I wonder what the general opinion is of buying littermates ? its very tempting when buying a puppy to say oh yes lets get two or its a shame to split them up but does it really work out well?
Im my experience in rescue we have taken in lots of litter mates and very often have the situation where one is totally dominated by the other and this is over ten years experience.
for example yesterday we had to take in two littermates 5years old a spayed bitch and a male the owner was devastated said they had always been together and they were inseperable now we have our rescue kennels on site here we are able to observe behviour at first hand we noticed the male totally dominated the bitch so we decided to split them up but next to each other letting them run out free seperatly the bitch found it wonderful and never even looked at the dog but the dog created havoc wanting to be with her,we let him out and he splattered her on the ground trying to mount her and boss her anyway we then put her back and watched him he was watering everywhereshe had been so this evening we let her out for a play and she was happy as larry I feel she has probably been dominated by him all her life. what do others think?

Glenys

It is one of my rules when selling pups. I would never ever sell two littermates together.

You nearly always get a dominance issue going on, unless you are very lucky and if they are two of the same sex, it can lead to dreadful problems.

Like you we are involved in BT Welfare and have seen the results on a number of occasions.

Jayne

I have 2 littermates (both males) and am lucky that they have never had serious spats (they are now going on 4 years old). But they are far closer bonded with each other than they are with us, and training them has been difficult - they are about as well trained as other pups we have had as individuals have been by 9 months. I begin to despair whether there are enough hours in a day to get them right.

So unless potential owners actively want ongoing hooligans (and I'm at home 22/7 - I must go shopping occasionally!) then get one pup at a time.

I bought 2 whippet pups from the same litter 6 years ago now. Although they grew very close, the bitch was very dominant. In the end it got to the stage where the dog wasn't allowed to show me any affection, and he quite often ended up going upstairs to lie by himself. They would chase each other as whippets do, but the dog would sometime end up with torn skin where she would bite him during the chase. Lots of other problems manifested themselves as time went on, and in the end I decided to separate them and rehome the bitch. The dog is fantastic now. He's much more confident and affectionate and generally seems a lot happier, so much so that he doesn't take any nonsence from his newish housemate, a feisty mini schnauzer. It's so nice to see them both getting on so well, playing without agression. I'd never ever get litter mates again, (and I'd definitely never get two pups together either). I've learned my lesson on both scores.

I wd. never sell litter mates in my breed either. They can be hard enough as singletons never mind as a pair!!