Introducing Dogs to Each Other

Carla Nammack-Wenger and Austin Nammack explain how to introduce dogs to each other.

Hello, my name is Carla Nammack-Wenger and we’re here today teaching you some basic training skills for dogs and leadership skills with people. And in this segment, we’re going to work on teaching you how to introduce your dog to another dog without confrontation. Often times I hear complaints from my customers of dogs that they’ll get along with other dogs, they’ve been attacked, they jump another dog and many people don’t know that it can go much better if you just take a few steps to help make it go away, so I'm going to have also come in with the dog named Mickey. This is Mickey, this is Elmer, they're both—foundation dogs, they're wonderful dogs, they're available for adoption and that they had not met yet, so we would do want to take the proper steps to make this meeting go well. Elmer loves all dogs but he’s very playful, he plays hard. Mickey is good with most dogs but he would probably do better as a single dog but we can still make this meeting go well. So ideally, we want to go for a nice casual walk side by side first. Elmer and Mickey, let's go. Elmer here, side by side no confrontation, no direct contact yet. We’re going side by side. We don’t have a lot of room to work here but we’re going to do our best. As you see the pressure is off, the dogs don’t have to meet each other yet and we’re going to stop right here, ideally you would spend five or ten minutes with this lock we’re just going to spend a second because we don’t want to bore you but remember take the time, do it right. Once you’ve done that walking, during that walk you can actually let them slide in towards each and make a little contact and then slide back out without the head to head confrontation. The body language you want to look forward to avoid would be head to head, Elmer putting his neck over Mickey’s neck that would a be a dominant gesture and Mickey would be offended by that and it could turn around and snap. And of course, you don’t want to allow another dog to mount the other dog, that’s all a very dominant behaviors. So, we want to make sure this goes casual very nice and very relaxed. So now, I'm going to have Mickey step up in front of me and I'm going to allow Elmer to sniff Mickey and that’s how Mickey, Elmer’s got a sense of who Mickey is. And also just as a precaution I like to have my left hand on the side of the dogs neck just to avoid the chance of him whipping around and snapping. And some dogs aren’t ready to be sniff yet, we think Mickey is, we’re going to take our chances but we’re going to make it go well. So, as in position with Mickey, I'm going to position Elmer to take a little sniff, all right here we go, we got a little, little interest that’s fine. Once he acknowledges the other dog and walks away that’s when it’s time for the other dog to take a sniff. Like that, go ahead, remember I'm putting my left hand on the side of Elmer’s neck just to avoid confrontation in the event it were to happen, good. This gives make you a chance to smell who Elmer is, see that he is not a threat, he’s not going to hurt him and the pressure is off that way. So here now, for loosen leash we can let them interact. The signs you want to look for we’ll presume, I have to trust them in a 100%, dogs are dogs they can do if anything sometimes and it’s our job to be responsible and keep them out of trouble. So, the signs we want to look for would be the nervous tense eye, if it is a relaxed eye like Elmer right here, he is comfortable with the situation. Mickey is a little nervous still, so we’re all watching we’re going to be careful. I guess that’s very hot so they’re not really being playful right now but we would allow them to interact, we wouldn’t as controlling but we’re still watching. Again, the signs you don’t want to see growling—up, lip curled, direct stare, any of that you would give a quick shot “Hey” correct that action and move on. Relaxed and comfortable, both of these guys are very comfortable right now, so we’re going to end this segment. They did very well, it was a good productive meeting, nobody got hurt. Okay, and that’s basically a very effective way to introduce your dog to a dog that he doesn’t know yet without confrontation.