# Introducing visiting dogs to your home



## luv2laugh (Oct 6, 2011)

My little brother in law rescued a pit bull who had lots of scars on his head, making them guess he was used as the prey in a fighting circle or at least had something bad happen to him. The first meeting with oso started out pretty well. they played and oso zoomed and it was kind of a blast until the other dog started "attacking" as in fast movement, loud noise, no bites Oso. We pulled them apart and kept them separated for the rest of the evening and have avoided bringing the dog to all future get togethers.

note: this dog gets along with my sister's chihuahua and a new pitbull my brother in law has and is absolutely adorable when we've visited sans oso.

Well...... they are coming to out house. The two pitbulls and my little brother in law. I have to say i am a bit nervous. Would it be good to take them all on a walk together before they come in? Well, i think we are going to do that. But, any other tips? We have places so we can separate the dogs if needed and i'll have my compressed air, which i so like. i really want them to get along as my little brother needs a place that feels like home for him. Oso has been swimming today and had exercise. maybe i'll get him more tired, so he doesn't have crazy energy like last time. Would you/have you done anything differently with good results? My brother's dogs have already been on a hike today, so should be tired.


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## fullscale (May 26, 2012)

good luck
i am feeling a bit nervous about it


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## luv2laugh (Oct 6, 2011)

Thank you for the response! 

It already happened and went well. I think I had the dog built up in my mind as "scary" more than he actually was. In fact, Oso was the one who was a bit of a bully at first. 

I did take him out again before they came trying to "tire" him out. It doesn't work the same way as when he was a pup, as that he still gets adrenaline rushes when people/dogs visit, but it had to help get some of the energy out. We also walked them as a pack before we let them say hi to each other or come in the house. During the pack walk, we noticed all the dogs calm down from the start when they were frantically trying to say hi to each other, to the end where they were all walking well near each other, with the occasional glance over. 

After the walk, we let them say hi and brought them over to the pool. Oso was so excited that he jumped into the pool for the first time by himself and started doing zoomies IN the pool. When we tried to teach the other dogs to swim, he swam over and started growling at them in the pool with a toy in his mouth. I don't know the why's of that. But, I do know that everyone was cheering for the dog learning how to swim and giving him/her attention and not Oso. After he did this a couple times, we separated the dogs, gave Oso some one on one time (less than 5 minutes) and then put Oso in another fenced part of the yard while we worked with the other dogs. When we let him back in he was calmer and seemed to understand his place better in the pack. 

Any times one of the dogs got growly in or out of the pool, we used the compressed air and it worked quickly, other than the learning to swim part, it was my brother in law's dog, Taz. My brother in law's dog is toy aggressive, towards other dogs, but not with humans. So after growling over sticks, bones, etc., we just removed all possible sources of contention. He would growl at the other dogs if they even came close to him when he had a toy/treat. Also, it was obvious that my brother-in-law's dog was being dominant, if Oso went to play/lick the girl dog, luna, the male, Taz, would come over with a high chest and Oso would sulk away. We didn't leave them unsupervised and, to be honest, it's much more relaxing when the dogs don't have those types of issues. Oso slept with me, the dogs slept with my husband and brother in law. The cats were closed up in their room the entire time the dogs were here (taking no chances in that department!!).


Overall, Taz is a nice dog and my brother in law and the dogs are welcome back any time. Since Taz was so obedient to humans, there wasn't a huge concern. I think I undersatnd dog behavior better now than before, Taz did a lot of posturing, but didn't show real aggression, more warnings. I do feel that walking as a pack and making sure the dogs were more tired/calm before meeting helped. I think it would have helped more if Oso didn't have such frenetic energy, with zoomies and excitement when he meets other dogs. I feel it alerts certain dogs' prey drive/need to control and dominate. I don't think I can stop Oso's expression of excitement though. Maybe if we did a 6 hour hike the day before and then hours of exercise the day of..... maybe that would do it, maybe not. 

I am thankful that my cousin's dog gets along so well with Oso that we can relax and let them play without strict supervision at family get togethers on my mom's side. I still won't bring Oso to family get togethers on my husband's side with my brother in law's dogs, simply because it's too much energy on our part to supervise and monitor (when we should be socializing with family). My mom babysits him at her house during those events and it works well.


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## SkyyMax (Apr 5, 2012)

I am glad the visit went well!


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## SteelCityDozer (Aug 25, 2011)

Wow! That's a lot of info. Lol. Glad it worked out well. As time goes on and the dogs see each other more frequently I think it will continue to get better. Our Vs have a weim cousin that isn't very social, either is our male, but they get better with each other every time. And then on Saturday we went to see their new human baby therefore leaving our crazy Vs home. That weim was searching up and down trying to figure out where his cousins were. And then he just kind sunk down like "umf, I guess my buddies aren't coming".


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