Tips for settling in a second (rescue) dog

[Allfurcoatandnoknickers]

We are meeting a male 2yo rescue dog this weekend. We already have a slightly bossy 7 yo female who lost her best friend (another rescue aged 12) last year. We decided to take the plunge and get another dog.

I'm told by the foster carer he's with (along with six other dogs), that's he's calm, chilled, gentle and no trouble at all, but I'm expecting him to be nervous and shy to begin with. Providing all ok with the meeting, and everyone happy - does anyone have any tips for settling in a second dog?

@Booboostwo is saying exactly what I've done with our fosters & my beagle.

With the beagle, he would just bark excitedly & bounce around when he saw a dog approaching. So I would do exactly that - I'd get him to sit, facing me, treat, look at the dog, look at me, treat. Using really high value treats - chipolata, cheese, whatever. Kept working on it until he was fine looking at the dog as it walked past. Then did it as he kept walking to. As soon as he started pulling or barking, walk in the other direction, speaking excitedly & happily.

It is only possible if your other dog is off the lead, so I did some just with him.

He did so well & it didn't take long. He was a little nervous with other dogs at first too.

The long line might hopefully make him feel less restricted too.

Good luck, sounds like he's doing well.

Slightly better walk today. We live in a heavily dog populated area and lots of large young confident dogs around. I took my teenage daughter with me and she had him on a loose lead, lots of encouragement and reassurance. We saw dogs in the distance and had only one growl. We passed a couple in close proximity and no growling.
He’s very very excited to go out on a walk and prances around doing a little dance. He whines and makes lots of noise until ten minutes into the walk- not sure if through excitement - he’s got his tail and ears up and is on high alert- but then settles a little. We let him off in the tennis court today and he looked anxious and nervous- he’s definitely not in a place to be doing any training yet I don’t think until he is less nervous.
We’re going to carry on with the same walks to familiarise him with the area and reassure him and just keep up with the positive reinforcement 😊

That's great news, it sounds like he is adjusting quite quickly.

I would only say one thing...a nervous or anxious dog won't be harmed by positive reinforcement training. It might not work if the dog is overwhelmed by his stress, in which case you need to pick a less stressful time/environment to train, but mainly it helps relieve the stress because it redirects the dog's attention on you.

Great thanks. I really appreciate all the advice. I don’t think he’s ready yet for the long line-
Will do another week of letting him adjust to our surroundings, the number of dogs etc then have another try. I don’t want to rush him before he’s ready as he’s super anxious and excitable when we’re outside.
Another thing- any advice on this one? We live in a terrace (as he did when he was in foster care before he came to us). We have a shared passageway. Our other dog has got used to the comings and goings next door (elderly neighbour with Carers and relatives
Coming all the time). He’s chilled in the day but when I went to bed last night I think something spooked him from next door and he was wet barky. Any suggestions how to deal with this-‘wouldn’t want it to escalate as it was making our other dog jumpy and she’s normally fine with the noise and rarely barks at night

I hate barking, it really annoys me and it risks waking up the DCs (we live in the middle of nowhere with no near neighbors, so no one else to annoy). I train my dogs not to bark but it is hard work.

Firstly I decide the limits. No dog can stop barking 100%, so I allow mine to bark when someone is at the door and until I get to the door and ask them to stop.

Then I train a stop barking command. I find that a "shhhh" sound is best for this command (that way I don't risk waking the DC up myself!). Basically you reward non-barking, then associate the command with non-barking, then strengthen the command.

At night I deal with any barking every single time. With a puppy it can mean getting up every time they bark for months, but it is worth it long term. So when they bark I get out of bed, go to the dog, reward for being quiet, give a chew or bone to settle things (you will need to separate the two dogs though if you do that), and go back to bed. Repeat endlessly.

@Allfurcoatandnoknickers we've just rehomed a second rescue dog too! 3 weeks we've had her, she's 2 and not socialised or trained. Our 7 year old resident dog is the friendliest chap ever, so he's really helping her settle in. They are having scuffles but we try not to interfere as they have to sort themselves out.
She barks, jumps and growls at strangers, but thats something we'll need to work on. I'll be trying her with clicker training/positive reinforcement-it worked on my old rescue collie, so hoping it'll give her confidence.
She does also bark at noisy next door neighbours, we're struggling with that too. she barks a lot tbh, we try to distract then ignore/walk away.
Its a long road but it'll be worth it!
Heres our two looking gimpy! They do play together, she just needs to relearn bite inhibition!

Good luck with him, rescuing a dog is never easy.

Thanks for your advice. Just returned from a walk. Seen around five dogs - one nearby and big- no noise, lots of praise and treat, another few at a distance again no noise, one large dog had a sniff and he was licking his lips furiously but no reaction- then last of all a large dog as we were just leaving the park who he growled at- I tried the distraction but it then escalated to a bark and lunge. He’s then panting and stressed and just wants to get home where he obviously feels much safer poor lad.