Nervous dog + puppy

[katie94]

Hiya!
As some of you know we have Rufus, who is 16 months old and fairly nervous around people he doesn't know. He is a work in progress and is gradually getting better and more confident with the hard work we are putting into him, although we do get the odd set back. In the future sometime we would like to add another puppy to the family (in the future, not right now). My question is, if we were to get another puppy, is he/she likely to copy Rufus's nervous behavior and adopt it as his/her own behavior, such as the barking at people who come into the house or cowering away from people who, annoyingly, approach and try to fuss him, resulting in him/her being just as nervous as he is regardless of socialization, or does it not work like this? Are there things we could do to prevent this from happening?

We do not plan on getting a puppy to join Rufus for at least another year, but are curious to know if this would happen.

Thanks!
Katie

[elaine.e]

I think there's a chance that a new puppy could pick up on any nervousness that Rufus shows and become anxious about the same kind of things. But if you're able to choose a naturally confident puppy that's been raised in an environment where it's already well socialised and used to lots of people you might find that Rufus grows in confidence when he sees the puppy isn't worried.

Slightly different scenario as it's not 2 dogs from the same household, but William was a confident puppy and actually helped his "nanny" Ruby (my friend's Golden Retriever) to become more confident in crowds, busy places and things like crossing footbridges and getting into a boat. William would go first and Ruby would pluck up enough courage to follow her young friend.

On the other hand, my younger Cocker Louis has plenty of anxieties and if he starts barking at something that worries him William sometimes joins in. I don't think William is worried, but he just joins in the barking, which I find wearing as I'm not used to dogs that bark a lot.

I think you're wise to have decided to wait until Rufus is more mature. Hopefully your hard work will have paid off by then and he'll be more confident than he is now

[RegalRustyCharm]

I'm really curious about people's responses to this because I'm in the exactly same position and I've been wondering the same thing.

I have a 2 year old cocker who is shy and has always been timid with new people, dogs and surroundings. Her confidence has improved slowly over time with positive reinforcement and encouragement but I think she may naturally have a nervous personality. I do wonder whether getting a second dog will help her feel braver (she seems to be more confident around other dogs) or just leave us with two anxious dogs because the puppy will just learn from her.

[katie94]

Yes, we also did wonder if having a, hopefully, confident dog in the house would help Rufus to grow in confidence once he see's that the puppy is not afraid of strangers. Are there things we could put into place to prevent puppy from picking up on his anxiety? Separating them when people visit and letting puppy introduce her/himself without Rufus present, for example? One of us taking Rufus out for a walk around the times when we expect visitors to arrive as much as possible so that puppy does not see/hear his barking at them? Obviously this wont always be possible, but would it help at all?