Georgia moved in with us a few weeks after we settled in to the new house. She is a hound mix of some sort and is taller and heavier than Belle.
When she was a puppy, she was found out in the woods half starved and with a large piece of her hide missing from her backside. With the way her flesh was cut, it was probably done by humans.
As a result of her puppy-hood, she has some behavior issues. The biggest of which is food aggression. She’s also very possessive and gets jealous when another dog gets attention from us. With this in mind, we slowly introduced Belle and Georgia.
What We Did to Introduce the Dogs
We first tried walking them by each other in passing without getting too close. With Belle’s dog aggression, this wasn’t working well.
So, we only have one dog pen and we both work, so we had to figure out a way to have both dogs outside at one without begin alone together.
Luckily, a friend of ours came up with a great idea. Bring another (transportable) dog kennel to our yard and put it right next to the original pen. This way, they might get used to each other being next door. We tried this for about three or four weeks. They were still growling at each other, so we knew they weren’t ready to be in the same pen.
Next step, we moved the transportable pen inside the other dog pen. That way, they couldn’t ignore each other at all. Another week of this, and we decided it was time to put them together.
We first let them loose in the same kennel together and stayed inside with them to moderate. It was a little sketchy at times, but it worked ok.
During the day while we were at work we kept them separated, but began bringing them in the house together with us.
It took several months, but they are now getting along well. As long as we keep food and toys from causing complications, they seem to tolerate each other. Knowing the food aggression problem, we kept the portable kennel inside the outdoor kennel so that we can physically separate the dogs when we feed them. This helps a lot.
While they will never be best buddies, they sleep next to each other and no longer fight.