Adding another pup

Guinness has convinced me that we need another puppy in the family. After a few months of thinking about it, I've decided not to get another cavalier, although Guinness is healthy and happy now I worry about his health everytime he does something a little strange. So after a lot of looking around I think we've decided on a miniature australian shepherd as the breed for us. They are considerably more active than cavaliers, but size wise are a good match.

We're practicing by inviting our neighborhood canine friends over to get Guinness used to other dogs playing with his toys and sniffing his food bowl, so far he just loves having guests.

Is there anything else he needs before a new puppy shows up?

If he hasn't done some formal training classes, now is the time -- good for socialising, activity, and bringing structure to your relationship and management of dog number one. I'm not sure how old Guinness is, but generally an owner wants the first dog to be well trained and at least a year old before adding a puppy -- otherwise the bulk of focus will of necessity usually switch to the puppy as they are immensely more time consuming, and the older dog generally never gets the training and time needed to become a well rounded adult -- speaking from experience, you don't get the time. That means the older dog doesn't have the advantage of being the good role model to the newer dog either -- hence trainers and breeders will generally recommend dog 1 to be a minimum of 12 months old before adding more, and 18-24 months is better again. I do agree with this and I was and remain delighted to have Leo but it would have been better for both if I'd waited a good few more months before adding Leo to my home with Jaspar while Jaspar was only 10 months old. It was definitely detrimental in a number of ways.

A well socialised dog will generally be good with a newcomer though there is likely to be some jealousy and dislike initially and may take a period of day to weeks to settle. So regular activity with other dogs is always good.

There's info in the Library section on adding a second dog to a household.

I was planning to wait another year before adding another dog, but guinness is obviously lonely, when we go on walks he'll stop at all of his friend's houses, and sit and wait to see if they'll come out to play. Guinness has completed a basic training class, and is really quite good at most things (stay being the exception). He loved his training class, so we'll definitely continue with that.

I'm also hoping to find an older puppy or adult rather than do the puppy training all over again (not that puppies aren't great).