So you’re thinking about adopting a second dog? Do you have a vision that both dogs will be best friends, play and run around the backyard together, and then snuggle on the dog bed together at the end of the day? We have almost always had two dogs at the same time in our family.
But wait, how do you know they’ll be best friends? Are you friends with everyone you meet? Most of us have people we are acquaintances with because we have to be, then we have a small group of close friends that we go out and have fun together.
Don’t expect your dog to love every dog just because you do. And don’t be disappointed if your current and a newly adopted dog don’t hit it off right away. It’s okay for them to just coexist, they don’t need to snuggle and be best buds just because you want them to.
Just as a side note, I am going to refer to your current dog has HE or HIM and your new dog as SHE or HER, just to try and make things less confusing.
Prepare for Adopting a Second Dog
Step 1: Start off by selecting the right dog to be his companion
Think about your current dog’s personality. Try to find a new dog to adopt that will complement or match your current dog’s energy and personality traits.
Is your dog fearful or lacking in confidence? A perfect companion may be a confident dog to help teach him to become more confident in himself.
Is he a senior or low-energy dog? Then, bringing in a puppy or a high-energy dog may just annoy him. Puppies like to play, bite, and crawl over and will not leave your adult dog alone. Consider adopting a 3-5-year-old dog or even another senior dog.
If your dog has any behavior issues, please ask yourself, “Should I get another dog”? Those bad behaviors are only going to get worse when getting a second dog.
Also, consider gender and size.
Opposite sex may get along better than same sex. In general, I recommend adopting opposite sexed dogs. When that is not possible, the second best option is to have two males. Two females are the most likely to have issues.
Bringing Home Another Dog: Day 1
Step 2: Keep the dogs separate
Here are certain steps to take when introducing a new dog to your pack. These steps are very important to keep the balance in your house.
I learned about this process when we first started fostering. The rescue insists that we keep our foster dogs and resident dogs separate for a minimum of 24 hours. I’ll be honest, when I first heard this, I thought they were crazy. How was I going to possibly keep our dogs separate for an entire day? But they are right; it really works and creates a much smoother transition.
I’ve personally gone through these steps many times. Not only with my own dogs, but every single time we bring in a foster dog. It works; as hard as it may seem, these steps help create a calm and balanced transition.
Even the easiest, happy dogs can get stressed when another dog enters their home. It’s only 24 hours, one day of separation that can change the relationship of your dogs forever.
Step 3: Bring the new dog inside the house.
Do not allow the new dog to run loose in the house yet. Keep her on a leash; in fact, I recommend keeping her on a leash for several days until you get to know her behavior inside the house.
Use a bedroom or a baby gate to separate an area in your home for the new dog to relax and adjust to his new surroundings.
Keep this separation for 24-48 hours, depending on the dog. If they seem to be calm and both dogs are easygoing, then 24 hours is more than enough.
Remember, your newly adopted dog is undergoing a lot of new things and can easily be stressed out. If your resident dog won’t give her space, then consider a bigger separation.
Read the Bringing Your New Dog Home and the 3-3-3 Rule for more details.
Day 2 or 3 with Your Dogs
Step 4: The first meeting
After the 24-48 hour separation period and both dogs are calm, you can start the introduction stage. You need someone to help you with this step.
Never introduce your new dog inside your house.
If you have more than two dogs, introduce one dog at a time. Starting with the calmest and easy-going dog first.
Take both dogs for a long walk. The resident dog in front of you, the newly adopted dog behind with your helper (in a single file, not side-by-side yet).
Walk parallel to each other about 10 feet away, slowly working your way
closer together.
After a good long walk, when both dogs seem calm, allow them to sniff each other’s rears (it’s a dog thing).
Watch the dog’s body language, showing of teeth, growling, stiff erect tail, stiff body stance, ears back, or raised hackles. If any of these occur, give a firm NO, and continue walking. Do not allow this to escalate; as soon as you see ANY of those signs, separate the dogs and start to walk again.
Keep these first interactions short and sweet. Don’t overwhelm either dog with too much sniffing. Once they have a minute to check each other out, start walking again. Repeat several times until everyone is calm.
Once this meeting is successful, you may go on to the next step of bringing the dogs inside the house. The resident dog should be allowed to enter the home first, then allow him to welcome the new dog inside.
Step 5: Giving the new dog more space
You can take down the baby gate now and give your new dog a little more freedom. I still recommend restricting one area or floor of your home; in fact, I recommend this for up to a week or more.
If you have a fenced backyard, then allow the dogs to run around free outside together. Keep these sessions short, again, not to overwhelm either dog. Allow both dogs to come inside and investigate each other.
Never leave the two dogs alone. If you cannot closely supervise them, then put them in their crates or separate rooms.
Step 6: Resource Guarding
If your dog has never had another dog in the house, you may not know if he has resource guarding issues.
Resource guarding can be the guarding of people, food, toys, dog beds, or any object the dog feels it needs to claim. You need to be super-aware of the signs, and if you’ve never witnessed it before, it may catch you off guard at first.
Watch for a showing of teeth, growling, stiff erect tail, stiff body stance, ears back, whale eyes, or raised hackles. This is a time you really need to learn your dog’s body language.
If you have a resource guarder, then you will need to be super vigilant on feeding time, bones, toys, dog beds, or whatever he likes to guard. Even if you don’t think either dog is going to resource guard, I still suggest having separate feeding areas.
Read Why is My Dog Aggressive with Food – Resource Guarding?.
Day 4 and Beyond with Two Dogs in Your Pack
Step 7: Continue taking it slow
Take a lot of long walks together as a pack. Keep both dogs tired by giving them more than enough exercise. A bored dog equals trouble. Continue being super aware for several weeks or even months, depending on the dog’s personality and temperament.
Read Top 5 Reasons to Take Your Dog for a Walk.
Watch for any signs of stress in either dog. If either dog gets overwhelmed, reduce the time they have together and slow it down even more.
Why is it so important to slowly introduce the dogs?
A newly adopted dog is under a tremendous amount of stress. The resident dog is wondering who the heck this new dog is and why she is in his territory.
Mix these feelings together, and you will get a dogfight. Not because either dog is aggressive, but because it takes time to unwind and to help both dogs understand the situation.
Is it better to have two dogs?
Having two dogs is better for our family, but maybe not for yours. Consider everything that goes into owning two dogs: including picking up more dog poop, more dog hair, more training, and more expensive vet bills. Does your current dog really want a companion, or is it all about you?
I wish you all the best of luck with the new addition to your family. Having two dogs can be a lot of fun. Leave a comment below and let me know all about your new dog and how the introductions went. Any additional tips to share with the Rescue Dogs 101 Community?
Up Next:
Before adding a second dog, you should decide whether or not your dog is ready for a playmate. Determine if your dog has any underlying behavioral issues that need to be addressed, such as: separation anxiety, excessive barking, leash-reactivity to dogs or humans, pulling excessively on leash, house-training accidents, destructiveness, and aggression towards humans, dogs, or other small animals. New dogs can and will mirror your other dog’s behaviors, both good and bad. One fido terror can suddenly turn into two and require twice as much work. Two badly behaved dogs make life miserable for both your family and the dogs.
Do you have recommendations on what to look for in terms of getting a second dog that will best match your first dog? We have a sweet 1.5yr old 35lb rescue and are planning to get a second. Our current dog is very energetic, loves to play, but also loves to cuddle. He doesn’t resource guard at all and has never been aggressive to another dog. He has always welcomed new dogs into our house with no issues after greeting outside first. We are considering the second because we have always wanted two and our dog loves playing with/ being with other dogs so much. Should we be looking for a dog with a similar energy level and size? Any recommendations are appreciated:)
Yes similar energy is a good idea. I don’t think size of the dog maters as much unless your current dog has a preference.
So wish I had seen this website before we adopted our second dog. It did not go well. The new dog was super possessive of our house and continued to go after our much smaller younger dog. The fighting was escalating. I have a small house so even leashed, they would need to pass by each other to go outside. It was an awful 3 days of constant fear and fighting. Blood was shed. We ended up having to take her back to the shelter — it was heartbreaking. I am being much more mindful to bring in another dog!!
Oh so sorry Penny. I am sure it was a very stressful time. Hopefully next time will be better!
I adopted a dog about 4 months ago. I already had another female, a senior female (who has since crossed the rainbow bridge) and my niece lives with me with her mixed Chihuahua male. All are fixed. Everything was fine until about 3 weeks ago after my eldest baby passed. First small displays of aggression between my other female and my newest dog. Now, I can’t let them share the same space. It’s been pretty awful having to constantly separate them as they get into it at a moments notice. Ive been bitten and they both have drawn blood. I’ve tried completely separating them for a day, used citronella spray, and even bought a pheromone diffuser to see if it is an anxiety thing. I don’t want to give up my newest baby but I am beginning to worry about serious damage to my dog. Do you have any suggestions?
Is the newest dog you are referring to a brand new dog? Or the one you adopted 4 months ago? If you just adopted a new dog after the senior past away, then I suggest taking several steps back and keep them separated until everything calms down. Go through the steps outlined in this post. Take calm walks together, short times together, etc.
When keeping them in separate rooms is it ok that they can see each other?
It depends. Yes if both dogs can stay calm. No, if one or both dogs bark, shows signs of agression or signs of fear.
We have just adopted my 15 month old staffy pups brother, from the same litter. We have separated them in the house or they rough & tumble their way round. They play in the garden but when the smaller girl has had enough she bares her teeth so I stop play. How can I encourage calm when together in the house? They walk beautifully together on a lead with 1 person to 1 dog.
I’d start by removing any temptation to play inside by removing toys, etc. Give them enough time outside to get their energy out. If they start rough housing inside then separate them. Have you read our adopting two dogs at once article? https://www.rescuedogs101.com/truth-adopting-two-dogs-together/. Even though you adopted separately, being siblings adds a level of complexity you should be aware of.
Thanks for this post! We just began fostering a new puppy (well now we’re keeping him). These are great tips and still help us to balance them together.
Hi Debi, I’ve just come across your website while looking for some advice on introducing my son’s new 14 week old female puppy to Milo, our 8 year old ale cocker spaniel. The first couple of visits to our home with the puppy went reasonably well but when my son visited yesterday Milo growled at the puppy a couple of times when she got too close to one of us or we showed the puppy any attention. I am quite anxious about this escalating in the future. What would your advice be please?
I would socialize them together outside of your home before bringing them together inside. Find a neutral ground, or take them for walks together. Puppies can be very “in your face” and many older dogs don’t like that. Milo should be allowed to correct the puppy but not hurt him. So a growl is okay for correction, but not in the context of claiming you.
I have a foster dog and my 7 year old corgi and I wish I knew this before. I had attempted to foster before but my corgi started being extremely protective over my father, who is sick. He herds him to make sure he doesn’t do anything bad.
The foster is SO laid back, he took the corgi growling and turned his head slowly and froze. I don’t want to give up as this is fully day 1 so I’ll set up a crate and keep our foster in there for 24 hours.
I didn’t think about it but the foster has been in my office and my corgi has been in the living room with my parents. Do you think that when I work, I should keep one in a crate and away from the other or ‘pick’ an area to be in? Or should I always be with my corgi until they slowly get adjusted?
My corgi has behavioral issues on and off and will love another dog or not. He’s very guarded but when he goes outside he looks at the fences and wags his tail and often hides behind my dad’s chair for hours. I’m always unsure of how to read him since we lost his bond mate and have been hoping to find another animal he could bond with but I’m just not sure now.
Hi Debi! Thank you so much for the great information! I wish I would have found it sooner. We just rescued our second Doberman 3 days ago. New dog Hunter is male, resident dog Harley is female. We’ve had her 8 months and she’s learned so much and is very well trained/behaved. Does great with other dogs but does get snippy in the house with people/dogs. We introduced them at the rescue, walked a lot, then let them loose in our backyard upon arrival. They play well, but Harley does this thing where she puts both her front paws on his back, showing dominance? She snaps at him in the house (resource guarding or just if he does something/goes somewhere she doesn’t like). Luckily, he is a total softie and doesn’t seem to mind it, just takes the correction and backs off then (sometimes even right away) goes back to try to play.
So I guess my questions would be, how do we limit play? (We think they’re both about 3-4 years old) Will they naturally calm down in time? He wants to play all the time and she gets tired of it, assuming because she’s used to sleeping/lounging all day. How will we be able to tell when they’re ok being left alone?
We feed them separately and don’t give either toys (causes scuffles) but he follows her around incessantly, mostly trying to play. We separate them in the evenings to rest so we can cook/eat/clean etc but that’s the only way they’ll stop playing.
It sounds like Hunter is very passive, he sounds a lot like our Bear and Harley a lot like our Ginger. He tolerates her bratty behavior, but over the years it has distanced their relationship. Bear use to want to play with her, now he does anything he can to avoid her. So, you need to take some steps back with your dogs. Start limiting their interactions. Give them both some space of their own. You can use baby gates or closed doors, whatever it takes. Allow them to play outside together but as soon as Harley starts acting up, stop her and tell her NO in a firm voice. If she doesn’t’ stop, use your body pressure to invade her space to move her on. Once she starts behaving outside, Slowly allow them together inside the house, supervised only. Again do not allow her to continue her bratty behavior. I recommend teaching them both the Place Command. It’s going to take some time and patience. I hope this helps.