Two dog weekend
October 12, 2009emily 2 Comments »I always thought we’d have two dogs. When we got Luke, we weren’t as adept as we are now with the whole dog thing. But once we learned the ropes a bit, and ever since, we talked about getting a second dog. It seemed only natural to have two. Luke could have a friend, they could play with each other, and balance would be restored to the universe. I wondered, frankly, if Luke was missing something by not having another dog to pal around with. Like by having him as an only dog, we were keeping him trapped inside his own doggie head, unable to communicate with another of his kind. Ahem. This weekend, we brought a second dog into our house. She’s a rescue, a lovely black and tan coonhound who needs a forever home. We thought if it worked out over the weekend, we might keep her. Sort of a rent-to-own thing. And what became clear to us was that Luke was not interested in her. He wasn’t aggressive, certainly. But he wasn’t interested. I didn’t know dogs could be like that: perfectly happy to be on their own. So it’s a weird realization to come to, at the end of a long weekend. A second dog just isn’t in the cards for us. Never saw that coming, frankly.
Posted on October 13th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Dogs never fail to surprise me.
Posted on October 15th, 2009 at 5:01 am
Did you only have her for a few days?
Our experience with fostering has been that it takes a minimum of a week for the new dog to acclimate, somewhat, to their new environment.
They are never "themselves" at first – not by a long shot. That dog is suddenly placed in a new environment with a different schedule, strange dogs, strange people, strange smells, etc.
And our own dogs are always reserved during this time, too, trying to figure out the newbie, figure out if they get along, getting to know each other, etc. Luke will understandably be a little weirded out at first, but that is by no means unusual.
Only after a week or two has passed do we begin to really see the true personality of the newbie, and see how they will get along with our own. Luka and Pippa barely spoke to each other at first, but by week 3 they were best friends.
My point is… if you give this another shot, maybe give it a little more time before deciding a second dog is not right for you.