Raising littermates - any experiences??

[WAT]

I am soon to be the mom of two littermates, one male and one female. I am so afraid I have made a bad choice, I have been researching about Littermate Syndrome, and have read many horror stories, with not too many positive endings. Can any one help me with some advice on what to do? The puppies come home on Monday. It would be hard not to take both of them, but I believe it would be even more heartbreaking to have to give one up later on. Please help me!

[gmacleod]

Littermates can work. And most of the horror stories come from those situations where people aren't aware of the pitfalls, and do nothing to help the two develop separately. You are aware now though And there is plenty you can do to try to avoid it.

It will be a whole lot easier if you're more than one person though.

I guess what is tempting with two puppies of similar age is to do everything together. It seems easier, after all. So, they spend the days together, have each other for company at night. Play together, walk together, go to training class together, heck even go out to potty together... well, you get the picture. What is actually required is that they do most of those things separately (especially the walking, training, and playing with you parts). You can start to see why it's easier to be at least two people

If you're quite fastidious about making sure that your pups have significant time apart, and each with plenty of one-on-one time with a person every single day, then you should manage to avoid the worst of the problems. I would expect you to need to be vigilent about this until they're at least a year old, probably longer. Well, certainly longer in terms of having some time apart regularly. But at least that long in terms of significant periods apart daily. What you're aiming for is to create two distinct independent individuals, capable of surviving perfectly well without the other. And to acomplish that, they need to be apart for long enough, often enough, and in important/stressful enough situations to be unable to rely on the other for support/decision making.

[Louise501]

When I had Angel she was Luka's sister. I had no problems with them, I did take care to play with them seperately, also walking them apart. I had her up to a year if that is any help.