Introducing Pup To Older Dog (11yrs Old)

[kwirky]

Hi,

We have decide to get a puppy (little girl) for our elderly golden male based on vet advice and on hearing many positives. We are picking Allie up on Christmas eve.

Hunter, the resident centre of our universe, has been an only child his whole life.

They met at the breeders on Saturday and he seemed okay. We went into the pen with him (and 8 female pups) so we could have one pick us. Allie came over straight away to say hi (the bravest one) and after snuggling under his chin, stayed near us the most. Hunter was wagging his tail and sniffing around until he had enough.

Does anyone have any advice or experience with such a big age difference?

Edited December 5, 2010 by kwirky

[Flash30Aus]

Hi Kwirky,

We recently did this, but the opposite genders. Our aged Border Collie girl Lucy (11+) and our newly acquired rescue pup Dash (also BC and just hit the 3 months mark).

They have settled in well. My few tips would be:

1. Feed and give treats seperately - no one wants food based aggression or to feel threatened over food. My old girl is diabetic so on a special diet anyway, and the puppy food is definitely not on her menu!

2. Focus on your old dog before you greet/pat/acknowledge the pup. Let him feel like he is still the centre of the universe and more important than the new dog. It will help establish the pecking order.

3. Especially in the early days give your old boy space for time out from the pup onslaught. We can split our yard off down the middle, so when Lucy has had enough we put her on one side, and Dash on the other. She generally doesn't like it though, and wants to be in amongst it.

Good luck with your new baby, I'm sure it will be great!

Christie

[Dogsfevr]

Keep in mind your old dog wouldn't have understood the pup will be a permanent thing.

As he has never had to share his house,his routine,his spots he will be facing a massive change at his age which he will most likely have his nose put out by because no matter what pups are cute & people forget about the older dog especially when it does things the oldie doesn't anymore.

You have to look at the old dogs routine & see what changes might need to be made ie; if he has access to an area all day but the pup won't be allowed there how you will deal with it especially if people work.

If you have left food down for the oldie how to change the routine & above all the oldie needs time out for the pup not only now but latter one when it wants to play & starts to annoy the oldie .

What reason did the vet give for adding a pup???

Just remember for many positives there is also alot of negatives so be prepared for both

[labsrule]

This time last year, I introduced a 10 week old male lab pup, Tana, into my pack after I lost my beautiful 10yr old black lab boy, Fitzy, who I had raised from a pup. My pack consisted of two older black lab boys with the oldest, Thomas who at that time was 3 months shy of his 14th birthday and Tournie who at time was 11.5yrs old. I adopted each of these boys when they were 10 years old, and despite Fitzy being an only dog to this point, he welcomed these two boys into our family and they all got on exceptionally well from their first initial introductions at a park and pound to when I brought each of them home.

Thomas, Tournie and myself had not met our new pup (Tana) prior to me bringing him home as I had my name down with the breeder to get a pup in the new year, but this boy became available and breeder asked me if I would like him and I said Yes despite the fact I had not met this pup and hadn't even seen a photo of him. The breeder had told me about him and gave a pretty good description of him and I trusted the breeder implicitly as I had already been talking to him a few times about getting one of his pups and he is a highly regarded and very well renowned Labrador breeder of over 30 years. It was actually very exciting meeting this little guy for the first time and knowing that he was coming home with me there and then and of course it was at first sight, and he was everything and more that the breeder said he was.

When I brought him home and introduced him to Thomas and Tournie, pup was very excited and confident in meeting these two boys and within a couple of minutes he picked out Thomas to be his best buddy Tournie was a bit wary of him as I knew he would be as he has not been as tolerant of other dogs outside the family and he grumbled a couple of times at him, but Thomas was just wonderful with him as I knew he would be and I kept a very close eye on Tournie around pup. Pup just idolised Thomas and followed him everywhere, like his shadow, to Thomas's consternation at times

In my family room I setup for pup a large metal crate and large playpen from a couple of sets of wire panels from Bunnings and I attached the playpen to the crate and left one of the doors of the crate open so he could access the playpen any time from his crate. He just LOVED being with the older boys though, so I gave him a fair bit of freedom out of the confines of the crate/play pen under my careful supervision as I worked from home and even when he was confined, he like to spend more time in the playpen than in the crate (his choice) and he would sleep as close as possible to the edge of the playpen to be as near to the other boys as possible, especially his beloved Thomas, who would quite often lay down close to the playpen.

As I worked from home, I could monitor his activities with the older boys very closely, to ensure his safety and to ensure the older boys got regular respites from him . He was actually extremely good as a pup and wasn't as annoying to the older boys as a lot of pups can be. Thomas was so patient and extremely tolerant of him, too much so sometimes :p and I had to step in when Thomas wouldn't let him know enough is enough when he was dangling off his ears or trying to jump on him or nipping his legs or grabbing his tail. Interestingly, he never did this with Tournie as he was a very smart pup and already knew from the few grumblings that Tournie had given him, that Tournie would not tolerate this behaviour, so he never tried it on with him.

Tournie however, was a great playmate with pup and would actually play for ages with him under my supervision and he never hurt pup during the course of their many vigorous playtimes . Whilst Thomas was his best buddy, Thomas wasn't a player (and who could blame him when he was close to 14 yrs old), but Tournie despite being very dominant and a bully, is actually like a big kid at heart and just loved playing with Tana and still does to this day.

Despite Tournie being a great playmate and very good with pup most of the time, I did have a couple of incidents with him having a go at Tana. The first occurred about a month after Tana came home, so he have been around 14 weeks old when they were all laying in their favourite spot on a mat just outside my open plan kitchen waiting for me to get their carrot treats. I was just preparing their carrots and pup stood up and as quick as lightening Tournie jumped up and lunged towards him growling and grabbed him by the muzzle and of course pup was screaming and I quickly grabbed the bag of carrots off the bench and whacked Tournie on the head with them and screamed at him at the same time to let Tana go which he did straight away, I think more from the bag of carrots on the head than me screaming :p . I put him outside and Tana had run off to my office and was cowering with fright under my desk. Poor little bugger, I was so angry at Tournie as whilst I have no problem with an older dog disciplining a pup by growling at them, I will not tolerate them dispensing the type of rough justice that Tournie did with pup who was a lot smaller than him. I took pup to the vet later that day to get checked out as there was blood and some hair missing from just under and above one of his eyes. He was given a pain injection and antibiotics in case of any infection and he ended up with scaring around the eye from the missing hair, but the hair did all grow back and there was no physical scarring . When I took pup outside for toileting after this incident, he kept his distance from Tournie and when I finally let Tournie inside later, pup went straight to him and was licking him and they both lay down side by side and played and started chewing on sticks togethe :)r . There was another similar incident about 6 weeks later, but no damage to pup luckily and again pup kept his distance for little while, but went straight up to Tournie when I let him back inside. Since then, there have been no further incidents (10 months incident free) and Tournie and Tana are great mates and still play together a lot.

I just love the relationship and interaction between my boys as Tana has the best of both worlds with the older boys as Thomas, his best buddy is his faithful "security blanket/comforter" and like minded greedy guts and Tournie is his playmate, stick chewing buddy, teacher of how to be a top guard dog (although Tana hasn't quite cottoned on to you have to bark very loudly as well as running around looking for intruders) and top dog of the pack who Tana looks up to.

Tana has had a very positive affect on all of us and has made all of us a lot more active and has brought much needed cheer and lots of fun, laughter and happiness to my household, as I so immersed in the grief of losing my beloved Fitzy to cancer. Tana takes Thomas out to the chew on the bark on the tree trunks and nibble on the bamboo hedge and find some tasty sticks to chew on. He plays with Tournie and shares his toys with Tournie and they play tug with some of his toys and both go ballistic with plastic drink/milk bottles and he shows Tournie where all the tasty sticks are and is forever dragging in branches and sticks of all sizes for Tournie and him to share, side by side ;) The little bugger even got Thomas and Tournie addicted to the berries falling off the palm tree and the 3 of them were constantly hovering around the palm tree looking for/waiting for the fruit to drop. and it seemed that everytime I turned around pup was chewing on a berry. Much to their disgust I got the berries cut off and later I actually had the palm tree cut down ;)

My advice is to make sure you have a crate and playpen for pup so that pup has a safe place of his own for sleeping, eating and restricting his movements in the house as well as giving the older boy some respite from crazy puppy antics. Always supervise interaction between pup and older boy and never leave pup alone with your older boy until pup is older, no matter how tolerant or wonderful your older boy is as a pup cannot defend itself if older boy either plays too rough or gets pissed at pup for whatever reason. I used to leave pup in his playpen where he had access to his crate as well when I went out for about the first month as as max I was out was 2-3 hrs. Then I started leaving him either outside with Thomas only and Tournie was left inside. If weather was too hot or cold for pup to be outside for the duration of my absence, then I would put Tournie in the front area of the house and Thomas and pup in the family room, but outside of his playpen/crate with access to outside and the family room was separated from the area Tournie was in by baby gates and barriers. If it was raining, I would put pup in the crate and puppypen, otherwise he would have access to outside and would have made a right royal mess in the rain and mud All my boys were extremely good with barriers/baby gates that I erected to puppy proof the house and they never tried to jump or climb over them, so when you puppy proof your house and create separate areas for your pup and older boy either inside or outside, make sure they are not barrier climbers/jumpers.

Also it is important to not neglect your older boy and give him lots of attention and one on one as puppies are very time consuming and great time wasters. Also make sure that the older boy gets respite from pup as some pups can drive older dogs crazy with their puppy antics. Since I have had pup, I have walked my boys separately daily to give them one on one time, as well as taking them out in the car and on other outings separately for extra one on one time. I sometimes take two of them out together but I always feel guilty about leaving one of the boys home by themselves :D I have always fed my dogs separately so they can eat in peace without another hanging around, not that there is anything to hang around for as having Labs scoff their food that bloody fast, the other one wouldn't get a look in and they NEVER leave anything in their bowls or on the ground and both bowls and ground are licked clean

Also just be alert when pup and older dog are together as things can happen in the blink of an eye and pups will always come off 2nd best if they are hurt accidentally or intentionally by the older dog. You will be able to make the judgement call on when your two will be able to be left alone together when you/your family are absent from the home. I made sure that before I left Tana alone with Tournie in the same area, that he had grown to sufficient size which would help protect him and by this time Tournie was well used to Tana and they were good mates. I could have left Tana alone with Thomas from day 1 during any of my absences, but that would have been unfair to Thomas as he would have had no respite if Tana decided to be a crazy puppy during this time as Thomas was too soft with him and wouldn't have disciplined if Tana annoyed him profusely.

Being a multi-dog household you need to be alert with your dogs and prepared for anything as your pup and older dog adjust to one another and pup to her new environment. Don't force the issue, give them both however long it takes for the necessary adjustments and I hope your pup develops a wonderful relationship with your older boy and they become great mates as mine has with my older boys and hope she also brings your family as much joy as mine has.

Sorry about the novel but thought it might be helpful to share my experience with you as introducing a pup into a household with an older dog(s) can cause a bit of anxiety as you can be never be 100% sure that it will work out and they will become friends because of the age difference.