When your dog gets a new roommate
Socializing your adult dog with a new puppy
I wasn’t quite sure how my Labrador Retriever/German Shepherd mix would react to this new puppy. My godmother was going out of town and needed someone to watch her dog, so my mother volunteered to let a Labrador Retriever puppy come to our home for two weeks. My dog, Shep, wasn’t unfriendly to human strangers or other dogs, just uninterested. And when an entire basement plus a backyard is all his, bringing in a new “basement roommate” is either going to be great company to play with or completely annoying.
Unfortunately my dog reacted about like I would if someone dropped their suitcases in front of my door right now. If dogs could roll their eyes, Shep would’ve done that. He ignored the puppy completely, but all that did was make the puppy jump around and try to get Shep’s attention more. But antisocial beats aggressive, so we were OK with that. The puppy mainly stayed upstairs because we weren’t sure how those two would work out alone, specifically when the puppy had the bright idea to eat and drink out of Shep’s bowls. The low growl that came out of Shep’s mouth immediately made me step in. My mother and I created a barrier around Shep’s food and drink supplies that the puppy couldn’t get to. And we hoped they both could get along for those 14 days.
Did that stop the puppy from bugging Shep? Not even a little bit. Is this post going to end with me saying Shep and the puppy became best friends and Shep whimpered when the puppy left? Nope, that’s not happening either. But I did learn quite a bit about how to help puppies and adult dogs coexist as both a dog owner and a dog/housesitter.
All food breaks are not created equal, but you can sneak around it.
One of the toughest parts of a dog/housesitting job I had this past Thanksgiving week was being given instructions to feed the male puppy four times a day while the female adult dog only got fed twice. According to the American Kennel Club, four feedings a day is perfectly normal for puppy nutritional needs. But the adult dog has no idea why this new dog is getting way more food than she is, and she wants in on the deal. Even worse, the veterinarian felt like the adult dog needed to lose a few pounds anyway.
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On day one and day two, I cringed and followed the feeding regimen. I tried to ignore the adult dog gawking at the puppy, who had the audacity to be a slow eater as well, through the baby gates. But by day three, I just couldn’t handle the sad look on her face. So I made sure that backyard “bathroom” breaks for her were always the same time when the puppy needed to be fed.