We're doin' it!

[rnor1120]

This weekend while talking with friends it was suggested to me that it's time to start introducing Chance to friends' dogs. He's mastered dogs behind fences, so it probably is time to bump it up a little bit. They suggested putting him in a fenced in area with one of the more submissive dogs - no humans in the fence at all with me out of sight- but I'm not completely sold on the idea. He really doesn't want to fight, but I don't want to take chances seriously injuring someone else's dog and back peddling on his training. It was also suggested that we start with very, very small dogs, a 'la Chihuahua. One of my friends has a small chihuahua, about as small as Bauer was when he was a puppy, and we'd introduce them slowly and gradually, eventually working Chance up to sniffing her without flipping out. I wasn't so sure until today.

On our walk, I had Chance sitting three feet away from a fenced Rottweiler barking and growling its head off, and he didn't flinch or fluff his tail up at all. This is the closest I've ever had him to a fenced dog. Also, while walking past a house on our walk, a girl with two mastiff mixes came down the stairs towards us on the street (and I was able to say hello to the girl!), and Chance didn't do anything but look up at me for treats. Even when they got to the street (we were about 30 ft away at this point), he didn't react in any way. The walk was in a loop, so had I kept continued on the normal route we would have crossed paths on the street. I was soooo tempted to do it, but tropical storm Maria is right on top of us right now, and two thunderstorms coming from opposite sides of the island were about to hit us. Chance was already in a bit of a panic with the all the thunder, and I didn't want to stress him out any more, so I took him home instead. I figured it was good to end on a positive note like that.

So I'm going to introduce him to the chihuahua this week, slowly, as always.

[MPbandmom]

I'm definately not an expert, but my thought is that somewhere on here is a thread on introducing dogs on leash. While it is true that dogs can be more reactive when on leash than when off, if you are worried about possible bad reactions and a need to separate the dogs but not being able to, I think I would work on the on leash introduction process first. I haven't done it and I'm not certain of the exact steps. Sometimes there is parallel walking, sometimes it is good to have one dog follow the other, and other times there is a way to circle around each other so that neither dog is brought towards the other one directly head on.

I'm sure others will be able to give more specifics.

[rnor1120]

Like I said, I'm not real sold on the whole idea. I don't like just shoving him in there and having him feeling like he's fending for himself. As for the chihuahua, I'm going to introduce them like I introduced my roommate's puppy to him, have my friend hold her and walk with us, etc etc, and then when he's nice and comfortable with her presence just have my friend offer chihuahua's rear end. Clicking and treating the whole time of course . Today was the closest I've ever had him to fenced dogs. I had him sitting with he rear against the stone wall while the rottie barked his head off behind Chance . He's a ninja in front of fenced dogs, but a lady and a mastiff mix crossed the intersection so they were on the same side of the road but not street (if that make any sense...), and he gave one good lunge. But, since I made a start-of-semester resolution to focus only on the positive things, I'm going to ignore the one good lunge and focus on the fact that I had him sitting and focusing on me from that point on .

Maybe after he masters the chihuahua, we'll move on to some leash work with those submissive dogs.