Blended Dog Household Success!
We were called in to help blend household and their beloved dogs. This couple was trying their hardest to integrate their dogs into one happy family, but were not having success. They had done several introductions with the dogs in hope for everyone to get along with no success. The man’s poodle seemed to show aggression toward his girlfriend’s small dogs and they found themselves highly on edge every time they tried to bring them together. It got to the point where they decided not to bring his dog over anymore and he would then have to leave in the middle of the night to go home to his own dog.
We first worked with the man in his own home, to teach him what he was doing wrong at the front door that caused his dog to jump all over company. This was an easy fix because the man had already done such a great job with his own dog training. We then decided to head to his girlfriend’s condo and see what was going on with her two small dogs. We got there to see she was also a very good dog owner. Her dogs did not seem to show many bad behaviors – just some dominance in her chihuahua. We showed them how to take over the leadership role during the “Respect Walk”, we also showed him how to get his own dog over her fear of cars driving by.
Once we had done the “Respect Walk” we then taught the owners how to do proper dog introduction. Rather than putting them all together and hoping and praying it worked, we showed the owners how to properly introduce and then what to watch for in the house that may lead to a dog fight. We taught them all the signs and situations that may cause the dogs to want to fight. Jealousy was a major issue in this situation. We talked with the owners about not playing favorites when it comes to merging families. You love every dog the same, just as you would children, so the dogs did not have any reason to become jealous.
We also taught the owners how to keep a calm mentality while working with the dogs. They were very stressed since the introductions had never gone well in the past, so we worked with the owners on calming their own minds down so there was no nervous energy in the room to fuel a fight. By the time we were done with the session, the older poodle understood it needed to respect the little dogs and give them their space. We had all the dogs relaxed and enjoying their new life together with harmony, no more chaos!
Now these wonderful dog owners have the tools to keep peace and harmony in their house without the need to stress over what the dogs would do next. We had a great time working with these wonderful people, and have no doubt that they will make it work now that we are gone.
Thank you for calling us in before things got too out of hand with the dogs or before any dogs had been hurt! We love to help owners stop things before they become serious issues.
