
When I got my pup (called Buster :) ), I allready had an adult male dog. The older dog was always very friendly towards visiting dog so I thought bringin pup home would be a breeze. However, older dog really did not take to him, he appeared to be 'disgusted' with pup.
I put up a stair gate at the kitchen door and the kitchen became pups area, he was only taken out of the kitchen on-lead so as not to overwhelm oldie. Gradually pup would come into the living room with us in the evening, on-lead,. the time pup spent in the living room was increased in sessions and lenghts of sessions and gradually the adult dog stopped being so 'disgusted' and started to accept pup.
It went on like this untill pup seemed to just 'merge' in with the older dog. However, for a few months pup was always shut in the kitchen if I was going out or could not supervise thier interactions.
ONce the adult dog had accepted the pup it was then a case of pup needing to learn the boundries from the other dog, during play sessions. Pup would push his luck but the more I stepped in, the less effort oldie put into telling pup off, it was only once I stopped interfereing that the adult dog told pup the rules, but this was not allowed un-supervised and
was not permitted until the adult dog was perfectly comfortable with pup being with us, so it was a couple of months from bringing pup home I 'left them to it' while I supervised thier play.
There is no way, going by my adult dogs behaviour, that I would have let them freely interact in the beginng. The adult was very uncomforatble (
seemed unsettled & wary)
with pup and an uncomforatable dog can feel forced into defending itself or doing things it wouldn't normally do it it felt comfortable (if you get my rambling?).
ETA, my adult dog would scream if pup went near him and stare at him with the whites of his eyes showing, like the 'whale eye' you can see in a dog guarding it's food in the begining, They ended up sharing a bed :)