2 puppies

[gagegunner]

I read up on the littermate syndrome, now I'm nervous about getting two puppies. Doing everything seperate like feeding, taking for walks, playing and puppy preschool is definetly going to be time consuming especially with two kids ages 5 and 2. Yikes!...this could be interesting. All my friends think I have lost my mind getting 2 pups. I think in the long run it will all be
worth it...right?

Michelle

[EAO76]

Now that I have my two I would NEVER give one up. I am so in love with both of them BUT if I had it to do over I probably would have gotten one and worked on creating a strong bond and then maybe a year later introduced a second one.

There are pros and cons… they definitely keep each other busy and its hysterical watching the two of them play and relate to each other. But Boxers are a lot of work and having two is (obviously) double the work. To be honest our biggest challenge is the fact that they are SOOOOOO physical- jumping, wanting to play rough, etc. We will just be sitting there and all the sudden they are jumping on our head (I’m not kidding). And when there are two of them and you’re giving commands its very hard for them to listen to YOU rather then just going along with what the other is doing. They feed off each other and it’s very hard to explain until you experience it yourself.

Dogs are pack animals so when there are two of them they establish a pack and the pack mentality is very different than the individual mentality. For example I can’t take both my dogs to the dog park together because they gang up and tag team other dogs but if its just one of them they play nicely. It’s like they are little gang members feeling tuff when they have their “posse” to back them up.

Another example is if I take either of them on a walk alone he/she is a perfect angel (follows all commands, doesn’t pull, etc) but if I take the two of them together they are wild monkeys (pulling to keep up with each other, one sees a cat and barks now both are jumping, barking, going nuts, etc and neither of them hear the commands). And it seems to be getting worse now that they are getting older (they are in the horrid “adolescence” stage now). The bottom line is it has been my experience that when there is two of them that are the same age, energy level, etc then they are MUCH more influenced by each other then by a human.

It just takes a lot of dedication. We have done puppy kindergarten (separately), then an intermediate class (both together), we also work with a trainer who comes to our home, and we just started another group “manners” class. I don’t want to paint this picture of my dogs being horrible because they are not. Actually they are VERY well behaved most of the time BUT it takes a lot of work (look into NILF training and do it from the day you bring them home).

I’d also add that we are a young couple and don’t have kids yet. Additionally my husband and I have opposite work schedules so one of us are able to be with the dogs most of the time and I feel that was an advantage for us… I expect it will be harder for you with the two little ones. My trainer told us that she was working with littermates (not boxers) and that the decision was finally made to re-home one of them because things had gotten so bad. In her opinion the reason that it came to that conclusion was because the dogs were alone together 8 hrs a day and that was just too much time for each of them to influence each other that there was no way the owner could compete with that.

If you’re willing to do the work it will be fine just be sure you do NILF and establish all humans as pack leaders from the start. Training can start from day one (my pups learned to sit at 8 weeks). The adolescence stage will be the hardest so you’ll want to make sure the hierarchy of the household is established before they reach that “lovely” stage.

Let me know if you have any questions

Ps It’s good that you’re not getting two females- there are MANY horror stories on this board about the female/ female combo.