Hi,

I have "lurked" on this board for a while but this is my first post here & I'm looking for some advice.

We lost our Labrador earlier this year at the grand old age of 15 and it was really devastating for us.

It is only now that we are able to think again about getting another Labrador.

In fact we would actually like to get two Labs from the same litter & have given this a great deal of thought. We are in no way novices when it comes to Labrador ownership and this is not a whim we are not taking this decision likely.
We each have about 25 years experience owning Labradors, one each before we were married and one together during our marriage. So we know what Labrador ownership involves [$ that it can be very hard work and expensive. Even so we understand that the ownership of two Labradors together is likely to be a whole different ball game! We know that it is likely that in having two Labs together they will bond more with each other than with us and that's ok. We know that it is likely to be more expensive and trips to the vet etc will double, twice the innoculations, twice the food bills, twice the mess, twice the noise, squabbles etc ( dare I say twice the fun ? ;) ) we are prepared for all that.

But despite all that we still know that we would like two pups & indeed we have a litter in mind.
We hope that the two pups we get will be company for each other and for us and that they will enjoy living out their lives together with us as we know our previous Labradors have done.

We also know that there are likely to be many differing views on this board about our decision to take two pups from the same litter and that's ok, we need to hear all the pro's & cons.

We are interested in all the views of people on this board but particularly of those who have done this already and have taken two dogs from the same litter and their experiences (good or bad).

We thought that a dog and a bitch might be the best combination (neutered & speyed at the apropriate ages) as they may be more likely to get on together but we would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Also at least during the puppy stage we were thinking about a cage(s) to assist with puppy training etc. This is one area where we have no experience at all never having used a cage before but having seen them being used we feel it looks like a good idea.

If we do go down this route with two pups would you reccommend 1 big shared cage or giving them their own smaller cages ?

Our view for what it is worth, is that whilst it would be nice for them to share one big cage for company, practically it might not be such a good idea because during the early struggles for dominance there would be no escape for the underdog in one cage whilst with a cage each they would at least have their own refuge.

Our thoughts are to use the cage(s) as we used to use our dogs bed, by leaving the door open at all times during the day for the pups to come and go as they please but closing it at night ( with a fresh water supply available of course) or for VERY occasional short periods when we might have to nip out during the day. ( It should be said at this stage that I work from home and there is nearly always someone in the house.)

What are others experiences of using cages, are we approaching this the right way & have you continued to use cages from puppyhood through to adulthood ?

Also another area that has been discussed to death on this board I know is insurance, but can anyone advise of a good company that gives good cover & a discount for two dogs. We know from experience that insurance can be expensive but in our case it proved to be worth every penny !

So any advice on the above or on any other aspects of two dog ownership will be greatfully received.

With regard to the cages - I'd have thought, individual cages then you know who's done what! Also if you feed them in their cages you'll know that they've eaten their own food and not the other ones as well - this will also be a bonus if you have to add anything to their food - worming powder for example.

I've no experience of owning two puppies together so I can't offer any specific advice, but I do want to wish you lots of luck and say how sorry I am for the loss of your dog last year.

Fiona
x x x

I always used to say never have two puppies from the same litter. However, two years ago I took one of my bitches to Belgium to mate her so as to improve the black and tan gene in Griffons in this country. I was thrilled to bits with the results (5 lovely puppies, much better than any black and tans in this country for many years) and as I had invested so much in this litter I kept 2 of the pups, Django and Truffle. It really has been interesting watching the two grow up side by side.

I made absolutely certain that I did things with each of them separately so that each got plenty of individual attention away from the other one. Although they often sleep together I also made absolutely certain that they were happy to sleep apart from each other, or be apart from each other whilst I was out and they are happy apart as well as together. They are very different characters, Django is full of energy, full of mischief, always on the go and extremely outgoing with people but shyer with other dogs. He likes to be near you, to have attention but does not usually want to cuddle or sit on my knee. Truffle is quieter, more placid, shyer with people than Django but more outgoing with other dogs. She is at her happiest being cuddled or settled down on my knee.

It is harder work than having one puppy at a time and definitely requires a lot of action to make it work properly, but it is worth doing and it is lovely to watch them interact.

You sound as if you have thought of all the correct things, I like the way you are suggesting you will use the cage(s) as a happy place for the pups to be.

Joan
Take the rough with the smooth

I couldn't have done without a cage! It helped with toilet training & now acts as Tyler's bed at night & probably always will coz he doesn't settle at night if he is loose in my bedroom.

Many thanks for your replies.

We are encouraged by what we have heard so far .... all good sound advice.
We had never thought of feeding them in their cages but can see that it could be a good idea. :)
It's also interesting to hear that the cages could be used into their adult life as their sort of "bedrooms".
It's really great to hear of Fleetgolds success with two sibblings. Like you we will certainy try and give each dog plenty of individual attention and make sure that they don't feel insecure when they are apart from each other at any time.
We're both really starting to look forward to this now, the house isn't the same without a Labrador around :( although it's been a long time since we had pups about the place !!!

Has anyone got any views on the best mix for sibblings, I see that Fleetgold has a male & female and this appears to have worked.

I asked my Labrador breeder about taking 2 puppies from the same litter. She said they were more trouble and that she had kept 2 from 1 litter who had opened a tin of paint. I suspect that 2 together would get into a lot of trouble, but could be a lot of fun if you have time for them.

Michael

Sorry - I still think that under 95% of circumstances it's a bad idea to have two together. We have done it ourselves, but have always separated them for the majority of the day by husband taking one to work with him, and him training that one, while I keep the other at home with me, and train that one.

They do need a fair bit of time to be away from each other every single day, and I would go further than that, and say not to let them play together for longer than about 5 - 10 mins at a time without putting them apart again, at least for a spell. I think this should give them a chance to assert their own little pack order without reckoning that their pack is superior to yours - you have drawn a halt to the proceedings yourself.

You will definitely need two crates; preferably in different areas of the house. Treat them as far as possible as individuals, not as a pack.

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

Hi Jo,

We had wondered about the positioning of the cages whether to have them near each other or not, thanks for your advice on that. We had not however envisaged keeping them apart as much as you do and we hope that this will not prove neccessary with our dogs, time will tell :)

Do you feel that the long separation periods you apply are because your dogs are sibblings or was it because of a bad experience ?

Would you apply the same separation periods to to any two dogs kept together regardless of whether they are sibblings ?

I know that some periods of separation are required because it would not be desirable to let your dogs get to a stage where separation anxiety set in as soon as one was out of sight of the other and of course they should always be treated as individuals but I'm very surprised that you don't advocate them being together for more than 5 or 10 minutes at a time.

I know of several people who own more than one dog ( not sibblings though ) who only very occasionally separate them & usually walk them together and share the same rooms & toys in the house and they appear not to have any problems.

Ok, there might be the occasional squabble but that's to be expected it's usually over toys or food but once in a blue moon & a sharp word from their owners soon sorts it out.

They have told me that their biggest worry in owning more than one dog was not so much that their dogs got on well with each other (which incidentally they do) but more importantly that they were properly socialised with other dogs and that they were NEVER allowed to "gang up together" against other dogs as they would be likely to act as a pack .... sound advice I think which I will be following!

Anyway thank you for your advice, I would be interested to hear whether you feel that all dogs kept together should generally be separated for such lengthy periods or just sibblings ?

Hi

Are you at home on your own during the day? If you are you might find two puppies two much to deal with and i would imagine it owuld be harder to house train two as opposed to one.

I have got a Lab puppy who is now nine months old but it was hard work and I only had him. They will need a lot of indivdual attention and if you are trying to split yourself in two it might not be very easy. :(

That said i have had experience with Siblings both my Nan and Mum have got siblings. My Nan has got two brothers and my mum two sisters and neither pair have ever fought. :) But they are probably bonded more to each other than us but My Nans two boys have got better as they have got older (they are 13 now). The training is also not as good because time was split.

We wanted two dogs but we got Bailey first and are now planning our next addition sometime in 2004! I want to Have bailey grown up and fully trained before I bring another untrained pupy into the house so I can spend the majority of my time on the little one. :)

That is just my opinion :)

Tracy

Hi TJD,

"Are you at home on your own during the day? "

I sure am ! :)

"If you are you might find two puppies two much to deal with and i would imagine it owuld be harder to house train two as opposed to one."

I am expecting that & know it will be hard work I know how hard one pup can be !!
Although I work from home they'll only be able to "gang up on me" in the mornings as my wife is around in the afternoons so they'll have two of us to deal with then ;)

"I have got a Lab puppy who is now nine months old but it was hard work and I only had him. They will need a lot of indivdual attention and if you are trying to split yourself in two it might not be very easy."

Yup ! ... I remember well what it's like, I don't expect I'll get much work done for a few months !

" That said i have had experience with Siblings both my Nan and Mum have got siblings. My Nan has got two brothers and my mum two sisters and neither pair have ever fought. But they are probably bonded more to each other than us but My Nans two boys have got better as they have got older (they are 13 now). The training is also not as good because time was split."

That's encouraging to hear. Interesting about the training, I have heard it said that training two dogs is far more difficult and time consuming & I imagine that will be the case but we will give it our best shot.

"We wanted two dogs but we got Bailey first and are now planning our next addition sometime in 2004! I want to Have bailey grown up and fully trained before I bring another untrained pupy into the house so I can spend the majority of my time on the little one."

A coincidence, we are thinking of calling one of our pups Bailey as we think it is a lovely name.
Like you, we had also considered getting one pup and then another one later on but then decided that we would like sibblings from the same litter so that they will develop together & age at the same rate and hopefully become life long friends ?
Actually, when we got our last Labrador as a puppy some good friends of ours got one from the same litter at the same time and both of them regularly played and walked together without any problems until sadly their dog had to be PTS at the age of 5.
So we have had some experience of sibblings who were in regular contact with each other apparantly without any problems but of course that's not living together.
Still, so far I'm fairly optomistic :)

Thanks for your reply

Hi ,

I have had two pups within 6 months of each other,(not quite the same I know) they are both bitches and adore each other one is a Lab and one x breed.

I found them easy to housetrain with the use of a cage, (best invention ever)I had one cage each when they were younger, mainly for the reasons Fiona gave, but now I have one large one for them to cuddle up in. The only thing with a cage they must be used with care, ours is there home not a prison, I don't need to shut the door any more, but used to for short periods of time to me and them a rest.

I think the only downside I have is that together they are both very confident but apart that is not the case.

Go for it is my advice, you seem to be level headed and know it won't all be plain sailing, but it will be FUN.

All the best
Kim

Thanks for that Kim.

It's really good to hear about your dogs & thanks for the encouragement :)

I've found this site about cages which I think offers very sensible advice and I'll use the information offered there as well as on this board as my guidance.

http://www.mastamariner.co.uk/advice_sheets_crates.html

Hi, I've bred and kept, bought and sold two pups together (to and experienced person that I knew well), and in all but one case it worked out very well - imo better than with a singleton. The one case was two home bred sisters who were inseperable until for some unknown reason they took a spite, and in the end I rehomed one though retaining ownership. Each time I've had two pups they've shared one large cage, but have had individual 'fun sessions' and training. That said, I've no experience whatsoever of labs. If you do a search on crates, you'll find several old threads, and there was one not so long ago about two pups from the same litter called 'would you sell 2 pups to the same person'. Hope you get some useful info :-).

Hi Sharon,

Thank you for your reply it is very encouraging.
It's particularly interesting to hear what your are saying about the two sisters having to be seperated, I had previously read the thread "would you sell two pups to the same person" and I think? it was in that thread that someone expressed concerns about keeping two sisters esp. if they were not speyed. As far as I remember their view was that there could be problems as one or the other of them came into season.
This is one of the reasons why we are contemplating a brother and sister rather than two sisters or two brothers. That's not to say that there wont be same sex sibblings that get along with each other without problems but we're coming to the view that a brother & sister would be best.

It's also interesting to hear that your pups shared a large cage that was my original palan, I think after all I've read and heard now we will go for two cages but we would be delighted to see them sharing of their own accord, but that will be down to them.;)
I think we will always separate them at night though when we are not around & the cages are shut so that in the event of any squabbles there is at least a refuge for the underdog.
Most interesting though Sharon thank you. :)

Hello,
With regards to insurance, Pinnacle did the same sort of cover as Pet Plan but they were marginally cheaper AND they gave a discount for two or more dogs, rather than three or more with PP. Whether this has changed over the last year, you'll need to check. There was a thread about this recently, if you put in Vet 2 Pet in search.

I cheated with the siblings from the same litter. My mother had one sister and I had the other. We live only a couple of minutes away from each other so the girls saw each other practically every dayof their lives, but obviously had their own space! They loved each other to bits but were quite happy apart with their human companions too. Now I have two dogs but one is 3 and the other is a small pup (coincidently, she's Mastamariner Secret Shadow. Nice to see their site being quoted!:D).

I'd never crated before getting the pup, but have found it invaluable for separating the dogs while eating. The pup hoovers her food up while Ben is a fussy eater. I suspect this won't be a problem with labs;).

I wish you the best of luck with your plans.
LynnT

Hi Lynn,

Great, an answer to the insurance question, I'll check out Pinnacle thank you.

Nice to hear about your mums & your dogs being sibblings and it working so well :)

Your dead right about Labs & Hoovers by the way !! :D

Hi Fablab
When I was much younger, dumber, and overly confident, I ended up "rescuing" from really bad situations, one lab/shepard dog and a year later, a pair of Beagle/Fox Terrier bitch sisters. All were 4-5 week old puppies when I got them. Definite learning experience ;)

I did this despite working long shift hours and amazingly, since I crate trained them from the start, everything worked rather well for three + years that we all lived together (when my first marriage fell apart :rolleyes: ) I did have a patrol job and swung by my house during the day for lunch, so that helped. Also, I never really slept during shift work and they slept when I was gone :)

Crates at the time were outrageously expensive at pet stores. I had managed to afford a single "Large" size by purchasing it directly through an airline. Even with 75% off, it was still somewhere around $50 -- a lot of money for me :( But everyone was comfortable in the same crate and would go in on their own as soon as they saw me put on my work boots :)

I would not likely do this today, esp. after maturation from puppyhood. I'm a firm believer that everyone needs their separate space. But somehow these dogs thrived and were happy with the status quo. The sisters never really squabbled. In fact, after I had to give them up, I had reports from their very delighted owners how well behaved and adjusted they were with one another for years afterwards. I did have them spayed young --- one after her first heat, the other, just before it. Perhaps the lack of raging hormones helped, or that Beagles are very packish dogs anyway. They really got along with their lab buddy and he was much happier not being an "only" dog once they arrived.

Personally, I believe that you have really thought this through, know what you are getting into, and I wish you all the best. The only bad thing about getting two puppies at the same time is that they are more likely to become old and "depart" at the same time :( :( That's always been a concern of mine --the completely empty house :(
I wish you best of luck however you go about this. Keep in touch :D :D :D
toodles

Hi Toodles,

Thanks for relating your experiences, like most of the posts we found your post very encouraging .

It's becoming apparant from the replies here that our initial worries about taking two pups from the same litter although justified to some extent should not stop us from doing so.:)

As we said in our initial post we have both owned Labs since our teens ( we're now middle aged arrgh !! ) so we're not exactly inexperienced when it comes to dogs & we're not going into this with our eyes shut ( I hope I don't regret saying that. ). We were just looking for re-assurance that two pups from the same litter was not a recipie for disaster and I think we have that now:D

Thank you very much to all who replied with advice & encouragement, we will continue to post here and let you know how it all goes.

I think it is generally agreed that it isn't a good idea, as people don't realise, or forget what hard work pups are. It is like twins twice the trouble, but also twice the fun.

I certainly would not want to do it, but I try to space the dogs out to have a succession, so that hopefully when one goes, I have the others for dconsilation, and don't have to face the empty house, or getting another pup to 'replace'.

I had my second dog only a week after losing the first, as I couldn't bear being without a dog, but admit that I didn't love her as I should have for several months, just cared for her inrather a detached way, as I was still grieving for the first.

I think now when I loose one of the girls, it will hurt, but I won't have to do anything about another dog, as they are here already, and another will be added as and when.

I'm pleased you have made a decision you are happy with and good luck when you come to get your pups. Having two at a time can be very rewarding even if hardwork.

I'll look forward to hearing how you get on.

Joan
Take the rough with the smooth

I have insured a jointly owned dog thorugh them, though haven't yet had to claim. It was cheaper than Pet Plan for very similar cover for life.