Yule departed yesterday after a visit lasting 2 1/2 weeks. His Mom, the wealthy heiress, reportedly had been gallivanting around Europe with a 17-year-old high school student her teacher son and 17 middle school students. When I have Yule here I like to introduce him to new dogs in hopes of widening his circle of friends. As you may recall, Yule is not the trusting type when it comes to dogs he is not acquainted with. He used to bark furiously whenever he as much as saw a strange dog at a distance.

Looks like we messed up some numbers in the above paragraph, inadvertently giving the wrong impression. This has been corrected. Rob & Dog regrets the error.

I decided to introduce Yule to Chief (see previous post) this time. They are similar sizes, and because they are both part Great Pyrenees I figured they would have a lot to talk about.

But dog intros often don’t turn out the way you expect. Yule usually takes 2, maybe 3, meetings to determine that a dog is okay. The process went slower with Chief. There weren’t any fireworks, mind you. But it was clear that Yule wasn’t comfortable when close to Chief. Photos are static and therefore not always accurate representations of how a dog is feeling.

Other times it’s pretty obvious.

We put Yule and Chief together 5 or 6 times, and let them proceed at their own pace.

They never approached “buddy” status but if you paid attention you could see some of the tension dissipate as they spent more time together. I’ll get Chief and Yule together the next time Yule visits if Chief is still at HB. That is, if Chief hasn’t been adopted by then.