How To Do Dog Introductions!

In this episode, the hosts discuss various methods for introducing dogs to one another, focusing on different scenarios such as introducing puppies to each other, friendly older dogs, standoffish older dogs, and aggressive dogs.

They emphasize the importance of having a plan, understanding dog behavior, and taking the time necessary for successful introductions. The conversation is filled with humor and personal anecdotes, making it both informative and entertaining for dog owners and trainers alike.

This conversation delves into the complexities of introducing dogs to one another, focusing on various scenarios including puppies to older dogs, older dogs to standoffish dogs, and aggressive dog introductions. The speakers emphasize the importance of understanding dog behavior, body language, and the need for structured introductions to ensure safety and success. They discuss strategies for managing introductions, the significance of trust and resources, and the necessity of muzzle training for aggressive dogs. The conversation concludes with a reminder to take time and be observant during the introduction process.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the show everybody. You are getting a sneak peek.
I started recording in the middle of a huge blow up
knockdown fight. So I'm the good guy in this the
story. I'm the hero of losses, the
villain. Nelson.
Would you agree with that so far?
I would agree so far for sure. So every episode we just kind of
wing it and talk about dogs and Vloss.

(00:21):
Every time it's like you guys need to make a script, you have
to make a script. And I made a framework for
today's episode, put all this time into it.
And he's, I don't like to use the word jerk when it's not
called for, but he's being a huge jerk about it, so.
I don't know if you can claim tohave put all this time into it,
but there's no denying that you made a framework for today's.
Lesson it's AI mean I see bullets.

(00:44):
It's a weird framework. No, it's super good.
And it's like, look how many bullets there are.
That's so many. Of these situations are gonna be
like the exact same thing to talk about.
OK, so the way you would introduce a friendly older dog
to another friendly older dog isway different than an aggressive
older dog to a standoffish olderdog.
This is amazing framework. But the way you introduce a

(01:07):
friendly older dog to a friendlyolder dog is gonna be similar to
how you introduce a puppy to a friendly older dog.
Similar but different. So I would like everyone weigh
in. Tell us in the comments.
Obviously you're all gonna be onmy side because I'm in the right
here. So please tell me that in the
comments. We're gonna do this and we're
gonna see if everyone likes thisframework, and I think they

(01:27):
will. I just feel like there's so many
other things to talk about. Yeah.
Like, like for me. So, you know, I ended up writing
down some stuff too, because I I.
Can't. Now we know where it came from.
He wrote his own and he's salty that I have one.
OK, now it's clear. Now I wouldn't say salty, it's

(01:49):
just I don't get yours. It doesn't make any sense.
It's just properly seasoned. He's not salty, just properly.
We can use either. So today we're we're going to
walk through how to do dog intros.
We should have said that already, but that's the title.
So I'm assuming everyone's read the title before they clicked
into this episode. Pull up your framework lost to a

(02:10):
screen share. Let's let's use it.
Oh, I don't have it on on digital.
I went to old school. He's analog on.
Paper. It's on paper, that's what.
That's what liars say who don't have frameworks.
It's literally, I didn't write it down, it's just in my head.
It's literally right here. So I wanted to start off screen.

(02:31):
I wanted to start off with. There is one.
I want, I'm going to start off talking about the fact that what
do most clients do to introduce two dogs, right?
Like we at least I think pretty much everybody always does the
same thing and it's pretty much the exact opposite of what I
think we're going to go over today.
So I want to start there. What is What do most people do

(02:53):
when they introduce dogs? Yeah, I think that's good.
And let them loose. And then don't do that.
And so we're going to talk through how to do dog intros.
We're going to do it. I've lost his way, so he doesn't
get super angry the whole time. And then we'll figure out, we're
going to walk you through a lot of different options, good ways,

(03:13):
bad ways, and then we'll give you options for how to do it
with different types of dogs. Whether we use my framework or
we just wing, it's hard to say, but there's obviously the way
you introduce 2 puppies to each other is a lot different than
the way you would introduce 2 adult Rottweilers with dog
aggression issues to each other.So Rot owners, I'm not picking
on you. So don't don't get angry any

(03:36):
aggressive older dog. It's usually the Pitbull people
you have to fight off. That's true for sure.
Someone gave me a middle finger emoji on YouTube the other day.
I didn't even know there was a middle finger emoji.
I mean, I knew there was one, but I can't imagine why they
would have given you a middle finger.
Because we talked about the Pitbull breed, Apparently you

(03:59):
can't, You can't do that. Yep.
Doesn't matter if you say that. You can say I like pits, they're
really good dogs. They just need trained and
socialized and if you don't train them and socialize them
someone become aggressive and still people are like that's
bashing the breed. I don't.
I think you deserved it. Maybe, but probably for
something else. OK, So what are we going to

(04:20):
start with? We're going to talk about bad
ways to do dog intros. Yeah.
OK, I think you should. Who wants to Nelson?
Somebody tell us. About So the worst way that you
can introduce two dogs is have the first dog loose in your

(04:41):
house or in your yard. It could go either way and then
set the second dog free and walkaway and just don't even beat
there. The absolute worst way that you
could introduce two dogs to eachother is just to literally let
them figure it out. I disagree.
I don't know if it's the worst way, but I'd say it's the way

(05:01):
that 95% of clients do it. They have one dog out in the
yard and they just bring the other dog in through the door,
let him go. For sure that, but usually they
at least stay there. Yeah.
OK, yeah, they do stay there. I I'll give you that part.
So I'm not sure Nelson's is the worst way, because I feel like

(05:24):
it'd be worse if you gave them each like a chunk of raw meat at
the same time. If you like just tossed them
each like a raw steak and then walked away, that sounds worse.
But we don't need to split hairshere.
So we're agreed you need to havesome sort of plan and just
letting them together is not a plan.

(05:44):
OK, good dogs, right? And even with good dogs, you
still need some kind of general structure, like the structure
you made for this video, right? It it could be, it could be
light and loose, but you know something.
Mm hmm. Something.
Well, why don't we talk through some different scenarios of how
we'd introduce dogs and we'll see how it goes.
So the way you introduce dogs differs based upon the dogs and

(06:08):
their age, their temperament, maybe their breed, I don't know.
Maybe that's relevant, maybe it's not.
Nelson. How would you introduce 2
puppies to each other 8 weeks old?
How do you do it? 28 week old dogs that I'm
introducing together. I am very likely going to just
put both dogs down and play ref if I have to.

(06:31):
Yeah. So again, most eight week old
puppies are curious and want to play and are well within a
socializing type of period of their life that usually because
again temperament absolutely does play a role, things are
going to go pretty well even if they never actually go up and

(06:53):
sniff each other or play or anything like that.
Typically they're not going to get into any kind of scuffle,
but you know, because nothing isperfect.
I would still say you should be there and play ref whenever you
have to because one of the things that you will definitely
see is rude behavior, right? You're going to see very likely
one puppy is going to grab the other by an ear and try and walk

(07:14):
around with them and do a bunch of stuff like that.
So. Done.
I've got nothing to add 2 puppies.
Put them down, let them play. You're the ref.
You're the. You look like you have something
to. I just have a question overall.
So no leashes, no leash time whatsoever.
Just literally put the put both puppies on the floor, let them

(07:34):
go. For two eight week old puppies,
yeah. I I don't know if I would do any
leash work. OK.
Would you? Is that is that a challenge?
I don't know, I guess I'm interested to see where this
goes with some of the other situations that are on the list
before I really like jump on anything.

(07:56):
Yeah. Well, this framework is going
from, we start with puppy to puppy and we end with aggressive
adult dog to aggressive adult dog with a lot of stops in the
middle. So there's going to be we're
going to be adding tools and techniques as we go.
Definitely, yeah. So I think I just want to hear
Nelson's answer to each one and then at some point I'll chime in
and and talk about my overall thoughts just based on how we

(08:19):
did with the first one. I love that framework.
So what we could do is have Nelson answer each one.
Then you get time to think, you then add to that and then
afterwards I'll say yeah, like that's.
I would have said both of those plus this other thing.
I'll have like an hour to plan, OK, let's move on puppy to
friendly older dog And we could really split hairs here and say,

(08:43):
what's a puppy? When do they quit being a puppy
for all of these? I'm, I think 8 weeks we're going
to talk about for puppy and if it's 16 weeks, it's still pretty
close to the puppy. If it's six months, it's more
like an older dog at that point and you just have to kind of
determine for yourself. But puppy to friendly older dog
and older does not mean old. The older dog could be, I don't

(09:05):
know, a year, yeah. Up, yeah.
OK, So what I would do for a fresh eight week old puppy being
introduced to a friendly older dog?
I would I would still have the puppy on a leash for sure.
I probably wouldn't have the older dog on a leash.
He could be kind of hanging around sniffing everywhere that

(09:28):
we've been. I would definitely calm the
puppy down at least to the pointwhere it's not trying to jump at
the older dog trying to play because again, we're assuming
that this a week old puppy is looking for nothing more than
absolute best friends. So I would walk him around, get
him to go potty, get him to settle down to the older dog,

(09:51):
and then start letting the sniffing happen.
Playing ref, you know, but pretty quickly.
I would start on a leash, but I would drop that leash really,
really fast. Once they've made initial
contact and they're sniffing each other, you know that that
leash is getting dropped pretty quick.
Gloss What do you What do you want to critique there?

(10:12):
Do you want to hear more before you critique?
I. I would do it different.
For the record, here's what I would do.
I wouldn't use I'm. Struggling here at all.
Yeah, I wouldn't use the leash now.
I wouldn't if a client, if someone used a leash, I wouldn't
say, Oh my gosh, that was wrong or bad.
But if I'm introducing like to my dogs, a puppy, I would just

(10:34):
set it down. And if I had worries about the
puppy being like so psychotic that we couldn't control it,
that would be different. But Akira, I think we're, I'm
assuming it's like your average puppy, not, you know, crazy
puppy that's like, you know, level 10 on the excitement or
drive scale. Your lips are moving.

(10:55):
What do you get? Excited.
I'm struggling with with these situations.
How well do you know the friendly older dog?
We know it. Well, so that's a decent
question though, right? So I guess to frame this up
better, are these are we instructing people how they
should be doing it themselves oram I explaining how I would

(11:18):
introduce? I don't know.
I guess I would say my dog, but neither of my dogs, you know,
like are aggressive. So it doesn't play out perfectly
each time. But because that's that is fair.
How well do I know that older dog?
Could I just back it off with a snap as opposed to that?
Dog's going to be super excited to want to play with the puppy.

(11:39):
I would assume that you know allthese things to be true.
You know the one dog to be a puppy, and you know the other
dog to be friendly. Friendly.
Yeah, I guess I just then don't find the situations as realistic
per SE. Like if you said you're
introducing your personal dog toa puppy and your personal dog is

(12:00):
a friendly older dog, then I think Nelson, what Nelson just
sort of went through makes sense.
But to me, if it's a friendly older dog like and I'm not
working at a daycare where I know that dog so well because
it's in there every single day, right, the odds of me knowing
that friendly older dog well enough to make the decision to

(12:22):
have it off leash seem like it'sjust not going to happen, right?
So well. I would say to me that happens
all the time where I have a client who I've trained their
older dog and they get a puppy and they want help and they're
like, how should we do the intro?
And if I'm there, I would just, if I trust the older dog, I
would just set the puppy down. And I guess I'm envisioning the

(12:45):
majority of the situations that we're talking about still aren't
that that's two dogs inside the same household and they're
introducing the dog to their newdog.
As opposed to what I've been picturing for all of these is
like I'm introducing my friend'sdog to a clients dog or
something like that, like a clients dog to their friends

(13:06):
dog. That's.
Interesting. So if you don't know the other
dog is a friendly older dog, then you move to the next one on
our on our list here, our standoffish or questionable
older dog. So if you if you can't think of
it a time when you would know that an older dog was friendly,
then you would just skip this one and you would go to the next

(13:26):
but. But I think that's going to my,
my overall point for all of these first 3 ones that now that
you've brought the third one up is that I would probably do
pretty much the same thing. And I would always be more
cautious than both of you and just start on leash no matter
what. So would you in in the case of,

(13:51):
let's say you know, puppy to nice older dog, you're saying
that you would have both of themon leash and you'd be working
with both dogs on leash. I don't know how much working
would be necessary, but I think I would start off no matter
what. If you ask me ideal dog
introduction for any dog, I'd say I want two people, one for

(14:14):
each dog and each dog on a leash.
And that's just where I'd start.And that way, regardless of what
happens, I'm covered. I have control.
I have a leash, right? If something goes poorly, I can
make decisions and control the situation.
Whereas if I start without the leash, I can't do that.
I think as a general guideline, that's, you know, that's perfect

(14:37):
advice. I don't think that's realistic,
but I think that that would be why.
Is it not? Why is it not realistic?
Who has two leashes? Who could just find 2 leashes
out of nowhere? But the other thing too is, you
know, how many clients do you know that leash their dogs up to

(14:57):
to meet? We already went over this.
None of them, none of them do it, but they should.
That's my. Point.
I mean, if I got 28 week old puppies, the only reason they'd
be on leash is to make sure thatthey don't run away.
So, and that one's really extreme and it's why I didn't
bring it up at that point, right?
So like introducing 28 week old puppies, I don't really think

(15:18):
the leash is going to come in handy.
But every situation after that, I feel like there's a a decent
enough chance that you might as well start there.
Well, I can, I can think of situations where I would wish
that I had the puppy on the leash because the, you know,

(15:39):
like it's so terrified of the older dog.
But I don't know, man, I think the chances of me introducing a
puppy to an older dog and I'm, you know, like a dog that I know
to be friendly, you know, and mewanting that dog on the leash.
I don't know. I, I don't, I wouldn't, I
wouldn't care one way or another.
If they brought a leash, cool, you know, But I don't know if

(16:02):
that would be like in my stipulations.
So I like what you just said there, Nelson, though it's
something we didn't have on our framework, even though it's a
really good framework, it was missing.
This is the friendly dog. I was assuming it's a
controllable friendly dog, and many of them aren't.
So to me, the friendly dog is a dog who I know and I can control

(16:24):
and it'll listen to me if the dog is out of control, the
other, the older one, even if it's friendly, then Alicia's
gonna be needed. So it doesn't terrify the puppy.
So, and you mentioned this in passing, you said get him back
with a snap. And for everyone listening, he
means a snap of his finger, not like a snap of the leash or
something crazy. And if you can't like snap and
walk to him and back him up, then yeah, that that older dog

(16:46):
is too wild and probably needs aleash on.
So I'm going to revise my framework to friendly older dog
that listens to voice. Commands that listens.
Well, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're not revising.
We're evolving. OK, this, the framework just
evolved. That's all.
I expanded. There you go.

(17:06):
So let's move on. Let's make it harder.
OK. Because all of these tools that
we're going to talk about now tohave lost this point, somebody
could use them. If they want to be ridiculous
and do like spend 3 hours introducing 2 puppies, they
could do it. I mean if they want to put
muzzles on right? Like have fun.

(17:27):
Have to find muzzles that fit an8 week old Pekingese.
OK, let's go to puppy to a standoffish older dog.
So standoffish. I don't know how we want to
define this, but this is an older dog that we just don't
trust as much. Maybe an older dog that doesn't
really love puppies but it's notaggressive.

(17:49):
This is a dog who likes other dogs but you're just worried
about is he going to like this puppy?
If the puppy gets in his space, is the older dog going to snap
and bite the puppy and terrify him?
This is a really common scenariowhere people say I don't know if
my older dog is super friendly, he hasn't seen a puppy in years
and no one has any idea. So this to me is a pretty common

(18:11):
scenario. You want to take this one I I
would agree that. This definitely seems like the
most realistic time that someonewould even question you know, or
or even want. My advice right is because the
older dog is 90% great with other dogs.

(18:31):
But exactly what you mentioned are the things that we're
looking out for. What happens when that puppy
jumps on him? Is he going to snap at the puppy
or what happens if you know, he's drinking water and the
puppy bowls over and tries to drink the same water or getting
in the face, that kind of stuff.And so usually what I would do,

(18:53):
this is absolutely a time that Iwould have both dogs on a leash,
may or may not be holding the older dog, again, depending on
how controllable it is. But I'm absolutely going to take
my time before letting that puppy go because I want there to
be plenty of time where the older dog came over, sniffed the

(19:18):
puppy, you know, got got used tothe fact of how it moves.
The fact of it that they're fast, they're loud, they run
into stuff. A lot of this, I guess, is just
more so for more so than the puppy is for that older dog to
get used to. And I don't know really what

(19:40):
you're going for is just that itlikes the puppy more than it's
annoyed by the puppy, right? Because it's it's that annoyed
factor that we're questioning atthe moment of how, how are you
going to correct this, this puppy for being annoying?
I agree, Ross, what do you, whatdo you want to throw in there?

(20:00):
What are you angry? I was going.
To ask, you said hold the older dog.
What do you mean by that? Like just you have the leash and
you're just standing there or what do you mean?
Well, I said I'd be holding the puppy.
I don't know if I'd be holding the older dog's leash to keep
them separated, right? Again, depending on how
controllable that older dog is, there's a very good chance that

(20:23):
again, I would just be backing that dog off until, until I feel
comfortable and it feels comfortable.
And maybe that puppy's a little tired for it to start coming
over sniffing and, and making first contact, but that first
contact is typically where a puppy will try and, and jump and
play, right. And like that's, that's really

(20:46):
the, the big things that we're that I'm at least envisioning
that would be what I'd be concerned about is how is this
dog going to react when this puppy inevitably jumps at its
face or on its shoulder or something like that trying to
play. So you're saying in this
situation you still don't have the older dog's leash?
That dog is free. If I feel confident with that

(21:10):
older dog, yes I he would he would likely have a leash on,
but I don't know if I would be holding it.
I guess the hard part too is that I'm imagining I'm by
myself. You know, like if I just had to
introduce this puppy to somewhatgrumpy older dog, right?

(21:33):
Like I don't know if that reallyrequires two people because if
it if I felt like, oh, this is definitely going to require two
people, I feel like he would probably move up to not so
friendly category. Well, this seems like a good
time to flag that there's a lot of ways to do an intro and

(21:55):
you're going to vary it based upon the, you know, each dog
because of course there's different puppies, right?
There's the puppy that's really nervous, that isn't even wanting
to go up to the older dog. There's the average puppy.
And then there's the crazy puppywho's like, you know, is going
to go nuts and like chase the older dog and be absolutely
crazy. And then with the standoffish

(22:16):
older dog, if you know it well, there's some that are like if,
if the puppy charges them, they might give a little growl and
just try to get away And others might snap to say, stay away
from me. So I obviously there's so many
variables that you could come into play.
What I would encourage a client to do is just take your time

(22:37):
with this one. And if the older dog is truly
just a little standoffish and doesn't trust the puppy, then
you just need a little time to build up that trust.
And you could do what you were talking about there, Nelson, You
could. But you could also put the dog,
like the puppy in a crate and like a big wire crate in the
middle of the room and let the older dog loose in the room.

(22:58):
And the older dog can go up and smell the puppy through the
crate. And every dog is different.
If the older dog is not interested in that, then you
might have to change course, youknow, course of action, but the
older dog might love it and smell the puppy and wag it, you
know, wag its tail and then the puppy gets rid of some of its
craziness from inside of the crate and then you could take it
out and put it on leash. So that's A and that really

(23:18):
helps. Of course, if you're on your own
with this, which a lot of clients or people are, and then,
you know, Baby Gate does the same thing pretty much.
I think I like the crate a little bit more just so I know
that the puppy's not doing anything to him either.
But yeah, I mean, that's that's extremely helpful, right?
Again, it's a different way to achieve the same goal, which is

(23:40):
that the the puppy has calmed down a little bit to the older
dog that it's not going to jump immediately.
So take your time, Bloss. You've got something.
What do you got? Well.
I mean that that seems like a good way, like a good option for
doing it, right? And I'm not going to sit here
and be like, oh, there's no other.

(24:01):
Like my way is the only way and there's no good options, right?
But to me, I just go back to, ifwe're talking the ideal way to
get these dogs around each otheragain, I just go back to you'd
start off each dog on a leash, 2handlers, right?
And that way you can control thesituation, right?
Each person can control a dog. What if the puppy's not leash

(24:24):
trained yet? Client just got them.
It doesn't matter because at least by having the leash you
put the. Leash on the.
Puppy can't control them. Thrashing and like, freaking out
about the collar now. Now what?
But again, you're just coming upwith obscene scenarios.
Then you would work on getting the puppy calmed down to having
a leash on 1st. But your trainer can't come for

(24:46):
like 5 days. What then to fix the the leash
issues? See this is what you did to us
on that episode of of Dog. What was that on dog?
I don't even know what it was. Dog fights or no leash reactive
dogs. No, but I agree with your point
boss. You could obviously put them
both on leash and there's so many things you could do.

(25:06):
You could go for a walk togetherand just heal the dogs and go
for a walk and try to get the puppy walking well.
And it gets rid of a lot of excitement.
It builds up some trust and thenyou could slowly let them start
smelling each other away from the home.
And we haven't talked location yet.
You know, once you get into standoffish or aggressive dog,
getting away from the home is pretty pretty key.

(25:29):
With you know, the earlier ones I don't think it matters much,
but once we're standoffish it kind of matters.
Aggressive it matters for sure, but go for a walk, both of them
on leash, 2 handlers and then let them smell.
I like it. Agree.
Which, which again is, that's the advice I'm given to most
people, right, is to go for a long walk together, generally 45

(25:51):
minutes. Now with a puppy, you're clearly
not going to take it for a 45 minute walk or if you did, you
might have to be picking that dog up at times.
But even if you are, that's still good for the other dog as
well because the puppy's still there, they're still smelling
it, they're still getting to know that what the other the dog
is like. So I think I might still give
that advice. I probably wouldn't again say 45

(26:13):
minutes, But to me, I just keep going back to if we're talking
the ideal situation, right? Because that's what we should be
telling people to do is the ideal situation.
It's to me, it's not going to beone person, it's always going to
be two people, right? And you're always going to want
to have control to start. What I would throw out is it
depends on our audience. So much of the audience of this

(26:36):
show is are there dog trainers and they're going to be in the
scenario a lot where it's them, right?
And it's they're introducing client dogs or there's, you
know, they're doing a board and train or who knows what.
But I agree with you, 2 handlersof course would make this
better. So then could we change the name
of the podcast to dog trainers bringing home like training dogs

(26:59):
in order to introduce to their personal dogs?
Because then we could have that conversation all day.
That rolls off the tongue. I like that.
But that completely tanks everything, right?
And so if I'm bringing home a boarding train, for example,
there's no way there's two handlers and I'm doing all of.
This, but that's, but that's my point, because I feel like

(27:19):
that's a lot of the situations you guys have been talking about
at this point is like, you know,the other dogs well enough to do
the introduction with without control of the other dogs.
To me, that's like your personaldogs or dogs that you've worked
with a ton, right? Like.
Which what I would say is something I see a lot.
So it's rare like that. I'm going to a first house call

(27:42):
where someone's like, I have an older dog and I want you to help
introduce my eight week old puppy that doesn't.
Come up very often. But I get it a lot where it's a
dog I know and they're like, hey, I'm, you know, I've trained
and they're like, I'm getting a puppy.
Can you be there the day we bring them home?
And I know the other dog and. But in the scenario you just
talked about, you have two handlers.

(28:03):
You don't have one. You're with a client.
That's true, but I wouldn't use them if we're back to the top of
my framework. Puppy.
No friendly older dog, is it? Obviously.
Puppy No friendly older dog thatI know like just put the puppy
down, we'd let him play, we'd check out body language, we'd
talk about body language, what to look for, and then we talk
about the older dog maybe claiming is a bad or his toys or

(28:25):
whatever. But I think you guys, I think
you guys get my point at this point that I would just do it
different and be more cautious and we can keep going through
through all your lists, but. I'm a cowboy man, I just want to
get it done as quick as I can bymyself.
So now we're moving on puppy to aggressive dog.
We're halfway through. No, yeah, this will be half when

(28:47):
we complete this halfway throughour framework of difficulty.
So puppy to aggressive dog. This one's, this one's a little
tough and this one's a little tough because I don't know how
aggressive the aggressive dog is.
And then I don't know how timid that the puppy is.
But I can guarantee you this is going to take days at the

(29:10):
earliest is what I would say, right.
I mean, if it's a couple of weeks, that wouldn't surprise me
at all. Can I give you a scenario?
Sure. And then you react to that.
OK. Because this is when I see a lot
an older dog, 4 year old dog reactive unleash and doesn't
hasn't met a new dog in quite a while.
Every dog it barks and lunges when it sees them.

(29:32):
They don't think the client doesn't think it would try to
like kill another dog but it doesn't seem very friendly.
It's gone to daycare before and played with dogs but there's no
way like they can't introduce itto another dog and you know when
they're on leash they have to get it home quickly if it sees 1
doesn't that. Change all of this because like
now you've switched to not aggressive and.

(29:53):
Well, I don't know. I mean a client would say we
haven't, we don't know if it's aggressive and it acts
aggressively when it sees a dog and I'm sure the other.
And the other questions the the concept was.
I know this to be true, but let's go with that either way.
I know this to be true right? This dog has never successfully

(30:14):
mauled another dog, but it's leash react.
I had the opportunity to. Maybe client called you.
This is like this is a new client.
Dog is crazy when it sees new dogs.
They have no idea what to do. They brought the puppy home
before they called you and the older dog was barking and
growling at the point to do. Yeah.
OK, go. So I guess one of the one of the

(30:35):
big things that I would be doinga ton if I'm trying to get this
progressed as much as possible in one single session.
I'd say don't worry about that. OK.
Just give them what you would do.
What I would do is I would have the puppy's crate in a very, you

(30:58):
know, a very common place that everybody would be hanging out,
not in the room, not in a basement, not in an office.
I mean, it would be like in the living room or in the kitchen,
somewhere where everybody is generally at.
And what I would start to do is use that time that the puppy is
either in its pen or in its crate to train the older

(31:18):
reactive dog. And I would be working on
getting it to not target or not stare at the puppy every time
that it moves. I might I would, I would
definitely correct it anytime that it's barking or growling at
the puppy in its own in its cage.
Like if it just walks up and kind of growls in, which is
something that we've all seen before, I would definitely start

(31:40):
to correct that. And I would be working really,
really hard and getting the morereactive or aggressive dog to
calm down in the, in the presence of that puppy.
And then I would certainly startto work on if I'm, if I am by
myself because again, this couldgo for days, then maybe I create

(32:04):
that more aggressive, more reactive dog and I would be
working or playing with the puppy.
However, cuz I don't really haveto work with the puppy, right?
It just has to not go, not go upand antagonize the, the older
dog. But I might work on claiming
space from the older dog's crateto the puppy.
I might be working on just general walking cuz it has to

(32:28):
get least trained anyways. And I would be correcting the
dog, the older dog in the crate as well, if it is also brawling
and barking, just for having that puppy walk around.
If I have two people, that's fantastic because then I could
just pass the puppy off and correct and calm the older dog.

(32:48):
But if I don't, then I would just have kind of a quick place
that I could stash that dog while I deal with the older one.
But I mean, I would probably be doing that for, for dates, you
know, before I have any, any level of confidence that I can
back that dog off, even though it's reactive, you know, the

(33:13):
hair starts to go up, that tail goes off and I can tell, hey,
get the heck out of here becauseI have the puppy on a leash.
But even even when they're actually making first contact.
Can we pause there for a second?Yeah.
So I like that you said however long, at least you know a few
days. What I would say to a client is
you work on that until the olderdog is no longer reactive

(33:36):
towards the puppy. Sure.
Right. And we don't and we don't know
how long that is. Maybe that's two hours, maybe
it's two days, maybe it's a week.
Depends how on the dogs. It depends how much work they
put in and how it goes, but thatwould be my framework is don't
rush it and do the stuff. Some of the stuff you're talking
about now, but you know, you're ready to move on to, I think

(33:57):
what you're about to say when the older dog is no longer
reactive on the stuff that you're doing.
Yeah. And then you, you start having
them out, you know, again in theyard together.
I definitely have a leash on thepuppy.
He just to be able to kind of stop him from approaching the
more reactive dog. Even after first contact, You

(34:21):
know, I'm going to be advocatingon both ends.
If I feel that the older dog is being pushy, I'm going to be
advocating for the puppy. But also, if the puppy is still
super excited because just because they sniffed each other
and they got used to each other in one single context doesn't
mean that the puppy can now do whatever the heck it wants to
do. We don't know what, you know,

(34:43):
what might take that reactive dog off or not.
You know, like it might be nothing.
It might be, hey, I sniffed you and now that I know who you are
and you've been here for a couple of days, no big deal.
Come hang out. And you know, they just got over
the initial interest. Or it could be, hey, I allow you

(35:04):
to be in my house, but again, that's my toy.
Or don't move too fast. Don't come down the stairs
without me knowing. So I think stuff, I think
that's, those are all excellent points.
And people have to understand that situations can change so
rapidly. You know, we started off Covey
and said the worst way to introduce two dogs would be to
throw meat in there, right? So it'd be very easy for the two

(35:25):
dogs to sniff each other, get used to each other in one
situation, but then something drastic change and you might not
even know what that drastic thing is.
It might not be somebody introducing meat, but it could
be that the puppy goes by the dog's favorite ball or something
like that and that changes the situation considerably.
So even after they've done the, the calm down and, and you're

(35:45):
feeling better, situations changing could have a huge
impact. One thing I did want to do
though, Nelson, is I wanted to circle back.
You said it might be a multi dayprocess, which I agree with.
It might take multiple sessions in between.
Do you do anything additional totry and help that older dog?
So, you know, some people talk about with like introducing a

(36:06):
baby or a new puppy to leave a scent item with the other dog,
right? Would you leave a blanket that
the puppy had with the older dogat night so that the older dog
starts smelling the puppy? Is that something you think
would be helpful? I don't personally put a lot of
stock in in that, but I also think that there's no negative.

(36:30):
So I would have no problem, you know, for example, if the family
wanted me to do something like that, I'd have zero problem, you
know, taken and switching out a blanket so that the, you know,
the older dog could hang out with a, with a fresh blanket,
let's say of, of fresh puppy smell.
I don't think that there's anything wrong with it.

(36:50):
It could only help. I just don't know how much it
actually helps. So would I personally do it like
if I were introducing, you know,these dogs, both of these dogs
were mine? Probably not, but I I have zero
against it whatsoever. Covey.
Yeah, wanted to expand on a few things.
So just so the listeners know there's there's two main reasons

(37:13):
this these dogs would fight. One would be trust and the other
would be resources. So trust like the first day you
let the puppy run up to the older dog, the older dogs
aggressive doesn't trust him or like him and maybe he's just
excited, who knows, But that would be one reason.
And then Nelson and Velocity both touched on this.
Then after you get past that, resources would be the big one.

(37:35):
And you just have to understand that.
And I would keep resources up until you the dogs really know
each other well. And resources would be dog bed,
food, bones, toys could be on your lap.
If you're older dog especially, you know, it's like on your lap
on the couch and the puppy runs over, it could be a spot that
that it guards. So just all things to think

(37:55):
about. What I wanted to expand on is as
trainers, we often play the cards we're dealt and there are
so many ways. Without getting into huge
details, let's just talk about some other ways you could do
these intros. And I say play the cards you're
dealt because let's say that theclient has really nice fenced in
area in their yard and there's like, you could let the puppy be

(38:18):
in there and walk the other dog on the leash outside of it and
let them smell each other through the chain link.
That'd work great, you know, butmaybe they don't have a chain
link fence. So you look around, you're like,
well, I can't do that with this client, but maybe they, you
know, you live in a really quietneighborhood.
You're like, let's go for a walkand you hold the puppy and just
carry it while that you walk thereactive dog with two handlers

(38:41):
and you walk until the dogs are no longer reactive about the,
you know about the puppy and probably won't take that long.
And then you set the puppy down and you try to walk for a while,
but maybe the clients live in the city and it's like chaos and
you don't want to walk the puppy.
You don't feel good about it. And there's certainly no fence
there. Then the crate is probably your
best option or the baby gate or trying to walk through the

(39:03):
living room. So yeah, I feel like a lot of
this is playing the cards you'redealt, but it's fine.
Some way to let them interact a little bit and be around each
other without a lot of excitement and with control.
If you can achieve those two things, you're going to make
progress and just play with the tools at your disposal.
And there's a lot of people where it's a single handler.

(39:23):
We get those comments on YouTubeall the time where someone's
like I, you know, have litter mates or whatever, dogs that
need to be separated or dogs that are fighting.
How do I do this with one handler?
And sometimes, although as a trainer, we're like, that's a
bad idea. That's the car you have to play,
the cards you're dealt. So that would suck to have to
introduce an aggressive dog to apuppy by yourself.

(39:44):
Not as a dog trainer without a second handler, but I'd be using
the crate a lot for that. So I feel like all those factors
that you just touched on are make so many more differences
than the things that you have onyour list here, right, like.
Playing the cards that you're dealt and finding the solution
for the situation, to me, is farmore important than the

(40:06):
differences that we have here indogs.
Now, I agree that difference in dogs does make a difference for
how you handle things. But again, to me, I would always
be more cautious than what you guys have been.
But all those other factors you just talked about, those are the
things that would actually make the biggest differences for me.
So does that the reason? Does that mean that before you

(40:27):
move on, Nelson, Oh, you're talking framework.
OK, go for it. Yeah.
Framework, he's like, oh, you'reon my side, OK, go ahead.
So does that mean that Covey's framework is superior then?
Because we covered his frameworkand your framework all at the
same time? We haven't even gotten into most
of the stuff I wanted to talk about.

(40:48):
So the reason I created it and the way I did, for the record,
is what I didn't want to do is bounce around where we're like,
you could do it this way, but ifthe dog's friendly, it'd be
easier. But if he's a super aggressive,
it'd be a lot harder. Oh man, if one was a puppy,
you'd do it this way. We need some sort of framework
to guide this because the way you introduce 28 week old
puppies to each other is a lot different than two adult

(41:10):
aggressive dogs, which we're going to get to and there's
going to be fireworks loss is going to be like we need 6
handlers, 25 leashes, 2 leashes.Two leashes on the harness, 2
leashes on the collar. One of the big things I wanted
to talk about is different typesof introductions because I feel
like what we're talking about isreally formal introductions as

(41:34):
compared to dogs that aren't going to be around each other
that much that you just want to sort of get to know each other.
I I feel like there's different levels of introductions as well.
There are I guess I was assumingthis whole time this is someone
who says I want my dog to reallylike to be off leash with this
other dog. So that's correct.
So full. Bore introductions, yes.

(41:57):
Yeah, right. Both dogs you know well, Same,
same household. I think we're going to get into
more techniques and ideas as we get into harder dogs.
So but now, now we're taking a step towards the easier because
the next one friendly older dog to friendly older dog I did.
Want to say one last thing, one last point about about the

(42:19):
former and that point is that this is a very common situation
and a very common situation thatwe see good results with.
So though there would still be alot of work to do with that more
reactive dog, you know, I can, Ican think of so many clients

(42:40):
that have had a very reactive dog, potentially even aggressive
dogs. You know, where they've, they
have gotten into fights with other dogs and we've still been
able to introduce a puppy and those dogs become best friends.
Because getting getting a dog tolike one other dog is vastly
different than getting one dog to like every other dog, or at

(43:01):
least ignore every other dog. So can you do a thumbs up emoji
in this program? Because if so, I'd like to shoot
one your way, right? Now that was the way I was.
Explaining I'm on. Fire.
Yeah, those are the. Emotions I want The way I
explain that to a client is 99.99% certainty.
I can get a puppy introduced to your older dog.

(43:21):
I don't care how aggressive it is, 99.9% can I get if you said
I've got this adult dog who's aggressive and I want him to be
good with any new dog that comesup to him on leash we're way
below 99.99%. I can guarantee that it's so
much depends on the dog and it'sgoing to be a much lower chance
of the dog loving everyone. So I agreed getting him to love

(43:43):
one dog because then you're he'sgoing to love the the puppy and
then still be reactive to other dogs unless.
You think that? Yeah.
Then the puppy's going to be like, if the puppy's a breed
that enjoys that is like, this is cool.
That's let's and your puppy's going to learn to be reactive
like 10 times faster than your older dog did.
Definitely, that does happen. OK, so awesome older dog to

(44:07):
awesome older dog. Yeah.
Can I answer this one? But as Nelson, I'm going to give
what what I think Nelson's goingto say.
Yeah. All right.
So I'm envisioning it's just Nelson with two dogs and I'm
going to say just let them around each other.
Why not just let them play with each other like no.

(44:29):
Leash. No collars, no nothing.
Huh. Yeah, they're both friendly.
I know them both well, right? Because that's the criteria we
were using for friendly dogs before.
So it's two dogs that you know very well, right?
So why, you're just gonna let them play, right?
I mean, I don't know, that's a tough one.
I guess it doesn't sound like bad advice to me, right?

(44:50):
But at the same time I would want it to go a little slow,
just for the initial contact I mean.
But you know, situations. Change situations change very
quickly. You said it yourself.
And so I mean, there would stillbe some, though minimal
structure, right? If I know this dog and I like

(45:11):
them and I know this dog and I like them and I know they like
dogs, there would still be a tiny bit of structure as even as
minimal as it would be, right? I would still walk in with at
the very least one of them is ona leash just so that I can walk
around the yard, you know, in like I'm envisioning it's, it's

(45:31):
my house. I would make one full revolution
around the yard and then let them actually say hi.
I guess I don't get it. Why is there more structure here
than puppy to friendly older dog?
Because a lot of a lot of dogs understand that puppies are
puppies and puppies are annoying.

(45:51):
Where I just feel like there's more offense to older dog to
older dog, right? You know, even though it's a
very nice dog, that doesn't meanthat they're going to take
disrespectful behavior the same way they would from a puppy.
I'll give you that. I just then still don't see why
you wouldn't have done it with puppy to friendly older dog.
I guess I just told you why. I'll give you a couple options

(46:14):
here. I bring client dogs to my house
fairly often to meet my dogs if they haven't met before.
And when I do that, if I know the client dog and I I mean I've
been training with and I know itto be friendly, I bring it to my
house and I never let it surprise my dogs because my dogs
are both guard dogs. If they caught a strange dog in
the yard, I don't think it wouldgo super well.

(46:36):
But I bring them and I call my dogs to the door while I have
the other dog unleash and they run up and see it and I let
everyone see each other. It's just like a glass like
storm door. Let them see each other through
the door for a second. And then I have the other dog on
leash and I open the door and let invite one of my dogs to
come out. Let it come out, say hi to the
other dog on leash for a second.I let the other one come out,

(46:57):
say hi to the dog on leash for asecond.
And then I let that dog off leash like, I don't know, 10
seconds later and the three of them play.
So that's how I how I do it there.
But to the point that Blossom made me make like I know my dogs
and they're good and they're friendly with other dogs.
There's nothing wrong with doingthis on leash.
So if you like the easiest way like would be to have them both

(47:20):
on leash and go for a 5 minute walk together and both owners
and you're just chatting, talking, making dog.
The dogs heal, you're away from the house and then you let them
smell each other and it goes well.
And if if they're both friendly adult dogs, I would let them
smell each other face to face. I would just after healing for a
few minutes, I would just let him tell him free and let him
say hi and just do. It'd be that easy.

(47:42):
And then I'd let him say hi and then walk back to the house and
kick him loose in the yard. I wouldn't get fancier on how I
let him smell until we have dogsthat we're worried about truly
worry about fighting. Sure, I do want to.
I do want to point out that that's a good breakdown of the
fact that you have two dogs to one, where in my scenario is one

(48:06):
dog to one dog. You should absolutely not let
both dogs probably run up at thesame time.
You know you don't want the the one dog to feel entrapped.
Yeah, I'm glad you expanded. Like, that was obviously my
point, but I didn't really say that.
But I don't want to terrify the dog where there's two big dogs
that are like in their face out of nowhere.
Right. Yeah.

(48:28):
Well, let's, let's move on, makeit a little harder.
So our next one is friendly older dog to a standoffish older
dog. And then after that we have
standoffish to standoffish before we get to our aggressive
dogs again. So I mean, these two would be
fairly similar. How you'd introduce a friendly

(48:51):
dog to a standoffish dog or two standoffish dogs to each other.
It really depends on, you know, what they're doing.
Who wants to take this one? Let's let Vloss you do it.
Yeah, let's let Vloss do this. See, but again, I go back to it.
It's going to sound really similar to what I've already
said, but I mean, I'll go through it so.

(49:11):
What I would do? Is start off with two handlers,
one for each dog right? And my goal would be to
basically heal around each otheruntil they're calm with each
other. Now, we could go for a walk
together, but again, that sort of goes to the whole playing
cards you're dealt, whether you're going to work in the
client's backyard and heal back and forth in the backyard or if

(49:32):
you're going to go out for a walk together.
My personal opinion, if the one dog lives in the house, it's
going to be better to leave. We talked about neutral
territory to some extent. So to me, I would prefer to not
be in a backyard. I would prefer to go for the
walk so that we can go around the neighborhood in a neutral

(49:52):
territory where the dogs really don't know each other.
Keep them within, let's say 5 to10 feet of each other so that
they can be sniffing the air, getting to know each other
during that walk, seeing each other's mannerisms and all of
those things before we go into introducing them.
And I'm going to be looking at both dogs to see what their body

(50:12):
language is, what they're actinglike, all of those things before
I make a decision to move forward with any further
introduction. I'm glad you said body language
because as we get to this one, then especially the next one, if
you don't know body language well, your host like you're
going to have a fight on your hands if you don't understand

(50:33):
dog body language. So if you're not a trainer or
you're a trainer, that could usesome brushing up on that.
Listen to the dog body body language episode.
We spent a lot of time talking about it.
If you can't quickly identify you, what your dog is feeling in
that moment, and when I say quickly, I mean like 8th of a
second, like you know, instantlyknow what's going on, bad things

(50:55):
are going to happen. So definitely, definitely brush
up on that. Yeah.
So then once I feel good about how both dogs are doing, then I
would move into something we haven't really talked about.
And Covey, I think you sort of started to mention it was how
you let the dogs smell each other.
So I would then go to butt sniffs, where basically one

(51:16):
handler is going to approach from behind with their dog and
let their dog go up to the otherone's butt and sort of take a
general sniff. And then we would turn away and
walk away and then switch and have the other dog do the same
thing in the entire time. Really be watching the dog's
body languages, making sure thatthey can approach each other and

(51:38):
smell each other without either one tensing up or getting
frustrated about what's happening in the situation.
So that was get kind of my pointa second ago.
You were right. Is this standoffish older dog to
another adult dog is the first time that I look at the scenario
and say we need to do a different on leash intro.
Face to face is too high of a risk.

(51:59):
And this whole episode we've been kind of like laughing most
of this stuff off, right? But at this point, I mean,
obviously not, you know, puppy to aggressive older dog.
We've spent some time there talking about this could take a
week or so, but this one, face to face intros are not a smart
move. So I, I think without a doubt we
should, I think we should dive in a little more just so
everyone understands. Nelson, do you want to explain

(52:21):
it or do you want me to? What Vloss said.
But just in other words, just incase it didn't make sense to a
listener, go ahead. So the idea is face to face
intros are more likely to spark a fight and a dog smelling of
the dog's rear end is good. But how do you create that?
You can't just say dog one smelldog 2's rear end, dog two, don't

(52:41):
turn around and attack him. You have to somehow create that.
So we would be healing, preferably away from the home.
And I would have gone for a walkalready First build up some
trust like Voss said, let the dog smell the air and get to
know each other. And then I would start walking
really slowly and I would have one dog at my side and I would
bring the other dog up from behind and just walk behind for

(53:01):
as long as that takes until the dog in front's not spinning
around to look at that dog. And then I would let the dog in
from behind kind of sneak up andsmell the other dog's rear end
as you're walking. And the person in front is
responsible for keeping the other dog facing forward.
We've got a video showing this exact process.
So if you're listening to this and doesn't quite make sense,
watch the video. It's I think it's how to do

(53:24):
intros with reactive dogs. It's called I think.
That's what it's called, yeah. And in it we explained if your
dog is still like lunging at theother dog, you're not ready for
this. You fix that over reactivity
first and then this is how you actually do the intros.
And then once the one dog is smelled the other one's rear end
a few times it's gone. Well, then you would switch and
let that you know the other, youknow, dog too, become the dog in

(53:45):
front and let the other dog smell that one's rear end.
And then you decide what next. Did that go well enough?
Was everyone pretty cool about it?
And then now you start letting them smell each other a little
more face to face. That's when it starts to get
more questionable. Because if you have two good
handlers, that first thing we'rejust talking about is like, you
know, letting the dog smell eachother's butt.

(54:08):
The odds of an attack and actually hurting each other are
about 0 if you have good handlers in that scenario.
But face to face, even with goodhandlers, it happens quick.
You can still you can have a problem when you get to that
point. Not to dive into like crazy
detail on that, but you know, I would always caution everybody

(54:28):
to make sure that the dog that we're worried about or the more
reactive dog is the dog that gets sniffed first.
Because you want to be able to gauge what the reaction is, see
how they handle being touched, especially having a dog, you
know, come up to them from behind and fix all of that stuff

(54:49):
before they are ready to sniff The the the, in this case, the
nicer dog. And getting back to dog body
language, the things I would worry about is the dog behind
should be smelling and should bewanting to smell the other dog.
If it's staring at the other dogas you get closer and it's not
smelling to any dog trainer, that'd be a big red flag like

(55:10):
what is happening right now. If this dog is just staring, it
might be one of the small percentage that'll attack from
behind. That's usually uncommon because
if you're healing and you've already healed next to each
other, we're, you know, we're assuming you've walked side by
side for 10 minutes. If you've done that and the
other dogs not being reactive, very few dogs will then get
behind that other dog and decideI'm just going to charge it into

(55:32):
attack. That's insanely rare.
But if you were behind that dog and it's not smelling that, that
would be a big red flag. For sure.
Do we want to go, do we want to move to aggressive dog, to
aggressive dog? And it's going to be similar to
this. It's just going to maybe change
a few things. Might as well, yeah, but I mean

(55:53):
it is very similar, right? I mean it's it's a combination
of this and puppy to aggressive dog.
So. So if I was a listener right
now, what I would say is, OK, you've talked about how to heal
them side by side. Got it.
You've talked about how to have the one in front and let the one
smell his butt and then switch and do that.
Got it. And then you've said it's really

(56:14):
hard to now do the face to face and you didn't give us any
guidance there. That's the hard part.
How do we do that? So to me, I think that's where
we have to talk about playing the cards you're dealt and
figuring out how to do that because that's to me, that's the
meat of this. You do the intro part, but then
what next you know? I think I will probably to try

(56:37):
and clarify what the situation is right.
So if I have an aggressive dog and I'm doing an aggressive
boarding trainer or for whateverreason, 2 aggressive dogs of
mine are going to be living under the same house.
You know, this is going to take a long time and and things that
I would probably make sure I have under my belt aside from

(57:00):
the more structured kind of follow the leaders style of
intros is I'd be making sure that they that these dogs can
spend structured time together. And what that might mean is even
if I have multiple multiple handlers, that's fantastic.
This is certainly a time where Iwould welcome it, but I would be

(57:24):
training both dogs in a similar area together, right?
And they don't they don't need to even actually pay attention
to each other. They just need to be in a common
area or I might put one dog on place while I train the other
one and then switch them out. This one goes to this bed and
now I start training. This one I would be spending a

(57:46):
ton of very structured time together just to desensitize
them a little bit, right. I mean, there is a huge value.
It takes forever. So it's really tough to do in
house calls. But for a board and train, no
question. You know, it's there's a huge
value to just dogs existing together without actually having

(58:07):
the social pressure of having togo nose to nose until I feel
pretty confident about that. But you pair structured time
together with the follow the leader style of intro and you're
going to have a pretty good ideaof what that body language
actually will look like when it comes to face to face.

(58:28):
And things that I would be looking for is not indifference
necessarily, but I definitely don't want them to have that,
that furled brow or, you know, really hard stare at each other
or anything like that. I would want to see loose body
language, you know, where, wherethe tail is not completely

(58:48):
straight up and stiff or, or anything like that.
I would want to see very relaxedfrom the whole body, right?
Not just what does their face look like, but I'd want to see
some, some really, really confidence inspiring a
relaxation coming from these dogs before letting them go nose

(59:10):
to nose or face to face, Especially if I don't like, if
it's me and another trainer, we might, you know, like say, well,
this looks pretty good. Let's go ahead and give it a
shot. If it's me and a client, you
know, until I am of the utmost confidence, I don't even know if
I would let it go, you know, andtry and actually get these dogs

(59:33):
to go face to face and play yet.Well, to me, I think that takes
us back to a big point that Covey made during puppy to
aggressive dog of it's going to take time, right?
And take your time. Don't rush this, right?
Just take your time getting the dogs around each other.
When you're going from like sniffing each other's butt to

(59:53):
getting to face to face, right? You really want to make sure
you're paying attention to the dog's body language.
Like you said, making sure there's not not staring, making
sure there's not stiffness, all of those factors are important
before you really let the dogs go up to each other.
And what I would usually do is after doing like the butt sniff
exercise, I would have the two people stand like 5 feet away

(01:00:14):
from each other just holding theleash and the whole time be
looking at both dogs and saying what are they doing right?
Are they paying attention to each other?
Are their eyes locked on each other?
Are they sort of looking around at other things?
All of this is going to determine what we do next and
where. Where we go from there, we might
take a step back if the dogs arestaring at each other and mad,

(01:00:34):
and we might go to healing againand just walk around for a while
again and then go back to butt sniffs before we ever get back
to face to face. So to me, I think biggest thing
is take your time, read dog bodylanguage and then continue
forward once you're seeing progress.
So let's talk face to face. We keep beating around the Bush
here and the listeners want to know, and I'm going to drop a

(01:00:57):
nugget of wisdom here, but not until you rate this show.
So look at your phone. There's a tab that says about on
your Spotify app. I've no idea what it looks like
on Apple. And the click that, it'll say
ratings. There's a number of stars you're
going to want to hit 5 is that'sthe number you want to hit.

(01:01:17):
That means you like our show andeven if you don't like it, still
hit 5. So I'll give you some time here.
People like arguing, and I thinkthis is the most arguing we've
ever had on a show, so it's a good one to have people rate US
for. All right, so you gave us five
stars. Thank you very much.
I see those numbers climbing this.

(01:01:38):
How do you do the face to face? How do you finally get to that
point? What I would tell a client if
you have aggressive dogs is a muzzle.
It you're crazy not to muzzle train these dogs, I think it'd
be nuts not to. And the reason for that is the
muzzle allows you to be so much gentler with the dogs.
It's not just about preventing like you might say, I don't

(01:02:00):
think they'd really hurt each other.
Well, I would say if you let these two dogs go to smell each
other and one does something that you don't like, even if
you're good at dog body languageand you know it, and you see the
dog tenses up and you're like, uh oh, I think this is
something. And the dog goes to move.
What are you going to do, I'm assuming yet yank back on the
leash and pull them away? Well, what if you jumped the

(01:02:20):
gun? What if that your dog was about
to like play bow, He was about to dive into a play bow and you
yanked him back. And then now he's nervous and
now you've now what? Now how do you go back and let
him say hi? And you don't even know if he
was going to do a play bow or ifhe was going to attack the other
dog. And what the muzzle allows you
to do is give just another splitsecond to evaluate.
Because even if you're a really good trainer that really knows

(01:02:44):
dog body language, then if that's the case, you know how
fast this all happens. You have such a moment within a
moment to identify what that dogis going to do.
And you have to be right every single time or a dog is going to
get its face ripped up. To me, that's, that's a crazy
risk to take because you might be right 9 out of 10, but what's
going to happen is you're going to have to overcorrect a lot of

(01:03:04):
times that shouldn't have been. So I would muzzle train them.
So you do all this other stuff that you've talked, we've talked
about, and now you can let them go face to face, you know, And
so I would do the, you know, thebutt sniffs, all of that,
acclimate them to muzzles. And then now you could let them
slowly go face to face. And if you're watching them and
you're like, I don't know, I'm getting tense.

(01:03:25):
I think they might be getting tense.
Tell them heal, both handlers heal and you walk off and then
you come back to it and you let them say hi again and kind of
look at each other. And if you all of a sudden you
feel a little tension building, you tell them heal.
And if you are correct and tension was building, there's a
good chance they're going to lunge as soon as you say heal
and walk them off and you'll say, OK, I was right.
I caught that one, and if you tell them he'll and they're

(01:03:47):
like, hey, what's going on? Most likely there wasn't tension
building. That was probably play about to
happen. And I don't think we need to
identify everything that happens, you know, in dog body
language in this episode. We already have one on that.
But remember that everything they do in fights they do in
play. So when they're about to attack
each other, the very common to freeze and stare and then

(01:04:08):
attack, but it's also very common for two dogs that are
buddies to freeze and stare and then play attack and jump on
each other and growl and wrestle.
So you've got a no dog body language and also know your dog.
And if your dog is a rough, loudplayer, that's probably kind of
normal. If your dog is a gentle player
and you've never seen him freezeand then charge another dog and

(01:04:31):
he's freezing, that's almost certainly going to be an issue
that you should address. So muzzle, muzzle, muzzle,
muzzle, muzzle, muzzle, muzzle. I think the terminology of, you
know, it's going to be gentler on your dog is, you know, so
perfect, right? Because if you especially if you

(01:04:51):
don't have muzzles on these dogsand you start to feel tension
build, you know, there's one of two ways to kind of break that
off so that hopefully nothing crazy happens.
And one is call them back to you.
But if your dogs aren't good enough to be able to do that,
especially face to face with another dog, you cannot slowly

(01:05:15):
pull your dog with leash pressure away from another dog
because that tension going backwards might get them to
actually lunge and start the fight.
You know, they're they're going to use that that tension as the
launching point of whatever fight it was, right.
So you could have just escalatedthe situation.
And so the reason that it's going to be gentler on the dog

(01:05:38):
is such good phrasing is becausethe other option is you're going
to have to be able to, hey, thatdog is starting to get tense.
I now have to pull back hard enough and fast enough that I
can create distance where they cannot close it and actually
reach each other. And so especially if you jump

(01:05:58):
the gun and you just don't have the same amount of time and it's
better to be safe than it is to be sorry.
You know you're going to be pulling your dog back and
pretty, you know, pretty abruptly way more often.
Especially, you know, because there's a good chance that it
essentially could have been play.
Or if nothing else, at least I would have had the time to at

(01:06:20):
least try calling the dog back to me before pulling the back.
I heard that, Nelly. So a question we had on Spotify
was about doing dog intros. And one thing they had asked, I
was just pulling it up real quick so I could remember was

(01:06:41):
what do you do different if thisis a dog, like a dog pal, dog
park intro versus intro at the home, you know, like a new dog.
And the big thing I would say isthe resources.
Other than that, it's all going to be pretty similar.
But at home, you have to make sure your dog is not going to
guard you when it's on your lap or on your feet.

(01:07:03):
Guard his dog bed, guard his bones, guard his toys, guard his
cage. Who knows?
It depends what whatever he likes and you'll know.
You should probably know what your dog really likes and you'll
that's the stuff he's likely to guard.
If your dog doesn't ever go in his cage and doesn't like it,
probably not going to guard it. But if that's his safe zone and
he has a dog bed in there and likes it, then there's a much

(01:07:25):
higher likelihood. So that's the stuff I'd worry
about. The resources is long winded.
My long winded answer is basically just worry about
resources if it's a new a new pet.
So I think that was a great question.
I have another scenario that I don't know if it's going to be
any different for you guys, but I just want to ask anyways.
So two dogs that have lived in the same house and used to fight

(01:07:49):
and now have been separated for some period of time.
Is reintroducing them the same as introducing 2 aggressive dogs
that haven't met each other? I think so.
I think a lot of it would be very, very similar, though I'm,
I might go incredibly, much slower because there's very,

(01:08:13):
very likely going to be bad blood and you know, between
these dogs. So I would be 10 times more
cautious about face to face, 10 times more cautious about any
type of resource guarding. You know, again, common question
that I will ask people when we get to a house call and one dog

(01:08:34):
in the house is attacking another dog in the house is what
is that second dog doing? Because at some point they are
going to learn I need to attack 1st instead of just constantly,
you know, getting my butt handedto me.
I need to be able to throw down.And that you've, you get to a
very, very difficult place when both dogs want to fight equally

(01:08:58):
as much, especially having been separated, you know, and that,
that really it doesn't help. It's safer, but it doesn't help
the situation, right? So it's not like, well, they've,
you know, they've cooled off fortwo weeks.
Go ahead and put them back together.
They're going to be completely normal.
Where if they started fighting and then you separated them and

(01:09:19):
there's, there's a good chance that they've just kind of
ingrained a grudge. I think you touched on what I
think the biggest difference is,and it's at at the start, I'm
going to be trying to figure outwhat caused those fights and is
there stuff that we have to do to address that before we worry
about the reintroduction. And then that also might
influence how we do the introduction, the reintroduction

(01:09:42):
and precautions that we take because of it.
So. And that to me is the advantage
of this scenario because there is the plus that if you ask the
right questions and the client was there when they fought, you
at least know what the trigger is.
So now you know, resources is a problem or whatever, you know,
or it's excitement, you know, they're cool and then they're

(01:10:05):
chasing a squirrel and they bothget worked up and attack each
other. So at least if we ask the right
questions and the client was there when the fight happened,
we can probably figure out why they fought and create a more
targeted training plan. So there's a little bit of
silver lining there at least. For sure.
Versus telling the client, couldbe distrust, could be

(01:10:25):
excitement, could be resources. I don't know.
They might fight over any of those things and then you don't
know where to put your energy. Let's throw a stake and find
out. But it is nice when because you
guys know how it is. Most dogs that have like that
we're working with that have been fighting each other.
Most don't fight all the time. Most fight over resources or

(01:10:45):
excitement. When it's two dogs in the house,
we're getting rid of distrust here because there's generally
not that because they, you know,they know each other, but
excitement, you know, doorbell rings, now they fight.
Squirrel in the yard, now they fight.
Or a resource. Those are by far the most common
and we see it a lot. And at least we know we can set
that up and not worry as much about the other stuff because

(01:11:08):
there's a good chance you put them in the backyard and they're
fine together as long as they don't have any resources back
there. And how many clients do we all
have that you do the house call and you're working and whatever.
And they're like, oh, they're fine in the yard if I'm not
there. And like the majority of the
time that's true, right? And they're like, I'll just as
we're finishing the lesson, I'lljust put them in the backyard.

(01:11:29):
I'll let them loose. They're fine back there.
And you're like, I kind of want to run.
I kind of just want to run. If you're going to let them
loose in the yard right now, I don't want to be here for that.
But there's a lot of dogs that don't fight in that scenario.
Until. They do.
I was wondering what you guys were going to say until they do.

(01:11:50):
Yeah. Well, what do you feel like we
didn't cover? We got through the big picture
stuff. I wanted to so that people could
have a framework to kind of walkthrough and think about
different scenarios. Floss.
What a What? Are you unhappy?
I think we've finally done it. No, I think we've finally done
it. We got through everything that I

(01:12:10):
would have wanted to talk about and your list as well.
So to Nelson's point, maybe you did it.
Maybe you did it better. I think we should both upload
images of our framework for the audience to see and people can
vote. Can we do a poll?
I can just. Show my poll.

(01:12:31):
That'd be interesting. Look at this OK.
That's mine. That's that's his nice.
That nice? I mean, this is ours.
Concise. Yeah, people, people think about
something being concise. That's hard to make it concise.
That's 8 hours of work, maybe 10.
So the crazy thing is if. We don't check the history of

(01:12:51):
the document please. If we just went off of looks, I
would actually pick yours to 100% because I didn't do it in a
in a dock because I know you guys aren't going to look at it
right. So I just wrote it for myself
real quick, so I knew that we had stuff to talk.
About Here's all the excuses. I have a feeling Voss's looks

(01:13:16):
like, you know, when someone becomes obsessed with something
and they start drawing. I know those charts and the
lines between making connectionslike a conspiracy.
I think that's what he's got. No, it's nothing crazy.
It's just some quick notes. Well, if you have questions from
this episode, anyone listening, let us know.

(01:13:38):
We mentioned, you know, a few times the dog body language
video. I think these go hand in hand.
I would listen to them both together.
This is something you want to brush up on, but if you have
questions and if you feel like we missed something, tell us.
If there was a scenario where you're like, I can't believe you
never got to this one, let us know and we'll we'll do it.
We'll cover it. Definitely.

(01:13:58):
Well, thank you for giving us five stars today, everybody.
Appreciate that. And a thumbs up on YouTube.
Yeah, If we post it on YouTube, I would actually like to hear
comments from people on that as well.
We don't post most of our episodes on YouTube, just on
Spotify and Apple and different podcast places.
And I'm curious what people think about that, if how many
people would like to see them onYouTube?

(01:14:21):
Everybody comment down that these should absolutely live on
YouTube. I agree with Nelson.
But you know why we don't, right?
YouTube. People love our YouTube videos
and don't care much about the podcast.
And we get these podcasts do great on Spotify and Apple.
They get a lot of views and we put them on YouTube and the

(01:14:42):
views are like. Meh, make a channel just for the
podcast. It's not a bad idea.
And then we can do behind the scenes videos.
That would be funny. OK, I could actually get behind
that balance training YouTube channel.
There you go. OK, someone else has to manage
it, though. I don't want anything to do with

(01:15:02):
it. I just want to film them.
All right. Thanks for watching everybody.
Thanks everyone.