How To Introduce a Rescue Dog Into the Home

For this Omaha dog training session we worked with 1 year-old Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Jaz, and 11 year-old Puggle, Riley, how to introduce a new dog into the home.

When I first arrived the dogs were pretty excited to greet me at the door. The guardians wanted to prevent Jaz from jumping up so initially restrained her from jumping up on me. What I didn’t mention in the video but mentioned afterwards is that dogs have an opposition reflex. This means that they lean into pressure- ever wonder why sled dogs pull in a harness? They pull against pressure. So when we pull dogs back from jumping up we will only teach them to pull against us harder, generally increasing their energy level.

Since Jaz was new to the home she had to learn her new name. I wanted to build up a positive association between hearing her name and getting a yummy treat reward. If you want to see how I accomplished this, watch the video below.

After teaching Jaz her new name I moved on to building her confidence with her new guardians and to look to them for leadership and direction. I taught Jaz the Focus Exercise, which is broken into a two-part video section below. This training exercise not only helps Jaz build confidence but helps her gain self control.

Like many dogs their older dog Riley has what we call a hard mouth. This means that Riley will take a treat with gusto with her teeth often accidentally getting her guardian’s hands in the process. To train her to have a soft mouth or take the treat gently, I taught her how to build self control when taking the treat reward, which you can watch in the video below.

By the end of the session both dogs were visibly relaxing and starting to learn the new rules and structure in the home. I want to remind the guardians to keep using the new rules that we introduce such as having your dogs sit before receiving attention and going through door ways and using our structured eating exercise. To keep up with this good dog behavior I want to encourage the guardians to use our Escalating Consequences to disagree with the dogs and use our Petting with a Purpose technique to reward them for good behavior. We wrapped up this dog behavior training session with Jaz and Riley’s Roadmap to Success video, which you can watch below.