Introducing our new dog... isn't that the saddest face???
My wife persuaded me to try the dog adoption route again after the very recent problems we had with Bruno. I wanted more time, but my wife can be very persuasive when she wants to be... :-)
We went back to the Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter with the intent of adopting an older Beagle she had seen on Petfinder, but she was adopted just as we got there. Then, she also saw a Spaniel mix that was good tempered, and she was adopted, too. The first several dogs we looked at just weren't a good fit, but I kept seeing this girl, who I saw on Petfinder, that Julie kept passing up. On Petfinder, they had her listed as a male, which is why she didn't give her much thought. We met her, and she was just a doll. After looking at another dog, we decided to take her for a walk and introduce her to Buster and McKenzie. That went PERFECT. She was great on a leash, and she was submissive to Buster and even to McKenzie. She was also very sweet and affectionate. We decided that she's the one - there really wasn't any other choice that made any sense.
They think she's an American Eskimo mix... with what we don't know. The American Eskimo makes sense, since she seems very obedient, which is a trait of the Eskimo breed.
She's about six, and needs to be spayed before we can pick her up this Saturday. That will give us time to prepare for her arrival. We don't anticipate there will be any problems this time, but we'll still be cautious when introducing her to the other animals. We'll give her time to adjust.
We haven't come up with a name yet. Some of the ones we're considering are: Annie, Lucy, Sally, Libby, Blondie, Mandy, Sophie, Angel. There are a couple of forum threads here that are talking about it, too:
Forum Thread 1
Forum Thread 2
If you have any good ideas for a name, please let me know!
http://www.brianmeloche.com/blog/trackback.cfm?A61ED704-3048-2E57-0A116CEFF55B97DC
I would recommend that you first introduce a new dog outside. Preferally while walking in roughly the same direction (so that the dogs aren't facing each other directly).
Getting dogs away from their main territory keeps them from being as territorial and aggressive. Keeping them from facing each other at first also limits the chances of them feeling challenged (wouldn't force it too hard though).
You might already know all of that, I just thought it could help.
I think it's great that you've adopted a dog. We did that a few months ago (a Katrina refugee from New Orleans), and it's worked out very well.
The problems we had with Bruno, the Bulldog we had adopted two weeks ago, had to do with aggression, but not with the dogs. He attacked me twice. I'll give an update about him in my next blog entry.
I have westies - so I will just comment on the red marks on Stella's face. Two things that will help stop that are #1, give her half or a whole tums every day (I give westies half a tums, but Stella looks bigger). changes the Ph level of the tears. Sounds wierd, but works. Also, something called "eye envy", a specialty dog product, is a cleaner that may help too.
good luck!