How long until new dog gets along with old dog

[BirdieBelle]

It took about a month for our 6-year-old female to get along with a 2-year-old female we adopted.

It was a painful transition, and many times I felt guilty for disrupting our sweet older dog's life. But they tolerate each other nicely now.

[lkb0714]

Originally Posted by Alottolose

I know that this has probably been covered before but I was looking for opinions regarding my circumstances.

I just adopted a 3 year old rescue dog (dog 2) over the weekend to join are 4 year old rescue dog, whom we have had for 3 years and is very bonded to us (dog 1). Dog 1 is 17 pounds, male, sweet with his humans, wary with strangers but not physically aggressive he just barks a lot, playful with dogs he knows and when we adopted him he had been neglected previously (chained up outside, not much food and water) but was not physically abused. Dog 2 is about 25 pounds and female and so far seems very sweet and not aggressive at all with hardly any barking. We don't know much about her since she was found as a stray down south and brought to the northeast. They are both neutered/spade.

I have read previously that when introducing a new dog to the house they should meet on neutral territory. We had wanted to do that but circumstances did not allow it and the dog was brought into our house with not much warning. Walking the dogs together is difficult currently because it is literally -5 (just been watching them in the backyard for short periods of time) where I am right now but it is supposed to warm up this week so we will be walking them together then, Dog 2 seems to really like our house and likes my husband and I but dog 1 is still unsure. He's not barking at dog 2 but they are not playing yet or interacting much. I think dog 2 wants to play more than dog 1.

Given these circumstances, how long do you think it might take for the two dogs to be friends?

I also just got another dog this weekend. IME nothing bonds dogs like walking, so if you can't walk them together outside, walk them together insides. We went to our local bigbox petstore, 3 times this weekend and did ten to 20 laps around the store (I have shelties, they need a lot of exercise). It helped.

[Alottolose]

Thank you all for the kind responses.






So far things have been okay. Dog 2 barks and whines at night seemingly because she wants to sleep in our bed which we don't want. The dogs are allowed on the furniture but we want to keep the bed separate. Dog 1 is very confused by dog 2's whining and I think they are almost starting to bond over that. They still are not playing but they are sort of feeling each other out. I think everything will be okay in time.

[Alottolose]

Another update:


Things are going very well! We have gone 4 days accident free with dog 2 and the two dogs have been playing together more and more each day. I feed them together and they seem respectful of each other's food and different bowls. Thank you all who gave advice!

[gouligann]

Originally Posted by LoriNJ

It depends. Over the years, I have introduced a bunch of adult dogs, all found as strays, to other adult dogs in our home. Most of the time, they learned to get along within a few weeks. (Introductions were always on-leash, and one dog would stay in a large VariKennel until I was sure there would be no violence between them.)

But in one case, one dog, a rat terrier, never stopped being aggressive to 2 mutts. We tried, heavens knows, but the ratty would have none of it. So we ended up having 2 populations of dogs: one upstairs and one downstairs. It wasn't the best imaginable arrangement, but we made it work. Once the rat boy passed away of old age, the 2 dogs downstairs were able to be upstairs with our other dogs all the time.

Funny thing about the rat terrier. When he first met our female pitbull mix rescue, they both hated each other. I thought they would seriously hurt each other. Lots of snarling, snapping, etc. (Thank goodness for leashes and VariKennels..) But over the course of a month+, they began to realize they were both quite alike. They became best buddies and inseparable. When the rat boy died, the female pitbull mix mourned. She pathetically would search under every bush in our large back yard for weeks, presumably looking for him. Eventually, she figured it out, but she was never the same. For her remaining 2 years, she always seemed sad to me, no matter how much extra attention she got. The other dogs were just no substitute for her rat boy.

I think we feel as badly for our other dogs to lose their buddies, as we do to lose our beloved pets. It's a double whammy for us.