Meeting Harry

Harrison arrived Sunday afternoon and we started out his foster care adventure with introductions to the other dogs in the house.

We started with Lizzy because she is the most active and my guess was that they would be great pals. Lizzy can be fear reactive with unknown dogs who are larger than her so initially Harrison's size and intensity freaked her out and she was very growly and snappy with him. To help her relax we put Harry on a short leash so that he could be kept in one spot with limited leaping in the air. Lizzy, who was off leash was then free to move as far away from him as she needed to be to feel comfortable and could sneak in for butt sniffs to get to know him. I brought out a high value treat with me to so that they both had to divide their focus between each other and the yummy stuff in my treat bag. It also started an association for Lizzy that she gets paid well for being brave and meeting a new big dog. 

Lizzy cautiously approaches for a sniff, standing beneath me for some extra security

It took about 5 minutes of us standing in the rain and Lizzy carefully assessing Harrison and then she started throwing him play invitations. I don't think they've stopped playing since then.

BFF's

With some dogs just meeting 1 new dog is exhausting and as much as they can handle but Harrison was doing well so one by one the other dogs came out and met him. Lizzy provided a good distraction because she kept trying to get him to play while the other dogs checked him out.

Frodo is less than impressed

Typically I would put the dog who just met the new dog inside before bring out out the next dog but Harrison clearly wasn't bothered by the intros so I let the other dogs stay outside.

Harrison gives Chima a sniff and she's decided to tolerate it

Chima sniffed him a couple times and then ignored him. Sal snapped when he got too rambunctious and let him know right away that she wasn't going to take any punk puppy bullshit from him. Frodo and him did the circuit of marking every shrub and blade of grass in the yard to show who was the man of the yard.

Sal feels much better having some distance between her and Harrison

It was really yucky weather for an intro but unless I planned on crating the poor guy 24/7, it had to be done so everyone could get along in the house. Meeting oustide is so much easier for the dogs because they feel like they have room to move away if their feeling stressed.