The Mindful Puppy Blog
By PAPIA ROWE
GETTING TWO PUPPIES AT THE SAME TIME
Oh yes – did I not say that before? We are getting two puppies at the same time. Darran made the same call and has reserved one of Ruby’s blue boys , currently known as “Mowgli” by Rhea.
I guess this starts the whole angst about the dangers of getting siblings and how awful and co-dependent they become and it’s not responsible. I hear you – and as soon as human parents stop having twins/ triplets or separating them and giving them up to other humans to avoid that sibling co-dependency, I will be more ready to listen to you.
Being a Mindful Puppy
New online Puppy Preschool. Interactive videos and documentation. Also Online Zoom support during lockdown. BUY NOWWe have always taken siblings and used that “co-dependency” as a positive but at the same time, from day one, we have trained and build a relationship with each puppy separately. We never let the puppies “screaming when they were separated” situation arise as we always work with each puppy as an individual, building that strong personal 1:1 relationship.
- When I go to work – ALL of my dogs look at me and give me that emotional blackmail look of “How dare you leave?”.
- When I take one out to have some personal time I have to tell the others to wait their turn and that their time will come, otherwise the others will sit and rant at me about how unfair their world is.
In my experience, and in my understanding – there are so many ways to build a strong family, with each individual being a balanced individual on their own and within the family construct. Humans as educators have varying levels of success at raising their own young and their adopted young (dog or human) to fulfill these criteria. Darran and I happen to be very good at building and maintaining a strong dog community by using the positives of each relationship whether that be sibling or otherwise.
Back in the day, we used to be known as Mr and Mrs Noah. This will be the fourth time that we will have taken on siblings:
1st set : Bruce and Queenie
Irish Setters
2nd set : Lemon and Sherbet
Blue Merle Border Collies
3rd set : Fred and Ginger
Irish Setters
Don’t forget the Triplets:
Monkey, Meow and Tiger
Cat-puppies…
Our Latest Set : these two lovely border collie puppies!
Photos courtesy of Penteronda Border Collies.
That’s not to say that this is the right call for others. For most people, learning how to care for and support one dog being in their family takes a huge learning curve. This is just the same as some humans having 4 to 6 human children in their family compared with some humans stopping after their first. That’s okay – love your dog and do the best you can for your furbaby – and come to us for guidance when you need it as we’ve learnt from the best – our wonderful dogs!