Need advice!! We adopted a dog in May and now are thinking of getting another one.

We adopted a female lab mix in May of 2004. We went yesterday to the Brookhaven animal shelter and saw cute dog that we were thinking of adopting. We went in a room so we could see how both dogs interacted. They seemed to be fine except once. Our dog snapped at the other one. The other one one didn't do anything. Our dog (Lucie) is a sweety pie but she is also protective of the house when people come to the front door. She is also scared of a lot - like people she doesn't know.

Should we not adopt the dog because Lucie snapped at it once? Has anyone had experiences with bringing another dog in the house after one has previously been there?

HELP!!! Sorry so long!

Well, I had my dog & DH had his dog so they were brought together. We did have the luxury of getting them used to eachother before living together.

We did however adopt Max (an adult choc lab) from a shelter and bring him into the fold. We brought Hershey & Bailey to the shelter, they all went in a pen and completely ignored eachother! They were more interested in all the other smells in the pen!! So we decided right there & then to bring Max home.

The shelter actually kept him with two other dogs (if you remember Foxy who saved her elderly owner by barking for hours after she fell on the ice) in a room (rather than a kennel run) because he was food obsessive and they needed to watch him at feeding time. It didn't deter us ... we just figured we'd feed him separately as well.

Anyway, that was two and a half years ago and we've never had a serious issue.

Good luck with your decision.