tips on sharing our "territory" with another dog

[Sally]

So my friend is leaving her 8 month old pup named Carly with Duncan Doodle and I for a few days. Carly is a mutt who was rescued and is part mastiff part shepherd (she thinks). She is the sweetest, goofiest most submissive girl. But she's BIG! and awkward and when she came here for a quick 20 minute visit to see how Duncan would react it didn't go over so well.

They had met prior at the dog park and every time she would go up to him she would try and get him to chase her. He wasn't thrilled about it and would chase her enough to get her away but then go back to chewing on his stick of choice. There were lots of dogs at the park so she would eventually move on to another pup who was more interested in the game of chase.

But when she came to the house she was determined to get him to play and he was not having it! She would really be "in his face" which he hates. He was also getting territorial and posessive of his bones, toys. I have NEVER seen him show his teeth or act that way. 

My main strategy is going to be to take Carly for long walks, jogs etc. first by herself first thing to tire her out. I think that'll keep her less interested in playing with Duncan in the house.

I am pretty confident that after a few hours it'll probably work itself out and if worse came to worse i have a baby gate to separate them. We're gonna have to all get along at bedtime though. We're all scheduled to be sleeping in my bed. 

Does anyone have any other tips that could help. 

[Lynne Fowler-Oodles of Doodles]

They will eventually work it out between themselves. Separating them by a gate will cause more problems. It only takes about a half hour for them to wear themselves out and come to a consensus about who's in charge around here. Let them work it out with supervision.

[Adina P]

It's OK for Duncan to tell her to "knock it off" -- normal for a more mature dog dealing with an annoying puppy.
However, I don't think there is a single problem with gating or crating (even better if she's crate trained) the puppy as needed. Whenever we've babysat any other dogs here...we've ALWAYS crated the guest dog as needed. Some dogs will figure things out in a few days...others take longer.

[Meridith and Lola]

I've had this issue to some extent, though Lola has been the guest. She would take the other dog's bones and get very possessive over them (showing teeth). You might want to pick up all the bones/toys etc initially and introduce them slowly. Maybe have two identical bones that you give them together - that seemed to work for me after awhile. But I did have to do some serious correction on Lola for acting that way (saying No very sternly and taking the bone/toy away and giving it to the other dog).

[Frannie & Callie]

Hey Sally - I foster and frequently dog sit, so Callie tends to have lots of doggie visitors. We have a standard procedure...before a new dog comes, all toys are picked up and put in their basket and the basket it put away. Sometimes the toys never come back out and the house remains in what I call a "cold war", where the dogs aren't really BFFs, but they aren't at each other's throats. Also, I keep a leash on both dogs so that I can easily separate them if I need to.

Callie is very easy going with her stuff, but after seeing some visitor dogs get very mean over antlers and plush toys I started creating a "clean slate" for arrivals (it's been the visitor dogs and not fosters who tend to be more aggressive over toys. Of course, it took my first foster 2 months to figure out why toys exisited!)

After the dogs have had a chance to sniff each other out, I give each one a treat and see how they do with that. Do they try to steal each other's treat? Then I'll put out two toys (or one per dog) and make sure they are similar toys (not an antler for one and a plush for the other). If they can play and/or exchange toys peacably, I'll put the basket back out. If not, it's a no-toy zone for the duration of the visit.

I have a foster right now who is sleeping in Callie's spot on the bed. He's bigger and heavier than Callie and I really can't get him to move so I've shifted to sleeping in the middle with a dog on each side.

[Melissa & Porter]

Ditto what Meredith wrote about the bones and fav toys. I put them away when we dogsit other dogs. They'll still decide who is boss but it makes the turf wars a little less loud and possibly scary. I also had to put Porter out of the kitchen and hand feed kibble to my neighbor's dog for a week! He missed his family and he took "Porter is boss" very seriously.

[Sally]

oh yes. feeding is going to be interesting i'm sure. I was told Carly isn't too interested in her kibble. Funny is that Duncan isn't a good breakfast eater but i'm sure he'd want to scarf down her kibble if she left it. I'll probably feed them in separate rooms. And the hand-feeding will probably be what i do in mid-august when my brother's dog comes. She's also a doodle. She and Duncan share the same father but are a year apart. I'll be hand-feeding her i'm almost sure. But at least they will co-habitate fine. I can leave them alone knowing they won't wreak havoc. This is all really great training for Duncan. I'm sure I'll want to have a second doodle in the future and this will help break him in sort o speak.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

I totally agree that they'll work it out together...they'll establish "rules" and boundaries themselves. Everyone sleeping on the bed could be a little challenge though. Hopefully, they'll be dead tired. When my guys are both on the bed with me they sometimes "argue" over who will be closest to me. When they get "nasty" to each other, I remove both of them from the bed. They pretty much have gotten the idea now, and they have developed their own "covert" tactics for getting close to me. Their "sneaky" moves are actually pretty funny, but I'm often the one who is pushed into one corner of the bed or worse. Good luck...it sounds like fun!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Visiting is different from 'forever' also, but Duncan may or may not know the difference and the guest will be missing her family. My dogs have never had a problem with visitors but our Springer became depressed when Ned came. Neither is food obsessed but Gordie quit eating and Ned tried to eat everybody's food. When Clancy came, he and Gordie actually had fights over 'bottom of the pack' and one step up spots. We also had to remove anything they thought was high value. We have bones laying around all over the house and these were fine but kibble dispensers and plush toys were out. We fed everyone in the same places but stood watch to make sure Clancy only ate his own food.