How to Introduce your Puppy to a Playmate

Hello and thank you for being here with me!

As a certified dog behavior consultant, I truly love dogs and am always seeking to better understand how we can meet their needs.

In this clip, my goal was to create lasting playmates between two puppies. When I noticed these pups had very different levels of social confidence, I knew I had to go slow.

When introducing dogs, I normally use a 7 step Process I call “Let’s Talk”. In this process, I ask the dogs to walk by each other, follow each other and parallel walk. This process allows me to watch their body language and determine if both dogs want to greet. With the intense excitement from Otis, the Bearded Collie, and no harness, I opted for a simpler approach.

Watch and see how clear and consistent each puppies intentions are!

You might also like my full puppy playlist:Puppy Training That Works!

For more information on How to introduce dogs, you can check out my Let’s Talk Webinar here:https://caninebehaviorcounseling.com/canine-shop/

hey guys Judy Moore here I just finished editing a very fun video that I think you’re really going to enjoy I had the opportunity to introduce a 13we old female cautious rottw or puppy to a very excitable bouncy 14 week old bearded collie and there’s three things that I want you to think about as you watch this video first you’re going to learn a lot about K9 body language cuz I slow it down for you and talk about it second you’re going to learn about the social skills that each dog is using to communicate their intentions and both dogs change their social skills as the session goes on this is the first time these two pups have ever met and thirdly I want you to think about if these two dogs are actually going to be Playmates did we go slow enough that they’re really going to be Playmates or is there still some tension between them and maybe they’re just going to be friends so enjoy for the past 30 years I’ve become a student of animal Behavior mastering Humane training methods for problem dogs I helped thousands of clients better understand their dogs responses and improve their dog skills to bring companionship and joy to dogs and their [Music] owners so we have a 13-week old Rottweiler named aadia and we have 14we old bearded collie named Otis and you can tell right now just in this first initial she’s like yep you’re a dog that’s cool she’s assessing who he is if you look at the bearded collie the bearded collie is like all in I love you I love all dogs you are the best thing in the world I can’t wait to chew on your neck he’s super excited and she’s starting to read him as oh you’re kind of crazy but you look kind of playful surprisingly here aadia takes a step back watch her foot as he comes in she takes a step back that tells us that she needs a little bit more time before before we let them greet so I asked him to do a pass by so aadia the little black Rody is doing a pass by she looked at him and looked away several times Otis is bouncing around saying I love you please come see me I can’t wait to chew on your neck so there she looked at him and look she turns off to the left says yeah you’re really handsome but I think I need a minute at this point I realized we should have harnesses on both dogs cuz Otis is pulling really hard into that leash you see him gag there a little so using harness is highly recommended each time Otis approaches she leans back and takes a step back she’s curious she takes a step forward here they’re curious about each other but I can’t help notice that every time he approaches her she yields space so that just tells me that she needs a little bit more time it does make sense as aadia does live with a rule Setter she has been reprimanded so she’s just going extra careful with this new puppy basically she is trying to avoid conflict and at this point Otis leans forward to her and then he begins to just stand still and then he plops to the ground this is showing some good self modulation from Otis he’s learning to try a different reproach he’s learning to use a different skill which is really nice Acadia continues to nibble off the ground saying I see you there but right now it’s not important to me to come into your space she’s choosing to maintain that safe distance and when we’re making Playmates it’s important that both dogs want to engage but I really like this process of slowing things down for her and I love the fact that Otis is offering a new skill he’s getting smaller and saying see I’m very very friendly I really really want you to come into my my space and he’s working very hard to invite her over what’s really nice about this process is we’re giving each dog a choice to engage or not engage and this is how we should be introducing our adult dogs too we should always be slowing things down and giving both dogs a choice in this session here we just noticed that aadia did a half play Bell and came back up and there she’s walking forward to smell him but then when he he gets close to her face she shies away and takes a few steps away she just seems to need a lot of reassurance insurance that he has clear intentions see again he comes at her he’s consistent he’s persistent she steps away every time saying I just need to know what your intentions are I really am a bit unsure and I I need to make sure that you have good intentions before I let you in my space and so it’s just going to take these two time are we going to get there I believe we absolutely are going to certainly have friends and my hope is that he can win her over not that we actually have Playmates we let them get a little bit closer and you can see that she’s pretty clear she backed away several steps and then put her head down in the grass basically saying not interested in you right now it may be that ATI is not actually fearful but may just not like his energy as we call him away she looks at him and says huh where you going I’m kind of curious about you but we decided to give them a water break as soon as the puppies were finished with their water break we let them approach nose to nose you can see here that aadia has gained some confidence she’s not really yielding space she’s not moving away right here she moves that right right front foot she stepped into him she’s reaching around she’s smelling him showing nice engagement and look how nice Otis has calmed down we didn’t do anything other than wait him out he calmed down because she said I need you to calm down so it’s a really nice way of doing a greeting and letting both dogs Express their intentions OD showed great self modulation he’s mirroring her thoughtful energy and there she’s going into him look at him backing away we did keep Otis on a leash to slow him down so he didn’t chase her and we turned aadia loose so that if she felt the need she could move about freely the two dogs are engaging Otis really went under aadia to smell her and she put her paw on him he sort of climbed underneath her he’s so happy to have physical contact he’s just laying there he is smelling her she is standing over him smelling him this is not dominance her Spine and Neck and all of her joints were had good flexion and fluid movement so not dominance at all she was just like oh you’re there atie moves over to get some reassurance from Mom which is very appropriate you always want to support your dog to let them know you are there to support them and it’s clear that now she’s starting to rub on him she just rubbed her head over his head he’s jumping on her she again rubs her head on his so they have to figure out what each other’s play style is so that’s something that they’re going to learn as they engage my recommendation is that each time these two dogs meet that they parallel walk and that they are allowed time to have a conversation to make sure that both dogs intentions haven’t changed if one dog has had a negative experience they may need more time before the other dog gets into their space and what we’re facilitating here are Playmates we want to make sure that both dogs dog chooses to engage in the relationship that’s where we’re building the strong relationship that way if one dog does bite the other and is offended nothing bad is going to happen they’re not going to scuffle because they do truly enjoy each other’s company for more ideas on how to train your dog using food and toy rewards make sure you subscribe to my channel