Will an old dog get along with a new puppy?

Question

I have a 13 year old black lab mixed with greyhound and I am adopting a 5 month old black lab/australian sheppard mix.Will the older dog be defensive. Another problem is that they are both female. How is the right way to introduce them?

Answer 1

First of all you must introduce them on neutral territory. That means outside your property.

Ask a friend of family member to have the pup on the lead and you have your dog on the lead.



Meet up somewhere and go for a walk together with the dogs so they can get to know one another. I suggest about an hour together before you go home together.



Always, always treat your black lab as the number one dog. Make sure you have separate feeding areas and the black lab eats first. Once they have both finished eating, pick up the bowls so there can be no fights. Dogs can be defensive over their food bowls.



Your lab will need to have time out from the new dog and we have found in our house that baby gates work brilliantly. This means that you can separate the dogs but they can still see each other and smell each other through the bars. You do not need to have total isolation unless one of the dogs is really misbehaving.



It is really important to keep the pack order when bringing in a new dog so as I said, the lab comes first in everything and never let the new dog push in when you are doing something with the lab. Jealousy creates problems.



I also suggest training for the new dog and maybe even the lab if required. General obedience training is very good to put in place and will help with any dominance challenges from the young one.

Answer 2

Keep the puppy in an isolated room (preferably a bedroom where it has people company) for about a week. This gets it used the enviorment and your new dog will be able to smell/sense it's presence. This eases both dogs into the changing enviornment. Supervise their first meeting and make it brief. Do this for as long as you deem fit, then their contact can be unlimited.



It is my experience that this works with both cats and dogs. Older animals are generally passive and caring toward younglings, or are otherwise indifferent. They should get along fine or the older dog may ignore the pup, and there is a chance it may be hostile and growl at the puppy. Female dogs (as far as I know) don't have as much trouble getting acclimated to each other as say, male dogs.



Hope that helps!

Answer 3

Well ive been in a similar situation and all I can say is that it really depends on the dog.I had a female chihuahua who was about 7 at the time and we bought a new born male chihuahua,the older girl was defensive at first but after about a week or so they grew on to each other and eventually even had puppies together!! (by accident though DX) Anyways im pretty sure that your dogs will get along it will just take some time,don't worry about it though!! :)

Answer 4

possible with the right training and supervision

older dogs don't like newer dogs in their house



leash and supervision 24/7

Answer 5

mine got along fine yours should too.