I have a 12 year old mini poodle, who is starting to feel his age. I have a chance to get a little 1 year old female poodle. Any words of wisdom?

An excellent question.

How you introduce your new dog into your home will determine if it is a negative or positive experience for your old dog. If it is not done correctly it will very easily become a very sad situation for the older dog – but it doesn’t have to be that way. It all comes down to your willingness to understand pack structure. Take it from someone who has done this wrong. 38 years ago when I graduated from college I owned an older GSD. I brought a new puppy into my home and did a terrible job of how I implemented this dog into my home.

I simply brought the puppy in and let it run around. I let it jump all over my old dog. It acted like a puppy. When it got to the point where my old dog got sick of it the old dog growled and snapped at the puppy. I was there and I corrected the snot out of the old dog. That was a huge SCREW UP – from that day forward that puppy terrorized my old dog and she would not do anything to defend herself. I saw it at the time but was too stupid to know how to fix it.

The way to do this is to bring the puppy into your home. Use my pack structure program - Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Dog.

Get two dog crates and use them. Or get one and put the old dog in a separate room when the puppy is loose. There should be NO CONTACT with the old dog and the young dog until the young dog is 7 to 9 months old. The old dog can see the pup in the crate but that’s all. If you allow them to run together and something happens – well you screwed up and YOU caused the problem not the pup.

I don’t allow the pup to be around the older dog until my obedience on the younger pup is good enough to call the pup back to me when she is in a highly distracting situation. If you can’t call this new dog away when she is around your husband or when she is playing with toys then you should not have it near the older dog.

If when you allow them to be together the pup acts inappropriately – YOU NEED TO STEP IN AND CORRECT THE PUP. YOU NEED TO PROTECT YOUR OLD DOG and your old dog needs to know this. This thinking never stops. Not until the day your old dog dies.

You are the PACK LEADER and pack leaders have rules. One of your rules is "no beating up on the old dog." That’s exactly like the pack leaders rule of "Not biting or playing rough with children." Any infringement on this rules had dire consequences. When the old dog sees this it will not be stressed. It will learn to relax around the new dog.

As long as you are consistent with the enforcement of your rules and you control the environment of the pup your old dog will be fine. We always show the older dogs a lot of loving when we bring a new dog into the house. When people ignore the old dog and spend all their time playing with the pup right in front of the old dog they create problems. So try and have most of your interaction be when the old dog isn’t around (at least in the beginning)

I also recommend that you do marker work right off the bat with the pup. Follow the work in my article titled THE POWER OF MARKER TRAINING IN DOGS.

I will say this – no insult intended, but most people with small dogs anthropomorphize their small dogs (treat them like humans – when in fact they are pack animals.) This creates HUGE behavioral problems in dogs. It’s probably the number one reason for behavioral problems in dogs.

Here are the DVD’s I would recommend:

Your Puppy 8 Week to 8 Months
Establishing Pack Structure with the Family Dog
Basic Dog Obedience
Possibly - Remote Collar Training for the Pet Owner

Kind Regards,
Ed Frawley