When you’ve considered the implications of bringing home a second dog – and decided that you still think it’s a good idea – what is the best way to introduce your new dog to your home?  How do you best ensure that your current dog will welcome the newbie with open…er, paws?  And not open jaws?  I’m going to give you a few approaches to expanding your family with a new dog or puppy to increase your chances of doing it successfully.

Overall, what you should consider is:  How do I allow my dogs to get to know each other with the least amount of stress?  And how do I ensure that whatever stress arises is dealt with quickly, in a way that feels good to my dogs?

With that in mind, here are a few approaches that are available to you.

1. Hyper-vigilance.
2. Complete laissez-faire.
3. The middle way.

Before you consider any of these, just make sure that you’ve read my article on how to introduce your dog to another dog in 10 easy steps.  As you might imagine, those steps will come in handy, especially for the initial introduction that you make with your dogs.  OK – now for the heart of the matter.  How do you best ensure the happy co-existence of your pups, old and new?

Hyper-Vigilance and Complete Interaction Management

This method sounds technical and stressful – and that’s because it is.  Or, at least, has the potential to be.  In HVCIM (for short) you would manage every interaction between the two dogs, for fear that they might not get along so well.  You would never allow them free time with each other, especially indoors, and would ensure that you do everything with each of them separately.  Feed, train, play, etc.

Now, if you were adopting a dog that had known aggression issues (or if your dog has known aggression issues), then maybe you’d want to err on the side of hyper-vigilance.  You want to be sure that your dogs are going to be fine together before you give them free reign – and even then you’d want to avoid charged activities that could potentially lead to violence.  Walks together will be great.  Feeding together – probably not so much.

Complete Laissez-Faire

Turned off by the idea of having to manage every interaction between your dogs (or maybe simply wondering what the point of having more than one dog is if you can’t just let them be a family), then you might decide to follow the complete laissez-faire approach.  If you subscribe to this approach, you basically have decided to not worry about it.  You bring the new dog home (please at least follow the steps to introduce them), and then just let whatever happens…happen.  If you’re lucky – no problems.  If you’re less fortunate, the new dog in the household creates new energy in the household, which in turn creates problems for you, and for your family, and for your current dog.  Then you call me to help you figure out how to help your dogs get along with each other.  And while I’m happy to help, why not just proceed on to the “middle way”, which I think you’ll find to be much more satisfying and successful.  End of conversation.

The Middle Way

The thing is, there are aspects of both of the previously described approaches that make sense.

Hyper-vigilance ensures that you’re aware of the potential for situations to get too energized, or stressful, and for negative interactions to occur.

Complete Laissez-faire allows you to relax a bit, to trust things to work out the way that they’re supposed to, and recognizes that not all situations are going to be problematic.

You can bring both of these approaches together in the Middle Way.

Here’s the easiest way to explain it:

1. Your goal is to keep things relatively stress-free for you and your dogs.
2. When thinking about potential situations, think about how “energized” they are.
3. And then ask yourself if there’s a way for you to manage that energy – meaning can you give each of your dogs a way to release that energy, so they avoid getting stressed?  And so they avoid taking it out on (or with) each other?
4. Or conversely, if the situation is low-key, then you probably don’t need to be concerned.

Indoors and Outdoors

In general, it’s helpful for you to remember the difference between how dog’s experience emotional intensity in an indoor environment versus an outdoor environment.  What that means is that indoors, you’ll probably want to err on the side of Hyper-vigilance in situations that produce lots of energy – like, for instance, meal-time.  And in situations that are low-key (like everyone hanging out reading in the living room), you can just relax about it.

If your dogs get stirred up and start to wrestle, then it’s probably a good idea to bring them outside for a play session – rather than letting things escalate indoors.  Of course the way that you do that can be completely low-key and stress-free – don’t get all freaked out about it!  To the extent that it’s possible, all of your indoor interactions should focus on keeping things relaxed for each of your dogs.  Even downtime in their separate crates can be beneficial for maintaining a chilled-out vibe in your home.

Outdoors your dogs have more emotional flexibility, so you can experiment a bit to see how they interact outside the home.  However, the best strategy for managing outdoor time is to always start out with a walk together.  If you can have one human for each dog, so much the better.  The walk allows you to give your dogs time to feel themselves united by a common purpose (the walk), and since their attention and energy is directed at their experience of the environment, it also gives them a chance to calibrate their emotional interactions with each other.  Contrast this with taking your dogs outside and having them just focus on each other, or on competing for toys/attention – which might not be a sure recipe for disaster, but will surely increase your chances of creating strife amongst the canines.

After your walk, you can bring the dogs to an open space where they can play more freely.   You’ll find that the quality of their interactions is much less intense, and much more playful.  In order for play to occur, there has to be some energy flowing between them – but too much intensity is more likely to lead to fights than wrestling and chasing each other.  As a safety precaution, you should have one of the dogs attached to a long leash – so in case altercations break out you can separate them more easily (if both dogs are on long leashes you run the risk of getting them entangled, so I’d go with a long leash and a short leash, or a long leash and a simple flat collar on dog #2).

Watch them to see if they’re flipping polarities easily – switching from chasing to being chased (predator to prey) and vice versa.  If the dogs appear to be “stuck,” or if the energy is starting to get a little heated, then that’s a good time to separate them.  You can walk some more (to get the energy flowing), or separately play tug-of-war (or do pushing) with them as individuals, to help them release any of the stress that was building up between them.

Make sure you trust your gut on when it’s time to split the dogs up and work with them individually to release energy and stress.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to a client about a dog fight only to have them tell me something like “I knew it was going to happen, but I just let things keep going.”  Trust yourself.  Always better to have too little play between the dogs (and more interaction between you and each dog as individuals) than to have there be too much and have a fight erupt.

Overall Structure to Building the Relationships

Overall the structure is simple.  Spend time with each of your dogs separately.  Spend time with them together.  It’s helpful to have one human per dog, so if they need to be split apart you can do that easily.  Remember that play time between the dogs can raise their energy level and stress (even if it’s fun) – so make sure you allow time for your dogs to release stress with YOU each day (the aforementioned pushing and tug are good places to start).  Give your dogs plenty of downtime, and keep the indoor environment as relaxing as possible.

Pay attention to what’s happening between them, and if you feel like there’s too much friction (or that your dogs aren’t orienting enough around you), then feel free to use crates as a vehicle for keeping your dogs chilled out and safe – apart from each other.  Then, when they come out of the crate, let that be time (at least initially) spent with you, outside, pushing, tugging, connecting.  Of course there are also lots of activities on my instructional DVD set to help you build and strengthen your connection with each of your dogs.

What Nola taught me about welcoming strangers

You might recall that my dog Nola used to be a terribly aggressive dog.  Even back then, whenever I had a roommate with a dog, or a girlfriend with a dog, or (you get the picture), she always seemed to be able to work it out with them and get along well.  I think that this is because overall, even when I didn’t entirely “know what I was doing,” I was still paying attention to my intuition and a common sense approach to the best way to grow one’s family without too much friction.  Of course it does happen that dogs don’t always get along, but in general, if you stay relaxed, reasonably aware of what’s going on, and take preventative measures – along with working in exercises to keep your dogs focused on you instead of each other – then it’ll work out just fine.  And if you’re really paying attention to helping your dogs release stress with you, then you can be reasonably sure that they won’t take it out on each other.

Ultimately your dogs want what you want: a happy, stress-free family.

If you’ve read more than a couple articles here on the Natural Dog Blog, then you know that the way that I work with dogs has also had a profound effect on my relationships with people.  In fact, along with coaching people with their dogs, I have been coaching people to improve their relationships, and I have also been studying Strategic Intervention with Cloe Madanes, one of the world’s leading family therapists.  So when the following question arrived in my inbox I thought you might be interested in the answer:

Just read your fantastic, and thorough article which helped define calm-assertive energy for me. I need to learn how to “be the moose” with my dog, AND with my husband. I tend to go into prey energy with the husband, who is very alpha-male-executive. Then I get mad and pop up into predator/angry parent mode.

Do you have any advice for how to stay moose-like with people?!

How can I use Natural Dog Training in my relationship with my spouse?

Now for all I know this question was asked purely in jest, but the truth is that there are some great parallels that I think will really help you wrap your significant other around your finger (or simply enjoy a more dynamic relationship with others).  I’m going to give you a few general principles that can have a huge impact on your connection with other people.

First principle:  Meet the other person’s needs in a way that is satisfying to them.

In the Natural Dog Training world, we say that a dog’s most important question is “What do I do with my energy?”  We know that for a dog the most satisfying thing to do with their emotional energy is to release it in a way that honors their prey drive.

So for the person in your life whom you’re trying to influence, ask yourself: What is this person’s most important question?  How does this person like to meet their most basic needs, for certainty, variety, significance, love, growth, and contribution?  Now think of ways that you can take charge of meeting that person’s needs.  Meet 3 or more of them at a high level, and that person will literally become addicted to you.  And follow you around like a puppy dog.

Second Principle: Build a person’s attraction to you through helping them overcome resistance.

In Natural Dog Training, we reinforce our dog’s attraction to us through pushing and tug-of-war.

Those exercises teach a dog how to give us their energy, particularly in emotionally charged moments.  In other words, it teaches them to keep communicating with us even when things get intense.  Sounds like the kind of thing you’d want from your partner, doesn’t it?

With dogs, we make it happen by enticing a dog with tasty food (or, in tug, a license to bite), and then providing resistance that they must overcome (pushing or pulling) in order to get the ultimate reward – which is the release of tension and the sweet feeling of food in the belly or a celebratory run around the yard with the tug toy.  Repeating this cycle over and over again draws our dogs to us energetically whenever they feel emotionally charged.

Can you turn your interactions with your spouse into a fun game that they can win? Is the “prize” a truly compelling release of stress and tension into the joy of self-expression and communication?  Of safe vulnerability?  Can you make the game more challenging, but still winnable?  The harder that your partner works, the more fun you have with the game, the greater the release at the end – and the more attractive you become.

I’m not talking about playing “hard-to-get” – the key is that you’re actually engaged in a communication with your partner.  Just like the way that you push with your dog, keeping contact, staying receptive, paying attention to what your dog can handle (and challenging that threshold slowly, gradually, in an atmosphere of safety), so too can you make this game with your partner safe, fun, and a way that you two dance up to and past the moments of exhilaration and release – together.

Third Principle:  The Dog Is Always Right.  Attribute Positive Intent to Your Partner’s Actions.

The Dog is always right.  That means that in any situation your dog is doing whatever comes naturally – which, in general, is whatever they’ve learned is the answer to the question of “What do I do with my energy?”  The dog doesn’t “want” to chew your slippers any more than your dog “wants” to come when called.  What your dog does want is simply to find the most compelling way to release the emotional energy that they’re experiencing in any given moment.

Generally, the same can be said for your spouse/partner.  Instead of wondering “how could he/she have done this to me?” or “why are they trying so hard to annoy me?” – try instead to attribute positive intent to your partner’s actions.  So a different question to ask yourself is “How was my partner trying to help me (or make me happy) by doing this?”  Or rather than having to even ask the question, just assume that your partner is making the best decisions that they can at any given moment, and that they have your best interests at heart.  Now you can free yourself up to think about how your actions contributed to the current situation, and how you can change to assist in creating the outcome that you want.

Here’s an example of all these principles in action – from my wife.

In my household, I’m responsible for the dishes.  Typically, the only time that I have available to do them is after the children are asleep.  This also happens to be the only time I usually have available to hang out alone with my wife.  For me, connecting with my wife is my top priority, so some nights I choose to just spend time with her, and we wake up to dirty dishes.

Now my wife hates seeing a big pile of dirty dishes when she walks into the kitchen.  So one day we had a conversation about the whole situation, because I felt like it was un-winnable for me – a double bind.  Over the course of the conversation, my wife told me that walking into a clean kitchen in the morning is one of the ways that she actually feels loved and cared for.

So clearly in my quest to make my wife feel loved and cared for, I should do the dishes.

But then I asked Tonya “At night, would you rather spend time together, or hang out by yourself while I’m in the kitchen doing the dishes?”  To which she replied “I’d rather spend time together”.

“And now,” I said, “you can see why I’m completely screwed.”

What does my wife do the night after we have this conversation about the dishes?  She hangs out with me, in the kitchen, while I do them!

Now clearly my wife has internalized principles 1 and 3.  And although it could probably use a little work, even principle 2 is in there.

1. She understood my needs (to feel connected to her through spending time together).
2. She took a game that was challenging (choose between washing the dishes and hanging out with me – an impossible choice) and turned it into one that was challenging AND winnable (wash the dishes AND you get to hang out with me).
3. She recognized that the times I didn’t wash the dishes it was because I was actually trying to make the “right” choice – i.e. to spend time with her and be connected.

Just that one time of her hanging around by my side as I scrubbed pots and pans has paid huge dividends in terms of my affection for and attraction to her.  Just once was enough to do that!

Quick hint for all you ladies out there – most guys have the same top priority – to make you happy.  As you can see in this example – it’s not always clear how to do that!

Quick hint for all you guys out there – most women need to feel the presence of their man – that you’re really listening to their needs and desires and respecting them – without reacting to them. Imagine if I had just flipped out because I was in an untenable position, or told my wife that she could only HAVE one or the other (dishes or time together)!  Needless to say, we wouldn’t have ultimately connected and resolved this issue.

Quick hint for those of you not in heterosexual relationships, or for those of you to whom my sweeping generalities above seem to not apply – figure out which of the above statements applies to you, and which one applies to your partner. Odds are that to create polarity in your relationship, one of you has adopted one position, and one the other.  This understanding will give you a lot more flexibility in how you handle potential conflicts.

I hope that this article has been helpful and informative for you.  There are actually many more Natural Dog Training principles that can have a positive effect on your relationships, and I’ll cover those in the future.  For now, please put these principles into practice and visit us in the forum to let us know how your experiments are going!

I predict that you’ll be most pleased with the results, not only in terms of getting more of what you want out of your relationship, but also in keeping things alive, dynamic, and fun as you explore the possibilities.