Episode #119 Introducing A New Puppy to Household Pets with Amanda Crosland

Are you bringing home a new puppy soon but are worried about them meeting your cat, rabbit, bird or guinea pig? This is something worth thinking about before it happens. What will the initial meeting look like and how can we set these animals up for success? Amanda Crosland joins Amy on the podcast today to share a few tips.

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

This is the puppy training podcast episode 119. Introducing your new puppy to household pets This podcast is designed to help you on your journey of becoming best friends through love and learning as you train your own dog from home, and I'm here to help you every step of the way. This is the puppy training podcast. And I'm your host, Amy Jensen. Hi, everyone. Thank you for listening to the podcast. today. We get a number of questions here at Baxter & Bella on how to introduce a new dog to current family pets. And I thought let's do a podcast on it. We touched on this topic in an earlier podcast when it talks to multiple dogs. But let's go more into detail on introductions to other animals. I've invited Amanda a trainer here at Baxter & Bella to join me in the discussion today. So thank you, Amanda, for being here. And welcome.

Amanda: 0:58

You're welcome. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me onto the podcast.

Amy: 1:03

Let's start with the setup. Amanda, we know we are bringing a new puppy home. We currently have let's say a cat living with us. I know cats are popular. How can we structure our home to make this initial greeting a success?

Amanda: 1:18

That's a great question. I get this question a lot. I think one of the best mindsets you can have is not rush into this one. We don't we don't want to rush into it, we want to take our time, we want the dog to take their time and we want the cat to take their time. And let's be realistic here, this interaction might take up to a year for them to be comfortable, even coexisting in the same household. So when you're bringing your new puppy home, your cats probably been there for quite a while now. And this is going to be a new change for them. So let's set this up so that your cat doesn't initially get super scared of that dog. let's anticipate that your dog is going to be very excited to see this kitty, and they're gonna want to interact with them, they're gonna want to play with them. And so let's manage their behavior so they can't get access to the cat. This might look like playpens. This might look like using tethers putting them on a leash, it might look like a screen door where they're on either side of a screen door. But either way, there's some kind of a barrier so that your dog can't just go full bore that kitty and that scare that kitty away. And now they have really poor associations to each other. So that's where I would start is if you're coming home with your new puppy set up an area where your puppy can't access the cat. And they can just kind of observe being and coexisting in the same area and safe places where they both have their own space.

Amy: 2:44

Will you explain a little bit what you're watching for as you do this, I love the concept of a barrier and letting them see each other and smell each other. But there's something there to protect, you know, each of them so that they're not hurting one another or getting too overly excited about each other. So what kinds of things are you watching for as you observe your puppy and your cat.

Amanda: 3:05

Um, so it depends, if you want your, there's gonna be a lot of things. If you want your dog and your cat to interact and to intermingle and maybe play a little bit, then we're going to be looking for a dog who has a really loose body and a very Happy Body, maybe has his tail wagging. But we also want to encourage calm behaviors. On top of that, for me, myself, I like my dogs and my cats to be kind of separate. I like them to kind of ignore each other and do their own thing and not really need to play all the time. So for me, I'm looking for a dog over time who's learning calm behaviors, and this is not going to happen on the first day, this is not even going to happen most likely in the first month. Over time, I'm going to be looking for a dog who's maybe laying down who maybe has a relaxed body who's not insanely hyper focused on this cat just kind of sees them and they can look back at me and in the end you're not looking you don't want any kind of like a stiff body you don't want any kind of really high tail you don't want their their you don't want any kind of growling you know, sometimes you see their lips curl up and you see their teeth a little bit that's that's stuff that we're going to be very obvious to us like ooh, this is probably not going to be good interaction. Some of the more subtle stuff might be like your dog's yawning or maybe your dog scratching or maybe walks around and sniffs the ground a little bit. These might be signs that the barriers frustrating him from the cat. So this is going to be a time you're going to want to redirect your dog and help him learn a calm behavior because he's stressed out about that barrier from not being able to get to the cat. So help him be comfortable in that barrier with the cat kind of wandering around. This could mean you feed meals in there when you notice he's getting stressed out maybe play a little bit of tug, maybe remove the cat from the room and let him come out a little bit and kind of be in the area that the cat was just in. We want to find ways to really help our dog feel comfortable being in that area with the cat but not sharing the same space. quite yet, so we're looking at in the beginning for those comfortable, happy body moves the loose body, if you go to body language on our program talks a lot about this kind of back to just just your question, look for Happy Body, if that's what you want when you're when you want them interacting. Or if you want a dog that kind of ignores look for a calm body.

Amy: 5:19

Yeah, on the topic of ignoring how can we teach a puppy to disengage with a cat?

Amanda: 5:25

That's a good question. So a lot of times we see him hyper focus. If you think of the ABCs of dog training, this is something we talk about in our program, if you're a member, we want to look for moments where a dog looks like they might be hyper focusing, this might look like your body, the body of the dog orient completely to that cat, the whole body turns towards them, the head goes forward, the body pushes forward, they're stretching to see a little better. Maybe their eyes are just very, very fixated on that cat ears need might even go forward a little bit, it just kind of depends on the dog, sometimes their tail gets going super, super fast, they're really, really excited to see this cat, that right there can happen in less than three seconds. And that's where we want to try to redirect before they bark before they jump before they lunge. We want to try to catch it there. And that's how we're going to teach them slowly over time to ignore this cat. Once they orient we redirect it to a new behavior that teaches them Oh, I can be calm around this cat, I don't have half to hyper fixate on it. So redirection might look like we've talked about bringing in tug toys, and they're bringing squeaky toys in they're bringing some treats in there. And you're just staying very positive. We don't want to use any corrective tones here any mean tones, we're using very positive, happy tone saying Hey, puppy, puppy puppy. Or a lot of times I really like to roll my tongue like sound really, really seems to help give my puppies attention and redirect them back to me and still keeps a positive association. So if you're trying to teach your puppy to ignore, ignore your cat, when you see them hyper fixate in that three second window before they react. That's where I want you to try to redirect.

Amy: 7:07

Yeah, that's really good advice. Let's say that we've gotten past the point of the introduction. And now we're in a room and our cat is out and our dog is out. Are there things we can do to help that go? Well?

Amanda: 7:20

Yeah, I mean, once again, don't rush into it, I would wait even even slowly give your puppy more and more space more and more access to the room your cat is in. But yeah, once you've taken away that barrier, and they are in the same room, it still might be helpful to have a leash attached just in case you need to be there to kind of help the safety of the interaction. But once again, back to that hyper fixation, if you notice, if you want your puppy to be ignoring your cat, if you notice, they're sitting there hyper fixating on the cat while they're moving around, then that's where you're just going to try to redirect, give them a new job to do ask him to lay down, ask them to sit, ask them to go to their bed asked to come look at you. Whatever kind of a job you think might be helpful for your puppy and something that they know works, you know, you give them treats every time they do this, or you play tug with them every time they do this.

Amy: 8:11

Okay, so what if I have other household pets? Like, say, a rabbit or guinea pig, maybe a bird? Does this same protocol apply? Or does it change?

Amanda: 8:22

This would this same thing would totally apply? I mean, we need to keep in mind that time that distance. And those positive associations, we don't want to rush into this interaction, we want to make sure that we are creating distance if this interaction looks too excitable, or they're not giving us the positive body language, the loose bodies. Or if there's any kind of reactivity to the interaction, create that distance again, also those barriers and the management with the playpens and the tethers that we talked about. And then on top of that, also just keeping positive associations, rewarding them, praising them, helping them learn that this is a good thing and both for the animal that you're introducing the dog to and for the dog themselves positive associations both ways.

Amy: 9:07

Yeah, I find sometimes we accidentally give a lot of attention to the item or the creature that we're wanting our dog to leave alone, I think we see this a lot in puppies with sticks outside or leaves or things that are exciting. And we're sometimes we overreact and pay a lot of attention to those items. Do you feel like it's similar with these household pets?

Amanda: 9:29

Yeah, definitely. A lot of people get stuck in like those no loops that we talked about, and they get stuck in to stop, get off, be quiet, which draws attention to what they were doing, you know, and the same thing goes for these cats or the chickens or the guinea pigs or whatever it is you're introducing your dog to, if they're fixating on it and super interactive with it and you're drawing attention to that behavior by saying, hey, no, stop, get off. There. No, you're not telling them what to do instead. So there's gonna go right back to it. So the best thing you can do there is, let's let's not jump into the no loop, let's jump into Hey, what do I want my dog to do instead here?

Amy: 10:07

I like that you pointed that out, you know, what do we want them to do instead that needs to be our focus. And oftentimes our focus is I don't want my dog to do this. But if we can stay on that loop of I want my dog to do this and even process that and think about that before we bring our puppy home. You know, I know I have a cat, what do I want this to look like and have a clear picture in my mind, we're going to be in a in a better place and our puppy is going to be set up for success.

Amanda: 10:33

Yeah, definitely. I really want to encourage listeners to teach and encourage calm behaviors in their puppy, regardless of the type of interaction they want their dog to have with this new animal or that they're being introduced to teaching them calm behaviors, whether it's laying down, whether it's responding to you whether it's a set, whether it's a go to your place, kind of a cue, we're teaching these common behaviors so that our dog will continue calm associations with this new animal going forward.

Amy: 11:06

Alright, as we talk about initial Greetings, I'm just curious. And this is a little bit off topic. But talking about these new pets with household pets, what about like a new baby joining the family, any tips there for success?

Amanda: 11:20

For sure, yeah. So I actually have a new baby on the way which I'm really excited to start introducing my dogs to what this is going to look like. We want to keep an A similar setup to how we're introducing our dog to other living animals in our house is the same concept applies with that time, don't rush into it, there's no urge here for them to get along and coexist together, it's going to take time. And we also want to keep in mind that distance, make sure that they're respecting boundaries, and they're respecting distance and learning to be in the same place, but not right next to that, that item that they want to be by or that creature or the baby or whatever. And then on top of that, keep in mind those positive associations, and I have so much we could talk about with babies.

Amy: 12:08

I think that would make a great podcast all on its own. So Amanda, I think we'll have to have you back to talk more in detail about babies joining a family.

Amanda: 12:16

That would be wonderful. All right. Well, thank

Amy: 12:19

you so much for being here. Amanda. Thanks, you guys for listening. Hopefully, you took away a few tips to help you. I know that it's very common for households to have not only a new puppy, but they have pets like cats and guinea pigs and birds. And it's important that we take that slowly, like Amanda mentioned, that we give distance so that our puppy has space and that the other animal has space to acclimate to one another and feel comfortable with one another before letting them be, you know, in a closer proximity. And we want them to be happy about it. We want those positive associations. So you guys have a wonderful week. Happy training and we'll talk to you soon. If you have a question about anything you heard on this podcast or any other Puppy Training question, visit my site Baxter & bella.com to contact me