make this determination, nor to know what level of accuracy your assessment will have. Here’s what should be focused on.
What can I do (or not do) to Increase the Chances of My dogs Being Able to Co-exist?
This can be a quite a challenge too. With so many dog owners having preconceived notions of what dog ownership means to them; the same as what a marriage should be like differs for everyone. What makes a good parent? And the list goes on.
These notions will have a very LARGE impact on how strict you are with implementing the following recommendations to hopefully increase the odds that your dogs will not become aggressive towards each other – and still, anything can happen.
Here are Some General Guidelines that We Follow (please if you’re seeking more, by all means have a professional dog trainer come for an evaluation)
- Obedience training is a MUST (teaching the owner how to navigate behaviors via commands will make it clearer to their dog).
2. There is NO substitute for consistency – this is a must
3. Furniture should be reserved the humans
4. Individual time should be spent with the dogs as well (walk them separately too)
5. Separation when supervision is not possible should be MANDATORY and this will be dictated by your dog’s behavior towards one another.
6. Feed them one at a time; no need aid in potential resource guarding or food aggression (getting them tested to see if it exists is a GOOD idea, but we always feed our dogs separate not allowing the other dogs to have access to the dogs food.
7. Toys and resource guarding – some dogs will play nice with a tug or ball together; others, will become to possessive and should not share toys at the same time.
8. We do not have dogs sleep in our room or on the bed; lessen the chances of one of them becoming possessive over you towards the other.
There you have it! The easy part. The difficult part is implementing it!! This is one of the reasons we do not conduct in-home evaluations.
The other is, even with doing all this, one will rarely be able to predict with a great deal of confidence will my dog get along with a puppy in the same household. We never know how long the relationship will last. I know human adults, which I am sure that you do too, who’ve been married for over 5, 10, 15 & even twenty (20) years and get divorced – so predicting if my dog will get along with my puppy in the same household is not an easy one. We try our best, but regrettably – we are not good enough to do that LOL!
As always, please feel free to get in touch with us or leave a comment below; we usually respond within 24 hours with more detailed advice based on your comment.
