What is the best way to go about about introducing two dogs where either one of them, or even both, have a history of not always being the nicest of puppies with their own kind, and have been aggressive in the past?

There is a way I like to introduce two dogs and again, maybe to frame the proper way, I can explain what normally happens. Normally what people do is take their dogs that do not know each other and let them free and we let them meet each other. And who knows, maybe six times out of ten or seven times out of ten, nothing happens and they get along just fine. However, often that is not the case. Dogs don’t live by the same social structure we do and when I meet new people, I never immediately start fighting. With dogs, they can meet new dogs and it immediately turn into aggression. Even a dog you wouldn’t consider aggressive has buttons that can be pushed that will cause the dog to be aggressive.

The name of the game when introducing two dogs is control – control from the owners so that the dogs never get to experience anything that would be considered inappropriate such as aggression, such as pulling to get to the other dog. What I like to do is set up a situation. If it is just a casual meeting, I like to have my dog or the client’s dog, sit at my side and allow the other dog to come close while my dog continues to sit at my side. Then the other owner has their dog sit by their side. This accomplishes a couple of things. Number one – it’s practical that the dogs be by your side and not just pulling and going crazy. Number two, it puts the dog in a controlled frame of mind where the dog is thinking about the sitting, thinking about the teamwork. If you were to look inside a dogs mind, aggression is the absolute opposite of control – aggression is chaos, aggression is pure reaction. If you want to battle chaos, you have to have control and so first, I start out with the dog in this controlled frame of mind. Sometimes if I am nervous about a dog getting along with another dog, I will even do a minute or two of obedience work – sit, heel, down – so the dog is really focused on a controlled mindset and focused on the relationship we have with me being the leader. And once I can see that the dog is in a controlled mind set, now he is in a perfect mind set to meet another dog so I will allow them to come up to each other on leash and sniff at each other like dogs do. I allow them to do that for a minute then I will pull them away and try it again a few times until we can see that yes, the dogs are compatible, there isn’t going to be any fighting and at that point, the leashes can come off and the dogs can do their thing. They have shown that they don’t have a propensity to fight with each other. But if we were to do that without the control, maybe a dog that is under control meets a dog that is not under control and it is out of whack so where aggression might not have occurred in a controlled setting, in an uncontrolled setting it may. I like to make sure everyone is calm and under control before introductions.

Ty Brown is an expert dog trainer, author, and speaker who specializes in obedience training, behavior modification, protection dog training, and narcotics dogs.  To learn more about Ty and the dog training services he offers, visit www.dogbehavioronline.com