New female pup, already got a 4 year old female dog

[Polarz]

Hello dog lovers, good day!

So my sister brought home a new female puppy. She's a real cutie I assure you. And we have this very kind 4 year old female dog. (Her name is Shoshono) She got along with a lot of dogs. Well, at least male dogs.. Anyways, so I tried to make them play with each other. But Shoshono seems to growl to the new pup. I stopped her though. So while I was doing some research upon how to make 2 female dogs get along ( but I get "how to spay female dogs" as my result though. ), she almost bit the new pup! I've had to seperate the 2 because of that. I thought having them together would cause chaos.

Now I need advices. Because when the new pup grows up, there'd be a lot of trouble then... Thanks in advance!!

Regards,
Polarz

[miloPJ]

I went to puppy training class last week and they suggested to have the pup smell the other pups butt. You just need to hold the other dog still and allow them each to get to know each other. It worked for my pup so good luck!

[Suzette]

Hi Polarz, I would suggest moving your question to the dog training advice section. It will get more views and our resident experts can help you out.

[Erica]

I've moved it for you

So - first things first. My goal wouldn't be to get them to play together; play can quickly escalate into fighting! Instead, I would want them to exist calmly and happily near each other. (My pup Delta and our older dog get along fantastically, but even when he was a tiny pup I wouldn't let them play for more than about 10 minutes total per day. One of the dogs I dogsit for loves playing with Delta, and he loves playing with her, but they get so excited that someone bites a little too hard and then it grows into a little hissy fit instead of play, so I have to keep their play sessions short and calm.)

To encourage calm, controlled behavior, I would practice just asking both dogs to sit while in the same room. If this is too much - if either dog can't focus on a treat and would rather be sniffing/playing with the other - I would get a baby gate and have one on each side. If THIS is too much, let us know and we can give you some different ideas!

If you have two people, the sit-in-the-same-room is easy. If it's just one person, I'd start on either side of the baby gate for safety's sake. You're not asking for a twenty minute sit-stay, just focused and calm behavior near the other dog.

Going on walks together, if you can keep "personal bubbles" around puppy and big dog, will also be good. Even if they're only five minutes, that's five minutes of positive exposure to each other.