I Brought Home Two Puppies, Now What?

by Heidi Atwood

So you brought two puppies home, and now you may be questioning your decision because it doesn’t seem like twice the work, but more like ten times the intensity! I have raised littermates just once, but I learned a LOT from the experience, and I want to help you prevent the mistakes I made along the way. I am going to jump right in and offer advice based on your decision to raise and train two puppies at the same time. You may have even gone into this adventure thinking that everything would be easier because your puppies have each other to focus on 24/7. 

You might have friends, neighbors, relatives, or even a breeder who tried to discourage you from doing so, because raising two puppies at once can take a lot of time and patience. I once advised a friend against adopting littermates myself, but she misunderstood me and bought two puppies the same age from two different breeders, which is pretty much the same thing. 

Regardless, it’s time to focus on moving forward. You may have heard of “Littermate Syndrome,” where puppies are so focused on their siblings (related or not) that they are unable to pay attention to or even bond with their handlers. This causes a lack of focus when working on potty training, teaching appropriate behaviors, encouraging rest, and training in general. Trying to practice leash walking with two exuberant puppies can be a nightmare! 

It can also be much harder for puppies to adapt to being apart when they have been together their whole lives, but if we don’t help them learn now, there will likely be future separation problems. We also want the puppies to learn to be together without constant play (in other words, constant overstimulation) and to help them develop their own personalities. 

• Above all, help the puppies learn to be away from each other. This is important for the future and for managing training time, play sessions, and quality naps. 

• Practice separate EVERYTHING! Offer separate feeding areas, sleeping areas, potty breaks, time alone with people, leash walking practice, and learning to interact with other dogs and people. 

• Closely supervise their time together. Puppies learn to play with their littermates, and this can involve tackling, biting, and a lot of rough play. With littermates, exuberant play can continue seamlessly if allowed, leading to increased overstimulation and resulting behaviors such as nipping, jumping, barking, and growling. It’s best to allow short periods of play - usually around 5 minutes at a time is sufficient - and then offer breaks away from each other and calmer activities to help bring their energy levels back down. Interrupting rough play can also help the puppies learn to behave appropriately around other dogs they meet. 

• Encourage calmness when in the same area. Along with offering crate naps in separate areas, reward them for resting near each other without playing. You may need to physically separate the puppies with gates, pens, crates, or tethered leashes until they learn how to relax when they are together. 

• Training sessions are most effective when kept fairly short, to match the puppy’s attention span. Therefore, offering 5 minutes of training at a time is usually sufficient, and your puppies will benefit from separate training sessions, at least at first. You may eventually be able to conduct training sessions with both puppies at the same time, but not when you are teaching them a new cue. 

• Prevent resource guarding early on, so that it doesn’t become a problem. Check out Lesson 3.8 in our Intermediate Training Program as well as our Resource Guarding Class for more information on this potential problem. 

Like most puppy training, gradual steps are best. When bringing home two young puppies who are learning to be alone in their crates for the first time, it’s fine to take a gradual approach: place their crates next to each other at first, then move them farther apart each day as they settle into their new homes. 

When I brought home my two Labrador puppies many years ago, I was unaware of the potential negative effects of raising siblings without providing them with individual experiences.

When they were 8 months old, one of the puppies injured her ACL and required 8 weeks of crate rest with no playing, jumping, or running. This was very hard on the puppies, because they hadn’t learned how to be apart, and they had been given a lot of freedom to play and be together. We were able to avoid expensive surgery and help them learn to be apart suddenly, but we certainly wished we had made this easier by helping them get acclimated to this right from the start. 

There are also wonderful aspects about raising littermates! When we brought our puppies Sophie and Jazmyn home, we also had a very elderly dog, so we felt that by keeping the puppies busy with each other, they wouldn’t pester our old girl. This eventually worked pretty well for them, and the puppies learned that they could get near Abby only when they were calm. I have some great photos of the three of them resting nicely together, but this required a lot of redirection and separation at first. 

Sophie and Jazmyn enjoyed each other’s company throughout their long lives, for comfort, play, and outdoor exploration. However, one of the dogs became the alpha girl who was always “in charge” and the other was very much a “follower,” so it seems that this would have been a bit different if we offered more individual experiences and helped them develop their own personalities. 

If you've brought home two puppies, don’t worry! Keep in touch with us so we can help you figure out a plan to move forward with your training and daily life experiences.