MeatBall Meeting her Siblings

In my last post I told you that we went and picked up our new fur baby, MeatBall! Well that was the exciting part. On the drive home is when my nerves kicked in. We already have two dogs at home. So my brain started going a mile a minute with questions. "What if they don't accept her?, What if one tries to start a fight?, What if this? What if that?" Finally my husband looked at me and said. "It will be fine, you need to quit worrying" I couldnt help but calm down a little bit. Then he told me the game plan. After hearing the plan it put my nerves at ease. I will be telling you what we did to make sure no one got hurt and to make the transaction easier for your existing fur babies. 

This process of getting your existing babies use to your new puppy starts before you even get the puppy. We were blessed with being able to see MeatBall before she was ready to come home with us. We would make sure we had Sadie and Mr. Weenie (our existing babies) smell our clothes when we would arrive home. While they were smelling the puppy on us we would say, "that's Meatball, thats your sister" so they could get use to her smell and name. Our breeder would also send us videos, we would always play those videos full volume so they could hear Meatball. 

When we arrived home with MeatBall, my husband went in to the house first. He let Sadie and Mr. Weenie out to go poppy. The way our house was at the time, We let the dogs outside in the backyard which was fenced in, and they couldn't see what was on the front porch. So I waited on the front porch while our doggies did their business and burned off a little energy. (Sadie is a boxer so she is full of energy) Then my husband let them in. Here was the moment of truth. We wanted our existing dogs and the puppy to meet in a neutral area. The back yard (dogs yard) was Sadie's domain, Mr. Weenie is a old little toy dashound that really doesn't care about much. So we wasnt really to worried about him. It was mainly Sadie we were worried about. 

My husband gave me the go ahead to come in to the house. He put a leash and collar on Sadie and I kept Meatball in my arms. I walked over to Sadie with my husband standing right there holding her leash and in a position he could easily grab her if need be. We let Sadie sniff MeatBall. This went on for a good five minutes. After that I did walk over to Mr. Weenie and let him smell her. He lifted his head off of the couch to smell her for five seconds then layed right back down. We kept Sadie on the leash and I put Meatball on the floor for her to check out her new home. After about thirty minutes we decided Sadie and Meatball would be just fine. So we took the lease and collar off of Sadie.  Sadie followed her around for a little while until Meatball got up the courage to play with Sadie. She did a little puppy bark and ran up to Sadie's feet. I don't know if I had ever seen Sadie run so fast. She ran straight to the couch and jumped up on it. Remember Meatball is just a puppy so she wasn't tall enough to jump on the couch. After that Sadie really didn't want anything to do with her for probably a good month. Sadie gets very jealous especially when her daddy is giving an other dog lovens. The really funny thing was when Mr. Weenie being the grumpy old man he is was the one to play with her ( until she got bigger then him.) Like he was a little puppy again. Sadie ended up getting over her jealousy with MeatBall now they are inseparable. 

Just a little recap if you can expose your existing dogs to the puppies smell. That way they are use to it when you bring them home. Do a meet up in a neutral place in your home. Put a lease on your existing dog just to add that extra security in case things don't go as planned you can easy remove them before things get bad. Give them time to smell one another before you just put the puppy on the floor. Here is the most important thing to remember! Do not force the puppy on your existing dogs. That is their home and you are the one changing it bringing in a new puppy so it will take them time to adjust. Just like when Sadie jumped on the couch we knew she was done dealing with the puppy. So we just gave her, her space and did not try to push the puppy on her. We just let her be. If you have any questions please leave a comment and I would be happy to help any way I can. 

I hope you have a very wonderful day!