Play-date tomorrow, suggestions?

[zaeva06]

Tomorrow I'm gonna try taking Maxine on a little play-date with a couple of friend's dogs.

They own a red and white Irish Setter, and two little terriers, a Carine and a Jack Russell.

We've already spoken about this before, we're going over their parent's house, which is fairly neutral areas for all dogs.

To start we are only going to introduce Maxine to the Setter, Molly being an older, very calm and very laid-back dog. Depending on how that goes we might try the other two, but given how hyper they tend to be, who knows. Also bringing a huge bag of treats and the clicker.

Both dogs will be on leash, Maxine on a harness as well. The yard is fairly big, and we didn't plan on doing anything other then a general introduction/ side-by walking at first. I've told both friends that this is going to be a slow process and that it is possible that it may not work out. Still given that Maxine's general reactivity towards dogs continues to be "Oh my god I wanna play!" and that she's been doing great through the fence with the neighbor's Newfoundland, I figured we could at least give it a shot.



Any advice or suggestions for tomorrow, stuff I might have missed?

[RealPitBull]

Sounds like you've got a good plan going. I think you have the right idea. How big is the yard? My only suggestion is to do parallel walking on a street where you can move forward and keep a good distance between dogs without having to worry about running into a fence.

I'd also not stress Maxine by adding more dogs into the mix. Maybe just try with Molly and then if that goes ok, gradually introduce her to the others.

Does Maxine have any sex preference that you've noticed? If so, female/female could be potential trouble. But from your description, otherwise, Molly sounds like a good dog to do an intro with.

[fureverywhere]

Definitely take Mary's advice about perhaps being low key and gradually introducing one dog at a time. The only problem I forsee is the Jack Russell. The ones I have met tend towards being GSD's in little bodies plus high energy. Great for a game of tag but Ophie tends to roll them in annoyance after like an hour of the JR yipping and leaping. But then they all have different personalities and might all get along just fine.

[zaeva06]

Oh yeah, I had no intension of introducing either of the terriers at first, and possibly not at all tomorrow. We're going strictly with the Setter at first because of how gentle and laid-back she is.

As far as female/female aggression goes, I haven't seen anything like that, though to be fair I haven't had Maxine interacting that much with other dogs long term. Tomorrow is her test-run so to say. At a distance or a brief nose-to-nose, she acts the same around all dogs.
A hyper-active "Let's play!" goof-ball with few manners.


Thanks everyone.

[RealPitBull]

I'll be interested to hear how it goes