Are you having problems with jealousy between your dogs?
This can be a very common problem for many households, and since dogs have a natural social hierarchy, it can become quite difficult to resolve when the order hasn’t been naturally established.
This is especially common when you bring a new dog into the house when you already have a ‘resident’ dog who may not like the new addition to the family just yet. But despite this, there are several things you can do to ease the problem or even overcome it entirely. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at the tips and advice we have for you.
Getting The Introduction Right
When you first introduce a new dog to your home, your other dog will often become jealous pretty fast.
This is usually because the natural hierarchy has been unbalanced, but it usually isn’t something to worry about – because before too long the dogs will learn to bond and enjoy each other’s company.
You can reduce problems in the early days by keeping things as normal as possible for the resident dog. You should make sure to give the resident dog plenty of attention in the presence of your new dog, too.
By doing this, your resident dog will associate the presence of your new dog with rewards and attention, and this should help to diminish any feelings of jealousy that occur – especially if you remain consistent.
It’s important to realize that it needs to be this way round to establish an initial dominance hierarchy between the dogs in a way they can accept. If you always lavish attention on the new dog and neglect the old one, you’re more likely to run into jealousy problems, for obvious reasons.
Additionally, if the new dog isn’t yet arrived, you can try ignoring the older dog a little – just by scaling back some of the attention they’ve grown accustomed to.
This will speed up the association of your new dog being there and your old dog having extra attention – sneaky, but effective. Of course, this should lead your older dog to accept the new dog quicker.
Feeding Together
One of the most common situations for jealousy to emerge is during feeding time. The best solution is to feed the resident dog and the new dog together but make sure they face in separate directions so there’s no eye contact between them.
This should prevent any dominance displays or aggression over food, but at the same time, you’re not showing preferential treatment by feeding one of the dogs first either.
Making Allowances For Puppies
If the new dog is still a puppy, you need to realize that puppies can be tiring for an older dog to be around, so this is something you need to keep in mind. The older dog may become tired of the constant pestering they will receive from your new puppy, and this can sometimes cause hostility.
One of the easiest and most effective things to do is to create a barrier so that the older dog can escape from the puppy whenever he wants to.
This will cut down any growling and aggression from the older dog because they can simply get away into their own private space when they’ve had enough of the puppy.
Additionally, you should provide each one of your dogs with their own bed, and never let one dog use the other’s bed. This will give each dog a private space to get away from the other if needed, and it’ll cut down any potential disputes over the bed area as well.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there’s no denying that jealousy can be a common problem when you own two or more dogs – but if you follow the tips in this guide, you should be able to make some positive changes in no time at all.
