Dog Community

Bringing a second dog home. I have some questions.

Posted : 1/20/2007 8:02:50 AM

Hello. I am new here and have been reading over the past week while our family has been on the search for a second dog.

Our first dog is the most lovely four legged being on the planet. She is calm, laid back, and ever so loving. She has spoiled us rotten. I will post some pics later tonight! We adopted her from a shelter, she had been rescued from the gas chamber and I just can't believe she was in either shelters for long without being adopted out! She is the PERFECT family pet. Ok, LOL, she isn't perfect. She eats anything that isn't moving. She ATE my wool coat! I wish her problem was chewing...then I wouldn't have to be so nervous about an intestinal blockage.

Here is the petfinder link to our new puppyhttp://search.petfinder.com/petnote/displaypet.cgi?petid=7715972. The shelter owner says she doesn't have the temperment of a Jack Russel at all, they are rather stumped as to what she is. I think she is just beautiful. Is that a breed? When people ask me what she is can I say "Beautiful"? Anyhow, she meets our needs. We were looking for a small dog that would be easy for my oldest son to handle on walks. He walks Heidi very well, but she is a POWERFUL dog (some people have mentioned they thought she might have some bull in her) and sometimes she is too much for him. He takes care of her so much and he really wanted a dog that he could walk while I walked Heidi. That restricted the size a bit. Sally fits the bill perfectly. Plus, she is calm natured. LOL, I don;t think we could ask for more. Oh, wait! She is already housetrained! Why was this dog not already adopted?!?!?!

So, that is tyhe background info.

My questions are:
What do I need to know before bringing this puppy home?
We will obvioulsy need to get a leash before even picking her up...but will she already have a collar?
Do we feed her the same food as Heidi? Heidi is much larger (35 lbs) and we feed her Royal Canin dog food. But will the younger dog need a different kind?
I am assuming they need separate dog dishes, but what about water bowls? What about toys? Sally will get her own bed, but am I forgetting anything?
We have a vet already and she will go on Monday.
I read about letting the dogs meet on netral territory. Here is our plan for that.
Sally will need some supplies and a crate. I will ride with Heidi and the kids to petsmart and dh will take Sally in his car. They will get their first meeting there. heisi adores every dog she has ever met at Petsmart. Then we will go to a park across the street. Heidi has never been there and I heard it was a great place for dogs...
After some time together, we will take them home, let Heidi off leash and keep Sally on a leash.
Does that sound like a good plan? I know that the first few day, week even are important and I want to make sure we do everything right.

I love advice. throw it at me!

Oh, and I am a rotten speller, and an even worse typist. Please forgive me.

Becka (with some loving nudges from our silly girl- Heidi)

glenmar

Posted : 1/20/2007 8:12:05 AM

I'd nix the park plans unless there are no other dogs there. You don't want a strange dog throwing a monkey wrench into the party.

Yes, her own bowl and crate, some toys of her own, but I find that in time everyone just shares anyhow, depends on the shelter whether she'll have a collar or not...wouldn't hurt to pick one up that YOU like just to be safe.

Food? Well, the pup should have either an excellent quality puppy formula or an excellent quality All Life Stages Food. I personally don't feed puppy food, but that's me. I use Innova regular for ALS with my foster pups.

Now, just because she's small, doesn't mean this pup won't pull on lead. She's going to NEED training and I'd strongly suggest a postive reinforcement trainer for that. Socialzation is important to all pups and training will strengthen the bond between you....and it would be a good idea to let your son attend and handle her with you there. I have an 85 pound german shepherd that my 4 year old niece can walk with supervision. He wouldn't DREAM of pulling, yet my cockers could yank ME off my feet.....lack of leash training was all the difference.

Good luck and enjoy the new pup.

Becka

Posted : 1/20/2007 8:31:51 AM

Thanks Glenda!

Does she need a separate water dish as well?

She will definately be going to training. Heidi was enrolled before she was with us for a week. She would be going to the second class right now except that they decided to hold it at 8:00 at night and it takes me 45 minutes to get there. I am a bad night driver so I am waiting for the next session. But both dogs WILL be in training (or should I say the owners will be in training).

The shelter says she is already leash trained, so that is another plus. Really and truely, it amazes me the kind of dogs that are passed up.

I will nix the park. We should just spend a little longer at Petsmart then?

glenmar

Posted : 1/20/2007 8:45:17 AM

I have several water bowls throughout the house, but I've got six dogs and no water bowl belongs to anyone in particular. They all share.

The park might be fine....just be on the lookout for other dogs visiting it.

I'm leary of what the shelters say. Leash trained to ME might be entirely different than leash trained to a shelter worker. It's their JOB to put the best postive spin on the puppers to get them placed. Also, no matter how perfectly she might behave at the shelter, she *might* have potty accidents at home, she *might* have leash issues at home.....there is a transition period before you'll really see her "true colors" and since dogs don't generalize well, not going potty in the kennel at the shelter might NOT translate to not going potty on the diningroom carpeting...after all, she doesn't HAVE to sleep there.....but, whatever happens, be calm, consistent and firm in the guidelines you set down for her.

Sounds like you've done your research and are well prepared. Enjoy!

Chuffy

Posted : 1/20/2007 10:29:51 AM

I think she looks like she has some parson russel in her (like posh jack russell!), they vary in colourings and markings and are usually predominantly white. If you say Jack Russell mix or Parson Russell mix you won't go wrong. Just so you can see a pic of a PRT:

http://www.russellpower.de/parson-jack-russell-terrier/news/news_18.php

Its great that she seems to have so much basic training already, but when you get her home try to assume she doesn't have that. I do suspect a lot of shelter people"sell" the dog to you, exaggerating the little training they have been given or their positive traits and I think people take it as gospel and end up either returning the dog later on or struggling with problems because their expectations were too high.

She may take a few weeks to settle in..... or she may appear to be an angel for a couple of weeks and then a problem could emerge. Try to prevent problems wherever you can. Keep forbidden things out of reach, safely confine her when you can't watch her and supervise her closely at all other times. From the first time you walk her, stop instantly or change direction if she pulls on her lead. Have your eyes peeled to catch little things early and stop them before they generalise or become ingrained and what the shelter says should turn out to be true.

Christi

Posted : 1/20/2007 11:09:01 AM

I was thinking that if you don't go to the park, maybe it would be a good idea to take a walk around your neighborhood (or whatever) before you go into the house. Take both pups for a walk on leash and continue to let them sniff and hang out before they go into the house. We have a foster and this seemed to work well for us before the foster came into our home.

J M

Posted : 1/20/2007 1:05:16 PM

Sometimes 2 females can be a problem. Not always. I can't say I am an expert in this area, as I have never owned bitches. But I have seen quite a few bitch fighting threads on the forum. Evidently, sometimes they can get to the point of being deadly.

ColleenC

Posted : 1/20/2007 1:37:24 PM

I'm going to say she is FULL Russell. My mentor is a Russell breeder and I have two of my own. She has a beautiful head that fits the standard very well. She looks like she may have some Eastlake bloodlines in her. There are not a ton of good breeders in the US and each one has their own distinct look. Most people are used to seeing the "shortie" Russells, but the long legged ones are actually the original type. I'm going to post a link to Eastlake's website. They don't show a lot of their all white Russells. Those don't usually do well in the show ring because judges prefer color. But, they produce a lot of dogs that have little color. We have one Eastlake dog who has almost no color and his head looks a lot like your little girl. I will post a link for him as well.
[linkhttp://home.earthlink.net/~estlke/]http://home.earthlink.net/~estlke/[/link] Eastlake Russells
[linkhttp://www.brightok.net/~aubry_osu/]http://www.brightok.net/~aubry_osu/[/link] Turk (our Eastlake boy)
You'll have to look past the hair on her face to see the true shape of her head. I guess I do it so often that it is easy for me.
Two females can sometimes be a problem. Terriers tend to fit that a little more than other dogs. Be careful with them. Don't leave them unattended together. Feed them in separate rooms. At least until you are sure of their temperments together.
Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions! ~Colleen

J M

Posted : 1/20/2007 1:50:14 PM

My understanding is sometimes bitches can live together for a good while. Then one day they go at it and it is never ending until one is rehomed to prevent death.

I am not meaning to scare the OP. I think some bitches can live together without ever a problem.

But man...just the possibility of maybe one day having to choose which dog will go, which will stay, may be too much for some people.

Becka

Posted : 1/20/2007 5:05:23 PM

We are picking up Sally at 7:00 tonight. Thanks for all the links. I didn't even know there were more than one kind of JRT. I thought they were all just like "Wishbone".

I am confident in the shelter, they have a great reputation and have written several articles on petfinder. We have a 30 day trial period to make sure she is a good fit for the family.

I am hoping the two girls will be okay together. I tried researching before we chose our dog and everything I read said it would be okay as long as they were both fixed. Is this correct? I am so stinkin excited about seeing her. I have to wait and be patient. My husband is picking her up and I will meet him with Heidi at petsmart. I want so badly to be the one to pick her up, but Heidi has chosen me as her primary owner and I think she would not like it if she saw me with another dog she didn't know. So, we will take things slowly and I will be patient with both of them.

Luvntzus

Posted : 1/20/2007 5:32:35 PM

ORIGINAL: RebeckaK

I am hoping the two girls will be okay together. I tried researching before we chose our dog and everything I read said it would be okay as long as they were both fixed. Is this correct?

Nope that's not correct. Everything I've ever read and known to be true is that the best pairing is opposite sex, next best is two neutered males, and last would be two spayed females.

Hopefully your girls will get along. The most important thing to do will be to reinforce the status of the alpha dog, which I assume will be Heidi, but you never know. Make sure you feed and pet the dominant dog first and don't attempt to coddle the lower status dog because you feel sorry for them. That often gets them in trouble with the alpha dog and they don't want that!

Make sure you feed them in separate rooms indefinitely, until you know that they aren't going to fight over food. I would also hold off on giving them any really high value items together like bones. I think prevention is the best measure because from what I've heard, girls don't forget and tend to hold grudges forever. Anyway, not trying to be too negative here, just wanted to offer you some advice to help you. Please post pics when you can!

glenmar

Posted : 1/20/2007 5:32:54 PM

At one time I had three cocker bitches and a spayed mixed breed in the house. Terrier included in the mix. TWO of my bitches would go at each other from time to time, but they could be stopped and it was rare. The mix would run around biting butts trying to stop things.

It could be trying sometimes, but it was manageable.

chelsea_b

Posted : 1/20/2007 10:06:10 PM

I just have to say that the only dogs Cherokee (my female dog-aggressive dog) has ever really gotten along with have been females. She lived with one for the first three years we had her, and I think they only had one real scuffle with any injury at all (a slightly torn ear that didn't even require vetting). They postured and made noise at each other occasionally, but that's rather normal for any two dogs. Cherokee also used to play with my aunt's female alllll the time, and they never once had a problem. Compare that with all the males she's had issues with, and well, you might just doubt the "2 females" thing.

Chuffy

Posted : 1/21/2007 9:41:07 AM

ORIGINAL: Luvntzus

Nope that's not correct. Everything I've ever read and known to be true is that the best pairing is opposite sex, next best is two neutered males, and last would be two spayed females.

Hopefully your girls will get along. The most important thing to do will be to reinforce the status of the alpha dog, which I assume will be Heidi, but you never know. Make sure you feed and pet the dominant dog first and don't attempt to coddle the lower status dog because you feel sorry for them. That often gets them in trouble with the alpha dog and they don't want that!

Make sure you feed them in separate rooms indefinitely, until you know that they aren't going to fight over food. I would also hold off on giving them any really high value items together like bones. I think prevention is the best measure because from what I've heard, girls don't forget and tend to hold grudges forever. Anyway, not trying to be too negative here, just wanted to offer you some advice to help you. Please post pics when you can!

Agree to 1st paragraph, disagree with second. The most important thing to do is reinforce the status of the dominant dog - that's YOU! Employ NILIF with both of them. Trying to define or enforce status between the dogs themselves is tricky, particularly with bitches, because the pack order is not rigid. It is fluid and changes depending on circumstance so knowing who to support at any given moment is hard. If you get it wrong you can end up confusing the issue and causing problems. What a lot of people do here (me included) is base all food/treats/attention on behaviour. The best behaved dog gets petted first. The pushy one gets ignored. The fastest to sit gets a treat first, etc. Studies have shown that model-rival training is almost as effective as operant conditioning (thats your treat based, positive training) so treating them this way actually helps train them to be better behaved.

Do feed them seperately and offer high value things (like bones) seperately, just to be on the safe side, if they have crates then crating them at these times is ideal. If they don't have crates I recommend them! Amongst other things, it will give each dog a safe haven to go to if they want a "break" from the other dog.

glenmar

Posted : 1/21/2007 9:49:38 AM

I agree with Chuffy. I don't support any of my dogs as the dominant pack member. THAT would be me. I am the leader and I'm not terribly concerned where anyone else falls in the pack order. I greet, I give treats, I feed, I release from crates and I do absolutely everything based on behavior. I don't particularly CARE who thinks they are the top dog among one another, so long as they recognize that I am the hallowed leader.