We brought home a new 20-week-old dachshund today to join our 9-year-old rat terrier, and honestly it’s been a lot more stressful than we expected. There’s been some growling and snapping as they try to figure each other out, and our new guy has been pretty overwhelmed and not really eating yet. We’ve been keeping them separated so everyone can calm down, but it’s still been a tough adjustment. We also had to keep the puppy in his kennel for a while so he could settle, and he cried and barked for a long time before finally calming down. While that was happening, our rat terrier was also barking from the other room, which seemed to make everything more tense and harder for him to relax. I’ve read about introducing dogs in the backyard on opposite sides of a fence or at a distance, but our terrier tends to bark a lot and it ends up scaring the puppy, so that hasn’t gone smoothly either. We’re feeling pretty stuck and unsure what the best next steps are , we just want to de-escalate things and help them learn to coexist in the same house without this becoming a long-term problem. If anyone has been through something similar or has advice, we’d really appreciate it.
submitted by /u/lowcalorieguava
[link] [comments]