Training two puppies at the same time

[JEANETTE PALFREYMAN]

Any tricks or ideas for two at the same time? We have two Bernedoodles ages 13 weeks and 17 weeks. They have very different feelings towards training and rewards. Our older female cares most about attention and freedom while our younger male is eager to work for treats and then misbehave when nobody's looking. They are both still growing and I am interested in training full time now to hopefully relax later?

-Jeanette

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there!

Welcome to the forums!

Adorable pups! In general,  I would encourage training one dog at a time at first just because in the initial stages of training, you want one-on-one attention without too many distractions going on.

For example, if your dogs are prone to barking/alerting to stimuli, they will also likely feed off each others' moods which negatively interferes with training creating disruptions.

If they have had little training before they will also likely want to play with each other rather than pay attention to you.

You also don't want one dog getting in the middle because he smells treats. Not to mention, on top of one-on-one attention, you'll be likely handling a clicker, treats and even leashes so lots of multitasking. 

In these cases, one-on-one training therefore is much easier in the initial stages at least until you have better control over both dogs.

To train each dogs separately you can:

-Crate a dog with a stuffed Kong to keep occupied until it's his turn and then swap.

-Have the other dog spend time in the yard or taken on a walk with a family member

-Have another family member train your other dog while you train one and then swap (you will need to make sure you both use the exact same cues and hand gestures)

The great news is that once both dogs are getting more and more fluent in performing the desired behaviors, you can get them to perform the behaviors they were taught together, which works great as part of the proofing process (dogs responding nicely despite the distraction of each others' presence).

Other tips/ideas that come to mind:

-I would stick to treats (or their kibble if they like it) for both when training in the home for now and then use the attention and freedom later on once you'll be moving to a variable schedule. Then, once trained to a fluent level, you can wean off part of the treats and use the attention and freedom as rewards.

-Misbehaving when nobody is looking often takes place when they have come to associate our presence with the training they have received. For instance, they come to learn that  they should not steal items from the counter when we are there, but when we are away the same training doesn't apply. It stems from a lack of generalization. We can help them succeed by hiding or placing a camera or mirror so that we can see them while not in the room with them and reminding them verbally that even if we aren't there, we expect the same response. 

-Training is really lifelong commitment more than a "one time and done' ordeal where we can sit back and relax and admire all the work. Dogs are always in a learning state so the training is for life. As they mature, they can learn bad habits if we stop providing guidance. Sure, once we have covered the basics and proofed behaviors in a variety of settings/distractions, we can relax somewhat, but in order to keep things fluent, we need to do maintenance sessions and keep at it. Not to mention, most dogs thrive learning new cues and tricks if we make the training fun and this helps keep them mentally stimulated and happy. 

I think by training full time you mean really getting involved and dedicated in it. Correct? Because we can't really train fulltime as dogs (especially pups) have short attention spans. Short and sweet is ideal. 

There are ultimately no exact general rules of thumb when it comes to how long to train dogs per session and how many sessions to do a day. It's often a matter of personally gauging how things are going and keeping an eye out for signs of tiring. Some dogs can get tired after just 5 minutes of training others can go on for 15 minutes at a time. With young pups you want to stick to the shorter sessions due to their short attention spans. Always watch for signs of frustration, stress or tiring under the form of yawning, a sudden itch, walking away, loss of interest etc. You want to avoid getting to this point. To play it safe, therefore it's best to keep sessions short and sweet at first, always ending on a positive note.

 After testing the waters with a few brief sessions, you can eventually progress and try as many as you can fit in a day without the dogs getting bored or uninterested. You may find that you can train more and longer on some days, while some days less. Just like us dog may have more productive days than others.

I hope this helps!

Happy training,

Adrienne 

 

[CAMILA SILVA]

I have 2 border collie puppies that are 10 weeks old (adopted). Should they have a timeout area for when they are not behaving properly such as biting the sister. I bought the program because I am at my wit's end. Thank you.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi Camila Silva,

Welcome to the forums!

With two puppies of the same age, they are prone to becoming overly dependent on each other and we can also see cases of sibling rivalry/littermate syndrome and potential bullying. Of course, this doesn't happen in all cases, but it's something to consider. 

Because of these "complications," many breeders and rescues have made a rule to not allow adopters to take home two puppies at once. They believe that the average household doesn't have the time and energy to commit to the training, socializing, exercising and potty training of two puppies considering that this needs to be done on an individual basis (each puppy needs to be trained/socialized separately from each other.)  They also should very gradually learn to sleep and spend time away from each other for certain periods of the day. 

Of course, these are generalizations, and therefore as a littermate mom myself ( I got both my Rotties as littermates) I can attest that, it is doable, but it a whole lot of work, however, my motto is "when there is a will, there is a way."

Now, the main challenges with littermates/pups of similar age consist of these:

-Excessive bonding between the two puppies (the owners become just a backdrop)

-Panic when puppies are separated

-One puppy developing to be shy, while there other is more assertive

-One puppy bullying the other puppy (stealing the others' toys, blocking from accessing a space, attacking when going through doorways or to greet the owners).

-Fighting that becomes more intense around the adolescent/social maturity stage. This may be more pronounced in pups of the same sex, especially in dog breeds prone to same-sex aggression. 

Now, if one puppy is persistently biting the other, we need to carefully evaluate whether this is just play or whether there is more to it. Puppies play fight quite often and things can sometimes get rough, but that may be just their playstyle. If there is always one puppy consistently biting the other and the other appears to be trying to move away, there are chances there may be some bullying going on.

At this age, pups have sharp teeth. If one pup is biting too hard, the other should "yelp" and give a little timeout by stopping play and possibly leaving the area, but not always pups are listening to these requests for gentler play and some bullies, just want to keep going and going against the other pup. 

One way to assess whether the play is problematic is by removing the apparently "bullied pup" and see if he/she wants to go straight back to playing or whether he/she feels relief upon being removed from the other and wants nothing to do with the other.

This can provide us an insight, although it's also true that two pups may bond so much together, that, even when bullied, the other pup wants to go back because has come to depend too much on the other, so this little test isn't always reliable in a littermate circumstance. 

If there is actual bullying, you may want to train a fluent cue that tells your pups to stop in their tracks and come to you for a treat.

For this, since your pups are so young, you can try conditioning a fluent response to a smacking sound https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/the-airplane-game/the-smacking-sound/

This needs to be trained individually at first, to a fluent level before putting them together. And before expecting this response when they are "playing," they need to reliably respond to it in less distracting contexts, (like when they're outside in the yard) gradually building the distraction level to more and more challenging contexts. 

It's important individualizing the contexts in which the biting occurs. Often it's when playing, when exiting doors, when picking a resting spot, when going to greet the owner https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/dogs-fighting-over-owner/

In regards to timeouts, in order to work well these need to implemented in a timely fashion, but there are risks for "side effects." For example, if we have to repeatedly drag a puppy by the collar to the timeout area, this may lead to a pup who becomes "hard to catch" or may even try to nip our hands (when we want to instead create positive associations with pups having their collars touched https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/exercises-to-teach-puppies-to-tolerate-touch/).

Not to mention, the pup may come to associate the timeout area (which is often a crate or playpen) with punishment. 

An alternate to timeouts are 'chill-outs.' In other words, more than using timeouts as punishment, they are used to promote calmness, so you can make your smacking sound, and then you can use your treat to take each pup to their a separate confined area, where they are given the treat and where there is some chew toy/puzzle toy waiting for them. This can help the pups chill and learn how to self-soothe in case they were engaging in too rough play. 

I hope this helps, 

Keep us posted on how things go. 

Happy training,

Best,

Adrienne 

[A WAKERLEY]

Hi Adrienne,

My partner and I have recently got two puppies, a labrador (F) and a Irish Setter Cross Poodle (M), both just over 8 weeks old. We've had them both since Saturday and have seen some worrying behaviour from the labrador in particular.

When playing indoors where there are toys, the lab will see the poodle cross playing with a toy and will fixate and try and take the toy off him which often ends up in fighting. She sometimes does it when he's just walking around. He does do it back to her as well, but the ratio of her to him is higher. This behaviour is seen in the garden as well, almost to a greater extent as trying to distract them becomes a lot more difficult with the extra stimulus.

I've had some success by teaching the lab to look to me when her name is called to try and preemptively stop her fixating, similar to your smacking sound technique, I would say. I've also tried to reward her when she breaks eye contact with him.

Also, they both try to get the treats that the other is receiving when rewarding one and not the other.

They are both a little anxious being left in a pen or crate by themselves and for the next week and a half, it will mainly be one person caring for them and therefore difficult to split them easily.

Some other information that may be relevant is that since last night, they are sleeping in the same pen with unrestricted access to each other. We tried keeping them separate for the first few nights, but there was lots of crying and anxious accidents - both poos and wees. They slept through last night with little to no incidents and no crying.

We want to know if this is fairly normal, or if we need to act quickly to nip this in the bud, before we end up with siblings that are aggressive with each other.

My questions are:

1) Is this normal behaviour from puppies?

2) Should we break them up when they're fighting, or simply allow them to go on until they stop themselves?

3) Would they benefit from seeing more acceptable play behaviour from an older dog?

4) What steps/training should we provide to sort this and, in what order, if it's problematic? Taking into account that they're struggling to be separated.

5) What steps should we take to curb the behaviour if not problematic?

Thank you in advance.

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hi there, welcome to the forums,

This isn't really easy to answer without seeing their interactions. Generally, if they are this young, for the most part they are engaging in rough play, and among the play there may also be some elements of testing boundaries among each other, and females can often be quite persistent in seeing what they can get away of when interacting with males. If he is reciprocating every now and then, then that's a positive sign of him wanting to keep interacting with her, versus the withdrawing we may see in pups who are impacted by too rough play fighting/ actual fighting. 

To better understand your situation, I have a few questions:

1) Are these the first puppies or dogs you have ever owned?

2) Can you define in simple words what you are seeing when they are fighting? Are they just vocalizing loudly?  Barking, growling, nipping? 

3) Does your male react to her when she tries to steal his toy, or does he let her have it and leaves with a fearful body language (lowered body, tail between legs). 

4) Did they ever seem to actually hurt each other or cause injuries (don't test this, just base your answer off what you have seen so far).

5) Is one puppy much larger than the other?

6) When she "attacks" when he is just walking around in the yard is he carrying a toy? If not, is she trying to bite his back legs as he's walking? or does she do a sort of "mock attack" and goes to bite him on the neck area as if trying to pin him down? does she approach slowly as if stalking him?

7) If they are playing, and you remove your male from play for a few seconds (just holding on to him) does he seems eager to want to go back to interacting with your female Lab? Once you set him free again, does he go straight back to playing with her?

8 ) Where did you get the puppies from? Did the breeder or rescue mention anything about the risks of sibling rivalry/littermate syndrome? This can occur anytime two puppies close in age are adopted). 

About the trying to snatch treats, there was just a recent post about this:

Thanks!

[A WAKERLEY]

Hi again Adrienne,

Thanks for your reply.

In answer to your questions:

1) I have previously had a family dog, however, she didn't like to socialise with other dogs, so haven't seen a great deal of normal puppy/dog play behaviour firsthand.

2) I've uploaded a video of an example of the behaviour here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sbSvnFN9DTJ1_7AWdxuK79P1nnL1mUZ2

3) He does react, they will tug a little and then sometimes he'll just go and get another toy and she might come and try and play with that as well. Or they'll tug and then start playing/fighting.

4) No, we're pretty certain there have been no actual injuries.

5) The labrador is bigger, you may be able to see from the video.

6) I'll have to check this. It's not usually when he has a toy, she's always quite interested in whatever he's messing with/digging up. Couldn't comment too much on the stalking, she kind of eyes him across the garden and then runs at him, sometimes just in front of him/past him and then he'll be the one to bite her. Will give more information when we have it.

7) At times, he'll want to go back. There will also be times where they kind of break from playing/fighting and he'll go back for round 2, so to speak.

😎 We did kind of learn about the littermate syndrome a little before adopting them, hence what we're trying to avoid now and get them to learn acceptable behaviour.

I'd mentioned in the last post about them sleeping in the same pen, do you think we'd be better separating them, or is this a reasonable thing to do?

Thanks again.

Joe

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Thank you for the extra details and the video, they are very helpful!

I have watched the video with no volume and then with volume. Based on this footage, I am not much concerned about this type of interaction, but would keep a close eye on them in case your male pup shows persistent signs of struggling and your female doesn't give him any breaks.

In this case, because he was stuck under a furniture, where it was a bit challenging removing himself, he may have felt pressure which was relieved when he figured his way out. That brief scrolling of the fur you see for a split second once he gets out, is often a sign of a dog feeling relief from being freed from some type of pressure (we see that often in dogs after being pet from strangers and they felt somewhat uncomfortable).

Once he's out from under there, he seems rather comfortable, starts exploring around and even joins her in when she discovers something. He does seem to be a bit on the lookout for her, but it doesn't interfere with his exploration/acting like a normal puppy.

Your female is acting like the typically bossy female who is testing her boundaries. When she cannot get her way, she barks at him. My female Rottweiler would often pester Einstein as a pup, it was her favorite "hobby." She would fixate on his legs and bite them when he was walking and she was sometimes trying to force him to "mouth inspections." Basically she wanted him to open his mouth for her so she could sniff and inspect inside for tidbits of food. When he was reluctant to do this, she would bark at him annoyed. 

She would also try to steal his toys, and would try anything to trick him to let go of them such as pretending there was someone at the door, howling (so he would join in the chorus and drop a toy) and going to solicit attention from us in hopes he would join too so he would leave his toys behind. As he got older, he learned to use his voice more and more and she became more respectful of his boundaries, although he knew better not to get too close to her when she was lying down and had a particular toy or bone. 

From your descriptions about their interactions, it sounds he's reciprocating play with her. When in doubt, watching the body language and doing a "consent test" by removing the "victim dog" and seeing whether he's eager to return to playing with the "instigator" can help us get an idea of how he's emotionally feeling. 

As a general rule, if both puppies get into some conflict (mostly ritualistic without harming) and are able to de-escalate on their own, this is good conflict resolution. The puppies in this case are learning that they can have disagreements without blowing things out of proportion and they can walk away from it and be friends like before.

However, if things seem to escalate, it's important for our pups to know that we'll be there for them to act as a protector who keeps them safe. This will teach them that they do not have to fight among themselves, since you'll be there to intervene and take care of problems every time. Your smacking sound is a good way to interrupt, but if they go back at it right after the brief separation, you will need to give them each their own area to chill with a food puzzle. 

In general, signs of concern include the following:

• Fights that lead to the puppies hurting each other and injuries
• One puppy acting scared of the other (lowered body, ears back, tail between legs).
• One puppy trying to avoid the other (moving always away, trying to seek protection from the owner)
• One puppy being much larger than the other with the risk hurting the other puppy when playing rough

Something important to consider when dealing with two pups close in age is that we want to teach them to become individuals and prevent over bonding among each other. So while it may be tempting to let them play all day (which can lead to crankiness and more squabbles-puppies need to sleep a lot and another pup often prevents that), they need to learn not to depend on each other too much and to develop a bond with us. 

If we allow the pups to bond a lot because they are kept together, fed together, sleep together walk together 24/7 every day, this risks hindering the socialization process with humans and other dogs which can lead to nervousness/fear of new people or dogs. Among the two pups there often seems to be one that is more insecure and who tends to rely too much on the other pup's presence and risks becoming more reactive as he or she matures. 

So they would benefit from being separated from each other for various amounts of time. How can this be done if they are dependent upon each other? You can try by giving the dog left behind a mind stimulating toy like a stuffed Kong or stuffed Topple toy for the time being and introduce gradual separations. During these separations, take advantage for training, socialization, doing brain games etc. 

Introducing an older dog is likely not going to help. Many older dogs want nothing to do with puppies because they haven't learned bite inhibition yet and they have little impulse control. However, occasionally, there are older dogs who can help teach puppies, but really good "canine teachers" are not easy to come by.

Your best bet is taking them to two different puppy socialization classes. Here you get to observe appropriate and inappropriate play and ways to interrupt it. Your pups will also learn proper dog manners from other dogs and not just their sibling other pup they spend most of the time with, which is important from a developmental standpoint.

Some dog trainers who hold puppy classes sometimes also have an adult moderator, teacher dog, which in that case may work well. Look for a good class run by dog trainers who put am emphasis on socialization and ensure all pups are vaccinated and their quarters are disinfected properly to prevent infectious diseases.

With puppies, whatever toy one puppy has, the other will want as well. Investing in one of those super long tug toys can help encourage more cooperative play as they each will tug on one side and enjoy the resistance. This can also help your Lab focus less on biting legs and other body parts of your setter mix.  

About sleeping in the same pen, being that they are so young, they may suffer from abrupt separations. At 8 weeks, most puppies will rebel to being left alone, this is natural because in the wild at this age, they would be very vulnerable so they have this instinct of screaming at the top of their lungs if there's no other puppy or human nearby. Things generally ameliorate once they are little older starting at 10-12 weeks and peaking at 16 weeks which is the flight stage. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/flight-instinct-period-4-8-months/

I would aim to gradually separate them, by practicing them being in their own crate/pen initially next to each other and giving them something to enjoy. With some clingy pups I need to buy them a Snuggle Puppy Behavior Aid which emits warmth and has a ticking heart sound. DAP diffusers may help too. 

Hope this helps,

Let me know if you have any other questions/concerns. 

Picture of two eight-week old pups learning to rest in their own crates.