Langley and Apple: managed, slow introductions

Langley is a dog who doesn't do well with change. Moving his crate, the toy basket, changing a schedule - all of it makes him anxious and he starts ramping up.  Heck, a week later he's still a little worried about the Christmas decorations that have appeared around the house.  So you can imagine that bringing a new dog into the mix really throws him off.

That anxiety manifests itself in an upswing in compulsive behavior, trouble relaxing enough outside to remember to go to the bathroom, increased whining and barking, and just a lot of general insecurity.

While it's easy to get frustrated, and god knows I do get really frustrated sometimes, I've found that just stopping myself and giving him 1-2 minutes every now and then of my total attention in the form of massage, lap time, etc, speeds up his ability to deal with the change.

On Saturday he got a lot of this special time with me in the evening when Apple was out and running around with Neah.

When I noticed that Apple wasn't afraid of him and didn't get freaked out by his intensity, I decided to spend Sunday working on getting Langley used to Apple. Because of Apple's tiny size I need to be really careful with this though as Langley could unintentionally harm Apple when he gets into his frenetic play mode that is common when he's anxious.

Over the course of the morning he got several sniffing sessions with Apple in the crate and him loose in the living room.  At first after a couple sniffs all he cared about was trying to steal her toys. Since they weren't high value toys to him and were things he almost always ignored, I think this was some of his insecurity coming out - wanting to make sure she knew that "everything is MINE!"  But after a couple sessions of this his interest switched from the toys to Apple. Apple is very socially smart and she did lots of things to help Langley know she wasn't a threat.  Notice how she licks his muzzle a lot? That is something that puppies will often do to older dogs and the closest human words I can think to describe it is a sign of submission or respect. It's not a fearful submission, just a recognition of an elder. This behavior really seemed to put Langley more at ease.

Finally in the late afternoon we put Langley on lead and then let Apple out in the living room to play.  This way Apple had the option to move away from Langley if she felt overwhelmed and I could also make sure that Langley didn't get too rough in his play.  We put a Thundershirt on him, which I haven't used with him since back in August, and it made a HUGE difference.  He actually later fell asleep in my lap with it on and Troy, not realizing what was making him relaxed, asked me if I had given him some of his Xanax.

At first during the play sessions Langley was pretty frenetic but after a couple times we got to the point where he slowed down and really focused on his play partner and adjusted his play and height a bit. The difference is at first Langley plays with dogs as if they are inanimate objects without really interacting with them socially. Instead he plays with them like they are a really cool but slightly scary toy.  When he can slow down, then his focus goes outside of himself and the play becomes this dance of social interaction - something that is difficult for Langley but that he is starting to learn.  Watching this video makes me realize how far he has come.  In just a day and a half he has gone from being very anxious and frantic to being able to relax enough to play and interact in a socially appropriate way with the other dogs. This used to take weeks for him. Good work, Langley! This is great progress.