First Dog for Family-Get Two Puppies at Same Time?

W

WooHorn

250+ Posts
I haven't had a dog since HS and want to get a "family dog" now that we are done having kids (6 and 4). I have a chance to get a great puppy (or two) soon, and wanted to know if it would be better for the dogs to get two sisters from the same litter.

Although we have a great yard, covered porch, and fence and I plan on putting a doggie-door in, we are gone on workdays and the kids will eventually be gone most of the afternoon for school, so I am worried about a single dog getting bored, etc.

I have always heard that it is better (for the dog) to have two dogs if you can in this situation. Is that true?

Anyone see issues with raising two female puppies from the same litter (beyond the obvious work and time involved) that would make getting a single puppy first and then adding a new puppy later the best approach?
 
You're thinking about going from ZERO dogs to TWO DOG$! $eriously, you $hould definitely think about that first.
 
Never had 2 that are puppies at the same time, but i definitely think having 2 dogs is easier than just one. Ours are 6 years apart.
 
Obviously he knows how much work a dog is going to be and I think it would be good for the dog if they are going to be left alone long periods of time for them to have a friend. They will probably be less destructive. If i could get my dog a friend to play with I would. I dog sat my mom's small dog and i felt better leaving my dog at home with a friend and she seemed less anxious when i left for school.
 
 
god no.

****, don't even get a dog until your kids are older.

i have a dog and my child is a little over one year old. luckily my dog is 6 years old. babies and puppies are remarkably similar. imagine having twins. now imagine them howling all night in their crip while your other kids are asleep after finally knowing their routine, except you cant just give this child a bottle - its suffering from a separation anxiety that humans obviously would not.

wait. that's my opinion.
 
A lot of this has to do with what breed you choose. Bear in mind that you are creating an instant "pack", and dogs will quarrel with each other to establish dominance, even two females. And definitely have the dogs fixed.

With puppies, you need to leave something for chewing to relieve boredom. And check out your breeds carefully. I love my golden lab (now 7 years old) and she is very gentle, but I learned that it takes two years for a lab to find its brain, and they spend a good portion of that two years digging in the yard to find it.

For a while I left the dog with a dogsitter during the day. While an expense, it did seem to take some of the frustration out of the dog to have active company (the dogsitter had small children) during the day.

It is mostly about socialization. And, as has been repeatedly stated on other threads, training, training, training. Otherwise you will be a miserable dog owner.
 
We got two Boxers from the same litter. Male and female. Neutered poor Tex, but left Jasmine her girl parts because we are considering breeding her and having a litter of our own.

I think it made it much easier on the dogs, but what do I know? They can't talk or anything and there was nothing to compare it to. I know that they only whined for a night or two and only for an hour or so each night.

Tex was the whiny one, but he's a big titty baby. Jasmine is much more independent and even though Tex is 85 lbs and Jasmine is 55, she is the dominant one.

They play together all day and for a couple of years they were inseparable, but now they don't always have to be in the same place.

It worked well for us. They never fight, except for fun, and they don't try to escape the yard or destroy things when we are gone. They are crate trained and will often go in their crate if they want their own space.

In short, I think it made it easier to train them and reduced separation anxiety as long as we didn't try to separate them for the first year or two.
 
Thanks for all of the experience/advice - is is fantastic!

Ultimately I think that we should have two dogs in our situation and I was hoping to avoid any pack/socialization/territory issues involved in getting one dog established in a family and adding another one two or three years later, but I know it happens all the time.

The litter we were considering are small/toy mixed breed dogs that are expected to be around 15 pounds when adult. I understand the logic behind the flaws in my "sister" idea and I wonder if starting two puppies in our family at the same time is the biggest problem or whether getting different (but similar size/temperment) breed puppies would solve most of the pack issues?

Also, I have never heard that a four-year-old is too young to wisely bring a puppy into the family. We have already waited untl we though the kids were mature enough - how would a small breed puppy be a problem with a great (of course) kid who is almost reading? The kids are home more now than they will be in later grades and I thought it would be a great time for the kids and puppy to bond.
 
Dude you are asking for double the trouble. We had 2 beagle puppies and they were terrors. Fun loving dogs, but damn they could make a mess. And they had problems listening. I would recommend one at a time.
 
I got my first puppy two months ago. I wanted to get two for the reasons you mentioned, but my breeder strongly suggested against getting two from the same litter for the reasons others have mentioned. I wanted to get both from this breeder, so I decided I would wait and get a second one out of the next litter.

I am absolutely in love with the puppy, but the first few weeks especially were really, really overwhelming. Whenever he was not in his crate I had to watch him every second. Every time I turned my back, he was chewing on cords, furniture or having an accident.

After he finished his shots I started taking him to a doggie daycare place as coming home every day at lunch and trying to leave the office by 5 was becoming increasingly difficult, particularly combined with the fact that the dog had so much energy at night and needed so much attention, it was a struggle to do a load of laundry. Daycare has worked out really well for me, he loves it and is the perfect little lap dog at night as he gets to run around and play with other dogs all day.

Thus, I have decided that rather than getting another dog for his companionship, I am going to keep taking him to daycare for now. I know if I left him at my house, even with another dog, he would really tear things up, so I figure between the cost of another dog (I have spent over $500 at the vet already on shots, etc. and he has not even had his surgery yet) and the cost of replacing stuff he destroys in my house, I am probably saving money in the long run.

I have a good friend in Dallas who has two that are six months apart. She leaves them all day with food out and they have a dog door and a big backyard. They love and entertain eachother, but they stir up a fair amount of mischief together. They have chewed her window frames, crown molding, every piece of mail dropped into her house and the list goes on. She does not really mind and just plans to replace things once they get through the phase. All three dogs are between 8 and 12 pounds, and will be 12 to 15 pounds full grown, and they are unbelievably destructive for that size.

I am kind of rambling, and I know your circumstances are a bit different, but my point is, I would get one now and see how you feel about another one a few months down the road. The second dog will also be much easier to train if the first one is somewhat trained. When I took my dog to Dallas last weekend, he was following my friends dogs in and out of the dog door within a few hours, despite having never seen one before and he had no accidents all weekend, even though he is still having occasional ones at home. The little dog will just do what the bigger dog does. The older one will also likely automatically be the alpha, so you won't have to worry as much about power struggles.
 
My wife and I got our first puppy a little over a year ago. She's been a ton of fun, but has taught us a lot about ourselves in addition to being a great companion, with the usual puppy learning curve.

Anyway, we've been talking about getting another dog, partly because we kinda would like another one and partly becuase we think our dog could use a friend. She's got a bit of a digging issue and we think that maybe having a friend might help that. We socialized her pretty well, so she likes playing with other dogs.

Lastly, while there's certainly nothing wrong with pure bread dogs, you should at least check out shelters and rescue organizations. They have puppies if you want to get a "new" dog. While you can't know exactly what the dog will look like when its fully grown in thse cases, you can still get a decent idea (small, medium, large). Just my $.02
 
After my parents' dog was killed. They bought two puppies, two different breeds. The male is an Australian Shepherd and the femal is a chocolate lab. They're both fixed.

I think the best decision was getting them together. They don't chew up much in the yard, and they have a constant play companion. I think one without the other would have been much more destructive.

I'm not saying they're angels. They're still puppies. Good description of the labs having to find their brains. I know they're smart dogs, but it seriously looks like they're out in left field as puppies.
 
I am highly against getting two puppies at the same time. They will constantly be playing with each other, developing a very strong bond with each other. While it sounds good, they stand a good chance of developing separation anxiety in regards to each other which equals mass chaos and destruction should one EVER be left alone.

The other issue is money. Dogs, especially puppies, are not cheap during their first year or so.

Lastly, and probably most important, it is immensely difficult to train two dogs at the same time especially when the dogs have a stronger bond with each other than they do with you. Who do you think the dog is going to pay attention to? The bastard thats making them sit/lay/stay for a treat, or the other dog whose rearing to go play right then and there?

Just my humble opinion, but I think you are asking for trouble with two littermates.
 
You have no idea how many times I had to chase those beagles throught the neighborhood. It was a weekly occurance. They would dig holes everywhere, all through the yard, and then under the fence to get out. And it's not like once you located them you could call their name and they would run to ya. You still had to chase them down once you found them. They were sweet dogs, very loving, but damn they were hard to handle.
 
I personally would not recommend getting 2 puppies at the same time, for the same reasons most people have posted above. You will have twice the housetraining, twice the vet bills, twice the obedience training (which I might add is very difficult to do with 2 dogs in the home). If you really want 2 dogs, I would suggest starting with one, then once you're comfortable and have the routine down and have that dog pretty well settled add a second.

I don't think it's smart to get 2 dogs only so they can keep each other company. You should get a dog because YOU want to spend time with it and bond with it. Otherwise, why go through the trouble?

And, even though you said you didn't want to get into the debate, I cannot in good conscience let it go..... PLEASE strongly reconsider giving your money to a "breeder" who makes a profit off of purposefully breeding mutts. If you're going to support breeding, support the right kind of breeding.
 
I'm afraid that I'll have to go against the popular vote here.

Robert and I got 2 miniature poodles just over 10 years ago. They are littermates. In fact, they are a complete litter. We got them for precisely the same reason that you are considering two. We have busy lives and were concerned about leaving a single dog alone for long stretches.

It has been one of the best decisions we ever made. They are great dogs. Very smart. Very easy to train. The house-breaking thing was not difficult once we decided that there is no justice in house-training. If there was an accident, both got punished, regardless of the offender. They got the idea quickly.

They are extremely well socialized for people, primarily because we have people over all of the time. They never growl and rarely bark. They are horrible with other dogs, primarily because we did not take them out to be with other dogs early on. That was our mistake.

They are good with kids, since we have kids over pretty regularly. I feel certain that poodles have a good temperment for being with children.

The expense is what the expense is. Either you can afford two dogs or you can't. But the concerns about a pack-mentality or socialization issues have not been our experience. Yes, they are attached to each other. They hate to be apart. So, the vet puts them in a single cage on the rare occassion that they need to be at the vets. The groomer does the same. I just don't see how that is a horribly bad thing. We don't feel guilty if we are gone from early morning until late at night. We've never had a problem with them intentionally destroying things like you hear about with single dogs (once they grew out of the puppy-chewing phase, of course).

Anyway, that's been our experience. Good luck either way. I don't know about the mixes, but poodles are fantastic dogs.
 
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