Here are some tips on getting your existing dogs to accept a new one, woven into the story of our household:

We’ve had our new dog over a month now. An 8 month old Rottweiler rescue, she’s fitting into our lives very nicely. At first LarryDog, who’s ten and somewhat set in his ways, wasn’t pleased. He was jealous of any attention she got. He would growl and grumble.

We mostly ignored his growls, once we remembered that he also growled a lot when he lived with our Basenji, Sunbeam, who died over two years ago. He’s just a very talkative guy, but we monitored things closely at first.

We don’t much like listening to Larry’s fussing and I worked on one aspect of it. Whenever we would let Lola into the house, if he was inside he would come charging into the kitchen (where the door is) and growl. I took to calling both dogs: “Doggies, sit!” just as I’d let Lola in. Then while they were on the sit-stay, I’d open the fridge and take out tiny pieces of cheese or carrot that I had prepared beforehand. They each got a treat, and Larry’s growls have diminished generally. This also helped teach Lola the sit-stay.
Larry is most crochety in the evenings, and a few times we simply put his leash around the sofa leg, told him to go to his bed next to the sofa, and put the leash on him so his territory was limited for an hour or more. Once or twice in the beginning, we had to do the same thing with Lola at the same time, so she wouldn’t wander over to be near him when he didn’t want it.

We’ve also used body blocking to good effect, just getting in the way of the dogs if Larry was upset.

But already things are changing, a lot. The two dogs have become buddies, and both of them generally prefer to be together. If one goes outside, pretty soon the other one may. There was even one glorious evening when Lola was in wild-romping-puppy mode and Larry ran back and forth with her for a bit, growling all the time!

Yes, it’s quite clear that Larry is happier now that Lola is here.

The cats? That’s another story. They both think Lola is a nuisance and a danger. Is she really? I rather doubt it, but since the cats think so, they do take good precautions around her, and I’m glad.

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