After your early email and phone communications when you have found a good new home possibility for your Fido friend, it’s time to arrange for a “meet and greet”. Time to see if there’s a real fit – a “Fido Love” connection – between dog and family.

When and Where
You should plan for at least 30 to 60 minutes together. Ideally you’ll meet in a neutral, outside setting – a place without a lot of distractions, activities or other dogs. For safety sake, we recommend somewhere in public too – like a quiet park or even a sports field.

(By the way…. Dog parks are about the worst place for a meet and greet for dogs. There’s usually too much going on, and frenetic energy from other dogs and people that will negatively affect your introductions.)

Whom
Encourage the new home to bring all of their family members, and especially including other dogs they might have. How your Fido friend gets on with these other furry family members could largely determine the success or failure of a new home arrangement.

How (Dog Introductions)
Introducing two new dogs should be a relaxed affair, with a few precautions as you go. Instead of close, confined areas (indoors for example), we like a first meeting in a quite, neutral setting on leashes where there’s room to stroll. Take things slow, and relaxed with the plan to just spend time together in friendly, casual way. Go for a short walk, sort of side-by-side (more distance between dogs in the beginning) to keep things moving forward.

Please do take precautions if you’re introducing dogs in this meeting. If there’s a dominant male or female dog in the mix – keep this in mind when making introductions and use extra care. Good advice for making these introductions, can also be found at Best Friend’s Introducing Dogs.

Is there a Fido Love Connection?
Usually by this point, you will know if the arrangement has the possibility for a good match.

You may decide at this point, on this day – to make it official and decide to adopt your Fido friend to this family (and especially if there’s long distance travel involved). You will want to prepare for the adoption transition and formalize the adoption with a dog adoption agreement.

Or you may decide to ‘sleep on it’ and plan for a 2nd visit to actually deliver your Fido friend into the new home. We prefer this second approach – for a second visit adoption – but understand there’s also a place and reason for adoptions to happen on the first meeting, so long as there is a reasonable rehoming fee in place and references have been checked beforehand.