"OMG NEW DOG NEW SURROUNDINGS"

Today I wanted to post about the importance of a SLOW INTEGRATION when new foster dogs come into your home.
Often I find that fosters want to integrate their dogs into their pack quickly and this has the potential to have really bad results. Foster dogs coming into a new home are not feeling quite like themselves, no matter their back story--so it is important to let them slowly adjust to new surroundings and monitor/observe before diving right into new pack dynamics.

• Let new dogs have a "decompress" period of at least 1-2 solid days, especially if they are CA dogs. This means crate rotation/separation from other animals in the home... they don't have to be in separate rooms, but the safety of a crate in a communal space is great.

• Fosters should be on a long lead at all times during the first 3-5 days, this has a whole host of benefits but one is safety. If there is an issue it is best to have a lead to grab onto versus putting your hand in the middle!

• Do not have toys/food or similar reward items around the first few days, we do not want any squabbles over resources.
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Slow and steady truly wins the race. It is much easier to take time, not rush, and build a solid foundation for our fosters with little steps than it is to try and repair a dog when they have had a bad reaction to another animal in the home because something was forced to quickly.