Adopting brother and sister puppies

[honeybuffe]

I am fostering 4.5 week old puppies at the moment for a rescue centre and was considering adopting at the end of the foster period. I have had dogs before but have none at the moment as ours was pts a couple of months ago, but was reading a puppy training book today which recommended against getting two puppies together as their bond will be so strong making it very difficult to train and raise as two happy adults. Does anyone have any experience of keeping and raising 2 puppies together?

[WeAreGroot]

It can be done but it's a lot more than just double the work of one puppy.

They need to be walked, trained and played with completely separately in order for them to learn to be happily independent from each other.

I've not got littermates but I do have two young dogs who are almost exactly a year apart in age. In hindsight even this was too close an age gap and keeping them happy to be separate is an ongoing effort. The idea of having to manage two puppies at once fills me with absolute horror!

Have a Google for "littermate syndrome", it brings up a lot of articles about the difficulties that can result in taking on two puppies (they don't even have to be siblings) at once.

[ColdCottage]

Our friends and neighbours had our dogs brother. We had the best of both worlds. He had is brother to play with and go on walks several times a week (a well as someone to help out with walks if we were in a pickle) and it was lovely to see them play together. But they were also independent and had their own characters.

If one got out the front door they would go and sit outside the door of the other ones house

[EasyToEatTiger]

You will have to train them separately or they will bond with each other and not with you. Lots of people do keep siblings successfully, but it is just harder work. I think it may be harder still if they are the same sex.

[EveDallasRetd]

You may find you aren't 'allowed' to by the Rescue centre you are Fostering for.

We wanted to have MuttDog's brother, but MTAR wouldn't let us. They said that they never home sibling pairs together, unless they are older dogs that have grown up together and it would be distressing to separate them.

I was really annoyed at the time, convinced they were wrong (I'm such a flaming know-it-all) but after a couple of hours on google I had to eat humble pie. Apparently sib sisters are the worst mix, but any family pairs can cause trouble, especially during training.

[honeybuffe]

I posted on chat too as wasn't sure of the traffic on this topic and someone there also mentioned littermate syndrome which I had never heard of but will definitely
read up on. I am able to adopt both (although if I have to choose because it's not a good idea for us or dogs I have no idea how I will). Thanks for all the honest replies, even though I was obviously hoping for a resounding yes it's no problem!

[SpicyBear]

I was going to come on and tell you to look up litter mate syndrome!

Do you have mum or have the puppies been separated early? If the latter, it's even more of a problem as you are already up against it training and socialising a pup that was separated from Mum so early. It would be a full time job to properly train and manage the relationship between you and each dog and the between the dogs. You would need to spend a good chunk of each day one on one with each of them. Generally speaking it's just not in the best interests of the pups.

Some people try to make a virtue of over binding between siblings but it usually stops one of the lair reaching their potential. Also, no one wants to think about death or illness, but chances are sooner or later one will pass before the other and the surviving sibling can struggle enormously.

[honeybuffe]

I have the pups at 4.5 weeks as they were part of a dumped litter of 6. No idea about poor mum. I have until the 25th of September when they get their first vaccinations and a week after to decide. So far they are quite good at being individuals and will sleep and eat separately quite happily and both will come to me for comfort. They really only come together for play biting. After a lot of reading last night the majority of opinion is of the it's not a good idea camp, which is admittedly gutting since the idea of choosing one is brutal.

With regard to socialising I am able to bring them to parks where there are lots of dogs for them to meet and learn manners from but agree the training aspect would be very tough.

[Acolyte]

I have litter mates. We trained them separately but apart from that, they have been treated as 2 dogs, not sisters.
On the odd occasion one has had to go in for an overnight stay at the vet, the other has been fine after the initial hoo haa because she has been left.
They have had 3 bitch fights but whether that was down to them being siblings, I'm not sure.

Now they are coming to the end of their lives, coming up 14, we got another dog 3 years ago so the remaining sister us not left alone.

I appreciate I have been incredibly lucky with our siblings and not everybody has such a smooth ride.

[Bubble2bubble]

We have two sisters from the same litter. Wouldn't have been our choice but we took them from an emergency situation. They have turned out lovely dogs but I would never do it again. Aside from the issue of house training, walking and training two pups they did have some fairly serious scraps when they were younger and the bigger pup bullied the smaller one quite badly. I think it would a have been a lot better if they could have been separated.

[honeybuffe]

Do you think in a litter mates situation it makes any difference that they are not the same sex? I am trying to see how they are apart at the moment, one is asleep downstairs with ds2 the other upstairs with dp, (dp who tries to act slightly aloof to situation since they are foster pups but when I say asleep I mean snuggled under his arm). I have started to feed them separately and left them in two beds while we went for a walk. When we came back they were both in one. I don't want to be too extreme in my separation as in an ideal situation they would all be together with mum. I have to say we don't view them too much as siblings as even though they are so young they are very different personalities already. I know, I know I'm a sucker, a hopeful sucker.

[SpicyBear]

OP you may have other posters come along and say they have littermates and their personalities are very different. The problem is keeping littermates together will often influence their personalities and you won't really know how their temperaments would have developed if separated. For example people will often say how one is bold and one timid. But there is a good chance the timid one is much more so because of being kept with a sibling.

[WeAreGroot]

Do you think in a litter mates situation it makes any difference that they are not the same sex?

Aside from other issues with keeping littermates together you'd end up with two youngsters hitting sexual maturity at around the same time. Unless you'd be getting either (or both) neutered as soon as they could be done (which isn't ideal) then you'd have to watch the bitch like a hawk for signs of her first season and have a robust plan in place to keep them separate whilst she's in season.

[honeybuffe]

WeAreGroot good point, another poster in Chat also mentioned delaying neutering, having had an older rescue dog who was neutered, and a puppy we neutered later due to moving what are the reasons for delaying?