So I have two dogs, both of them miscreants in their own ways, and this coming weekend we have friends coming camping with us who wanted to bring their dog, a pit bull. So before we get into the introduction of all the dogs, let me provide a little back story to both of my dogs. Our oldest dog is about 6 or 7 now and her name is Princess, a mutt with some lab, Sheppard, and Rhodesian ridgeback in her. We got her when we first moved into our house and at that time she was approximately 1 year old. She was a rescue from the Milford Animal Shelter and when we first got her she had issues. They had found her abandoned, locked in a crate for about a week when the homeowners left their house. She was ornery with other dogs, super hyper, loved to jump on people, and was not really trained at all. We never had her formally trained or socialized with other dogs, but she improved by leaps and bounds over the first couple of years we had her. She always had control issues with other dogs, thinking she was the dominant one, and if she was or is on a leash, she is a complete wild card with other dogs. Essentially, she could get along with other dogs as long as she had a little rough and tumble interaction with them to establish dominance. The problem with Princess is that she is extremely vocal when she is playing or anything else and most people get a little scared of her. She has never drawn blood from another dog (other than our other dog), yet people get freaked out when they hear her and see their dog start tumbling with ours. So we have tried to keep her away from other dogs as much as possible due to that fact. Aside from that one minor issue, she is extremely well behaved. We can let her off the leash in the woods without worry, she poops and pees in the back corner of the yard where we want her to, and she is amazing with our son even letting him push his finger into her eye without snipping or biting. So that's our first dog. Our second dog, Aspen, couldn't be any different. He was also a rescue, saved from a kill shelter in New Britain with only 2 days left to live. They had found him chained to a fence in February at the ripe old age of 4 months. He, as with Princess is a mutt with boxer, pit bull, and some terrier in him along with something else we presume. Where Princess is mostly the calm, relaxed type, Aspen is the psycho, hyper, "fetch a ball" all day type of dog.
When we introduced Aspen to Princess at our house, there was blood drawn. We put them in a room together and let them figure it out. There was some biting, some shaking, but nothing serious. The interaction between the two further solidified our feelings that we should keep Princess away from most other dogs. Eventually, the two got along and while they will never be best friends due to their vastly different personalities, they at least have a long lasting respect for each other. Aspen is comprised of all muscle and no fat. He easily jumps my four foot fence around my driveway and if chasing a tennis ball, can even make it over the six foot portion that surrounds the rest of my yard. He is tall and scrawny and we get questioned every time we bring him to the vet as to whether or not we are feeding him enough. When we tell the vet that he gets 5 cups of food a day and can't get past 65 lbs, they cease all questioning. He just has a super high metabolism combined with an incessant need to burn it off either through walking, hiking, or chasing tennis balls or car tires, or whatever you throw. If you threw a plastic chair I guarantee that he would fetch the chair and bring it back. With all that being said, we wanted to let our friends bring their dog to Vermont, but we wanted to make sure their pit bull, Nala, got along with our dogs. Amongst our two dogs, Princess is the dominant one. Aspen will follow her lead when it comes to other dogs and with that in mind, and after consulting friends who know dogs better than us, we decided that the first introduction would include only Princess and Nala in a neutral location. My friend told me that Nala has no problems with other dogs and further, has no problem submitting to a dominant dog, whatever the breed. So this past Sunday was the day of reckoning, would our dogs get along or would they be mortal enemies. We brought them to Naugatuck State Forest, and introduced them. Princess was off the leash immediately as I didn't want her to get protective of me and initially there was the mandatory sniffing of the genitals. That lasted about 3 seconds before Princess decided that Nala needed to be subdued. They tumbled for about 10 seconds before Nala gave up, rolled on her back, and Princess saw that she was fine. After that initial little scuffle, the two looked as if they had been friends for years. They ran together, they swam together, they got along great. Success.
So then we decided that since the introduction of Princess and Nala went so well that we should bring them both back and introduce Nala to Aspen with Princess around. When we got back to my house and we all walked up to the back gate, Aspen went right for my friend and his girlfriend, completely ignoring or oblivious to the fact that two dogs had walked right by him, not one like he is used to. Right after that, though, he figured out that there was something different and began his obligatory genital sniffing. I'm glad that we did the introduction the way we did because I would notice Aspen glance over at Princess periodically to see what her reaction was to this new dog. As Princess wasn't reacting, Aspen played very nice, the only time a scuffle broke out being over a tennis ball that Nala stole from Aspen. Nobody, and I mean nobody, takes anything from Aspen without consequences. That being said, the only time he will attack is if its another dog, never a person. There were a few times when Aspen and Nala started getting a little rowdy and Princess had to join in and make her presence known, but within ten minutes of the introduction, all three dogs were lounging in my yard. Success again. So it turns out that there will be three dogs with us this coming weekend in Vermont and it should be a blast. It also gives me hope for Princess that she can and will get along with other dogs given the right circumstances. For now, we will just enjoy the coming weekend with three dogs that get along and deal with Princess and other dogs later.
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