You would think that these 2 gals who are twins (aka litter sisters) would have the same temperament and builds etc etc. Well – they don’t.

I remember when we were originally looking for 2 dogs to join our family that we wanted a boy and a girl. It turns out that this litter of 5 Schnoodles only had 1 boy and he was already taken.  So, we thought 2 girls it would have to be. We paid the deposit and life was dandy until we spoke to a few people about getting litter sisters and this was the feedback they gave :

• You should never ever buy 2 females from the same litter
• They are going to fight like mad and will probably end up killing each other
• Getting 2 puppies at the same time is just crazy

So, my heart sank and I thought about it. You can’t just dismiss advice like that and I had only paid the deposit which I would rather lose than cause chaos and catastrophe for the dogs and our family.

I then decided to call the vet and get an opinion from someone who knew the kinds of things I was going to get our family into. She was great. She didn’t call me crazy and she also did say that she wasn’t going to tell me what to do. What she did ask was about the type of dog and then said she didn’t see any problem as long as they were spade at 6 months or before their first season. She said what that would do was stop them from maturing sexually and then we wouldn’t have any problems with dominance etc.

Armed with this – we decided to go ahead with allowing the girls into our family and we have had a fantastic time over the past 2.5 years. One is naturally dominant and the other submissive which helps a lot and we have also done a lot of dog training. Touch wood – there haven’t been any problems with fighting each other and in fact if the one is left by herself she misses her sister like crazy (something else we are now working on.) Their little characters shine and their mischief, whilst not immediately always appreciated, provides another dynamic to our family.

What’s also great is that the boys, who used to be afraid of dogs, have grown with our dogs and have a much better understanding and confidence. Not too confident as I don’t think that is necessarily a good thing but more than they had before ie. they don’t scream the village down when they spot a dog from 300ft away.

The only mistake we made is calling them names that sound similar and start with the same letter or sound. We are in a more advanced stage of training where the one dog has to stay whilst we call the other one. Because they are quite clever (words the trainer used – they come on the initial sound instead of waiting for the whole word. I’ll update you when we have got that far.

Personal space & non-verbal signs when out dog walking