I just got Dog Number Two... help!

Since I've seen SportsJournalists.com help on a variety of topics, I thought I'd throw my own dilemma out for the world to chew on.
My wife and I have been married five years in July. We have no children. Don't plan to have kids, really, unless an accident happens.
One week after we got married, we got a cocker spaniel. He has become our child. He survived two strokes after ear infections that got out of control, but is now healthy, gentle, and loving, if a little too fat and spoiled.
We'd talked from time to time about getting a second dog (probably a girl) to give him a companion, but never acted on it due to our busy schedules.
Well, Monday, that dog found us. We were driving about a mile from our home when we came upon a long-haired brown dog running down the middle of the road, lost as hell, about to get hit. We pulled over, and because there was a huge thunderstorm brewing, we coaxed it into our car.
We took it home, and it was immediately grateful - it had two collars (but no tags) on, including one that looked like it worked with an invisible fence system.
Poor thing was very hungry, ate like it had been outside for days, and extremely dirty, with matted hair on its undercarriage and fleas (which we discovered after she had been in our house for 2 hours, natch). We gave her a flea-dip bath, sprayed the rest of the house for fleas, got rid of them, and put up fliers in case someone was looking for her, and also called the local vet's office and animal shelter with our info and her description, in case they looked there.
It's been two days, and no one has called. We're starting to think no one will, which means we have ourselves a new dog. She's an Irish setter/Heinz 57 mix, who is healthy and spayed (the two vets who checked her out had about 4 different opinions about what she was).
Like the cocker, she's about five years old (they estimate) and about the same size, if a little thinner.
My question is this: how do I acclimate this dog with our cocker? They've gotten along OK so far - kind of an uneasy truce/feeling-out period. On the first day, my cocker started one small scrap, which I quickly broke up, but nothing since.
Right now, for example, she's sitting next to me on the couch while our cocker plays with toys.
Do any of you have advice on how to blend the two - welcoming this wonderful, sweet dog into our home, while not alienating the wonderful, sweet, humble dog that we already have?
I'm all ears.

 

No advice but that is a great story.

Good luck, and I hope no one calls you for the dog.

 

I'm bumping this so the dog folks can see it.

With cats, you generally crate the new ones for a few days so the older one can get used to. Not sure about with dogs.

Did the vet check for a microchip? A lot of people are using those nowadays instead of tags.

 

As long as they aren't fighting with one another, let the dogs sort it out. They are very social animals. They will work it out on their own.

For now, the new dog is an invader. It takes time to get past that. Be VERY careful to pay extra attention to your other dog. They do get jealous and seeing you pay more attention to the new arrival could definitely cause problems.

 

The vet did scan for a microchip.....nothing came up.
Right now they are getting along fairly well. We're not leaving them alone together - when we go out, we give the new dog the run of our master bedroom/bathroom and our older dog the rest of the house. Both seem OK with that.
Any other advice is appreciated.

 

yeah, just leave them be - they'll figure it out and eventually you'll learn that having two dogs is easier than having one.

 

Ummm, wrong.
I know of a couple that has six dogs -- all big or toothy all hungry (2 dobermans, a pit, a couple of huskies and one that looks like a pit). She is big into animal rescue, meaning they usually have an extra dog around the house.
This is also a couple that has no sense when it comes to money; they've run to his mommy several times to bail them out. And when they learned they would have a child, my first comment was "they can't afford to take care of themselves, how are they going to do it with a kid?"
Now that the kid is a year old, and she works like a day a blue moon , they still have the six or seven dogs and can't meet bills and continue to run to mommy for help -- who gives it to them because she can't say no to her baby.
So yeah, you can have too many dogs.
Ms. Slappy and I will just settle for one. Actually, we have to. Puppy is too jealous to let us have another even if we wanted.

 

The mayor here once told me that one out of three households in town has a dog. I don't know if that's a lot for a town of 28K, but there are more dogs on the block than there were several years ago.

 

Friends of mine work with rescued dogs and have three of their own. They make it a point of always feeding the original dog first, both dinner and treats, to maintain its status as the No. 1 dog.

Do you remember what they were doing when your cocker asserted itself on Day 1?

 

OK, but for these people to have six or seven dogs coupled with an inability to manage portions of their personal life shows that you can indeed have too many dogs... While there is plenty of love to go around, their inbility to juggle shows there can be too many.
But I know whatcha mean, brother...

I, on the other hand would welcome one more dog, because my life isnt that fucked up.. yet.