Introducing a dominant dog to another dog

[.sarah]

I need help with this. I posted a thread two days ago about how we are going to try to get another dog. Try, because Mandy is VERY protective of Nova and can be dominant. Most of the time she is ok with female dogs, and she is always good with small dogs. In August my grandparents evacuated from a hurricane and brought their Shih Tzu with them. She was a female and we had no problems with her loose in the house because she didn't bother Mandy at all. What was wierd was that Lady (the Shih Tzu) was also dominant. We have NEVER had this happen with Mandy so there was MUCH praise and treats given out that week!

Anyway, the dog we will be getting is a Lab so she is much larger, but we have fate working towards us in that she is submissive and a female.

I have a few ideas to introduce them, and I will most likely do what we did with Lady, which was not to introduce them the first day, but let them sniff eachother out, and then introduce them for short periods of time after that. But, if you guys have had any experience in this area then by all means let me know what you did!

The last time we introduced Mandy to a dog it was also a Lab, but he was much larger. She got along with him until Nova came outside, then she wanted to rip him to shreds. I'm *hoping* it was because he was male.

Even if you don't have any advice, please wish us luck! I would *really* like to give this nice rescue dog a home!

[sammy101]

i dont really have any advice,but i wish you guys luck! :)

[Tollers-n-Dobes]

Keeva is an extremely dominant dog, while Tango is sort of inbetween. I introduced them with Kee on a leash at first and then let them loose together after I saw that they weren't going to attack eachother or something, there was a bit of growling and snarling involved for the first few days (about a week actually) until they learned who was boss (Tango). Keeva still tests it every once in a while but they get a long just fine, you have to give it time though. I'm not sure if all people have to do this or not, but I always feed and pet Tango first and Keeva last, if I don't Kee thinks that suddenly she's in charge and that just causes major problems. So far, all of that has seemed to work with them. I hope everything goes well for you, good luck!

[.sarah]

Thanks! I had heard about doing everything with the dominant dog first on a tv show, and I do that with my dogs now. I don't know if it really works for us or not, but I still do it just in case. Nova is so submissive that I don't think I'll ever have problems with her. She literally falls on her back and wags her tail constantly when she meets any dominant dog. She was also the most submissive in her litter (and that's one of the main reasons we picked her -- we didn't want Mandy to beat up on her like she did with Buttons. Poor dog, he just laid there and let her bite him, all because he was blind and accidentally wandered by her food bowl a few times :( ).

Lulu(the dog we will get)'s foster mom said she's semi-aggressive with unneutered males. Even if we had a male he would be neutered, so no problems there.

[Jadapit]

Jada is real dominant. I did some research on how to introduce dogs before Ebony came home. It went fine with my three the first night Ebony was here. The next day was not so good. Jada attacked Ebony it was bad! I thought she was going to kill her. I had to carry a squirt bottle around with me for a week. Jada hated being squirted. I could tell by Jada's body language when she was going to go after Ebony. It finally did calm down around here, they all get along now. We do the same thing as Orangutango we pet Jada first, give her treats first. Also, Ebony is crate trained so that helped a lot. I wish you all the luck in the world it may be stressfull at first but it should work out in time. Here is a link on how to introduce new dogs. Hope it helps you some. :)
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/intro.htm

[poofy]

:D Best of Luck... :D :D

[.sarah]

Wow, the squirt bottle idea is really good! Mandy HATES being squirted! We used this method when she was a puppy and it worked very well, but that was 8 years ago lol. But she still hates being squirted. I can also tell by her body language when she'll go after a dog, so this method will probably work really well. Thank you sooo much!

[.sarah]

Does anyone else have any other methods? We will be bringing her home within the next week, most likely, so I need to plan :)

[buttercup132]

maybe and im saying maybe you should muzzle her and let them sniff that way and if she shows agression scold her

[.sarah]

Thanks, but we have tried that before when introducing Mandy to other dogs. Both dogs seem to concentrate on the muzzle instead of the fact that there's another dog in front of them :rolleyes:

[cyber-sibes]

When we brought Sherman home, I kept both dogs very close by me for several days so that I could moniter their behavior. I gave them both treats & praise, and made sure they both got petted at the same time. I also spent extra time individually with each of them, too. Star is very dominant, but fortunately Sherman is happy as the underdog, which was apparently his position in his original kennel. We have not had any problems. For several years I had two females, and it was pretty ok until female #2 grew up, then the nasty fights broke out. It was very distressing. After my other dog got hit by a car, I asked around alot and was told that probably getting male would be a good thing as dogs of opposite sexes fight less than two dogs of the same sex. That has been my experience, too. good luck.

[.sarah]

Luka has already established that she is above Nova. We had a fight break out tonight between Luka and Mandy but it seemed like Mandy was just telling her that she was the boss. *crosses fingers*