Today we wanted to share about the importance of a SLOW INTEGRATION when a new foster or adoptive 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.
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.