First Impressions Last: Slow Introductions are Important

Here we are, four weeks after the girls arrived and Chima has still never had off leash introductions to Langley. Salinas has only had that happen once. I'd love to say that there was a good reason that I waited this long but mainly it just that life has been super busy this last month and introductions are not something that I take lightly.  For dogs, first impressions can be very difficult to let go of. I'm sure plenty of us humans have had trouble getting past a bad first impression of someone and dogs are no different in that regard.  And a nervous dog? Well getting them to let go of a bad first impression can take a ton of work. I've learned this the hard way. Separation until the dogs relax is much easier than having to undo a bad intro.

If the dog is a nervous ass the first time they meet another dog, chances are that other dog is not going to be a fan of them. And Langley, God love him, is the king of nervous asses when meeting other dogs. Because of this I typically keep him separate from new foster dogs with only the ability for the dogs to see each other - no physical touch. This goes on until Langley's body language tells me that the new dog is just another part of the pack to him and he's not excited by them. When I first started working with Langley it could take up to a month before his anxiety subsided enough for careful intros. Now typically it is just 3-4 days. Since Chima and Salinas are bigger than him, it took a bit longer, but I could have easily started intros after about a week. But our son was home from college for this last month and it just never happened. My bad.

I can laugh about it now, but there have been plenty of times when supervising Langley's interactions with other dogs have left me so frustrated that I wanted to scream but just cried instead since that was less likely to make the anxious dogs freak out even more. I mean, just because I do this whole "working with anxious dog thing" a lot doesn't mean I think it's fun. There are some people out there that love it, but it just makes me crazy sometimes. Don't get me wrong. It's rewarding as hell, but for me it is equal parts of love and exhausted frustration.

Langley is that big gangly terrier who has no clue what his body is doing half the time and he came to me with    the social skills of an 8 week old puppy.  He would sprint straight at a dog, face to face, stop in his tracks and stare just long enough that the dog felt pretty uneasy, and then out of nowhere would "SPLAT" drop flat to the ground, demand barking at the dog to play with him and play with him NOW!!!!  Needless to say, he didn't make many friends.

Then we got to the point where he learned to do a but sniff and that it was better to avoid face to face meetings. That would have been great if he just did a quick sniff but no. Not Langley. He would shove his nose into their butt so violently that the poor dog was not only roto-rootered but their back end was also lifted off the ground.  Again, this didn't go over well.

But over the past 6 months of training, he's gotten pretty good at exercising some control and I've gotten much better at choreographing these introductions.

Langley getting a quick butt sniff in with Chima - notice the  loose lead. It's really important that the human not be tense during intros because the dogs are going to think that you know something they don't and are going to tense up too.

So after work yesterday I decided that it was the day to get going on intros. I let the girls outside and waited until they were interested in things off the deck so they wouldn't startle Langley by charging the door. Next I leashed up Langley and out we went. To start with I kept him moving  so the girls could follow behind and get their sniffs in. Chima moved off to watch and Sal rolled around in the grass while Langley gently sniffed her. After observing awhile Chima seemed to be fine ignoring him. Langley got walked past her quickly so he could get a quick sniff in without enough time to be obnoxious. Chima let it happen and didn't tense up. Here's a video of Chima getting her turn at a sniff in:

Now he's checking out Salinas. Notice how I've got the leash a bit too taut in this  shot?

Here's sweet Sal rolling around while Langley inspects her:

Finally I got to the point where I had treats out and all the dogs were sitting on the top step of the deck focusing on me rather than each other. Langley was a bit uncomfortable - you can see in the photos how he is looking away (good boy Langley!) and how he leans away from the girls. This was great and I should have ended things here.

Langley looking away, a bit nervous by his close proximity to the girls

Here he's leaning away and lifting a paw as an appeasement gesture. Such progress for a boy who used to just go straight to "ATTACK" when he felt nervous.

But no, I always get so excited and don't stop when things are going well. Langley, after keeping himself pulled together as long as he could, in one fast move stepped over the top of Salinas with his stilt like legs and started humping her. Salinas shrugged him off and snarled - just like he deserved. Typically a snarl like that, no matter how deserved it was, would send Langley straight into anxious reactive fight mode. But I was fast and just walked him away quickly and he decided to follow my lead and let it go. Phew!

I learned from my mistake and Langley and I hurried inside to get a frozen kong for him before he headed to his crate.

While I can't just turn them loose together yet, we'll start trying to do potty breaks and some outside time together with close supervision until all of their anxiety with each other fades.  Wish me luck! I'm ready to be done with "crate and rotate" for their free time.