Trouble when adding a new dog to your pack
We recently received this note from a reader in response to our post How to Introduce Two Dogs and thought it deserved it’s own post:
Hi,
I recently got a Chow Chow (a week ago), they don’t seem to get on quite well. I believe I introduced them incorrectly as I read somewhere on the web saying we should let them affirm their ranking system and allow them to have small fights. After first two days, I noticed something seems amiss as the fight just got more aggressive. Which I decided to do more research and fought an alternative suggestion which is to stop such dominance fight should it occur.
I have the chow chow restricted by a fencing in a small area (Toilet train)and allow my other dog, an 11 month old Japanese Spitz to roam the house as it is toilet trained. My Spitz tends to start a fight with the 4 month old chow chow whenever i let it out of the confined area. I remain calm and assertive throughout hoping to correct my spitz but it doesn’t seem to be effective. Out of this one week, there was only one occasion where the two of them were peacefully roaming around the apartment for 10 mins. However, everything was back to square one again.
I bring them for walk daily, side by side (Chow on my left, Spitz on my right). My spitz gets along quite well when out of the house, however, there were occasion where my Chow started biting, unsure if it was play biting my Spitz during walks.
I’m hoping to get some advices on how to introduce two properly and get them to live harmony in my apartment.
Thank you, and your advise is greatly appreciated.
My response:
Your dogs are both young so there is that going for you. It seems that you have done a fair bit of research on your own, good for you! It will help you to be educated on how to read dog’s body language so you can be more confident in knowing what you are seeing – aggression or dominance display, play or fighting, how to know when things are getting tense and you need to intervene.
First thing I would do is this: (more…)
Puppies again.
So, we’ve got three new puppies at our house. Here’s their story (as much as I know and I’ll ever know):
swaddled puppy
Their mama was a pregnant stray that was hanging around someone’s home. They let her live in their garage and there she had 7 puppies. Then, when they were 6 weeks old, she “ran away” and “got hit by a car” and died. So, no mama. H.E.L.P. split up the group and we got three of them. They are really small for 7 weeks so they look like they’ll be around 40 lbs. when full grown. They seem well socialized to people, not afraid and in fact very willing to follow and interact. So the original family did a lot right. Thank you to them, whoever they are.
But they all have a weird and very scabby thing going on with their skin. I gave them all baths and tried my best to scrape the scabs off with a flea comb but it was really difficult. It is really strange, I haven’t seen anything quite like it before. The vet said that it might be “ringworm” and that if it is I shouldn’t worry about trying not to get it because I likely already have it. Yikes. But then he said that he believed it was unlikely going to be ringworm. So I bathed them all and they all screamed bloody murder. Then I swaddled them in big towels and laid them in my son’s arms with a space heater on them all. They all promptly fell asleep – except Ryan. Then I cut all their toe nails and re-combed the one with the worse scabs and fed them. They are really quiet in their room now. Probably pee is everywhere.
They have little short ears and fluffy fur. The little black male has a blue spot on his tongue! Maybe some Chow in them? I’ll have to do some research to see what other breeds have blue spots on the tongue. There’s one yellow female and one really fluffy black female. They are so cute. It is nice to have puppies again and to have so few! What an easy time this well be – if they all turn out to be healthy…
