Littermate Syndrome in Puppies

Welcome to Puppy Talk, episode number 83. I'm your host, Dale Buchanan. I know I've been away for a while, not doing a podcast since I think September. Today is January 1st, 2024, and the reason is basically I've been very busy training dogs. It's been a very busy fall and winter, and even during the summer, it was just extremely busy with so many dogs. At one point, I had 36 dogs that I was training at a time. It left me very little time to do podcasts. Here I am today on January 1st, new Year's Day, doing a podcast on Litter mate syndrome. I get a lot of people contact me who got two puppies from the same breeder, from the same litter, and they want me to train them both, and it's always a lot more work than they ever expected. In this episode, I'm going to share some references that I found online and my own experiences on ATE syndrome, how to avoid it and what to do if you can't avoid it and you have to deal with it.

The article that I'm referencing is from a website called the wildest.com. This article was written by Jeff Stallings cpdt slash ka. I want to recognize him in this podcast because I'm gonna share the information in this article. A lot of people that he quoted in this article are reputable sources in the industry. Let's first talk about what Litter Mate syndrome is, and here is the definition in this article. Litter Mate syndrome is a term that describes unwanted behaviors among sibling dogs, including aggression and intense attachment. It is often used to describe behavior issues that occur when two or more dogs from the same litter are raised together and adopted into the same home. That is the definition of Litter Mate syndrome in this article, and I found it to be very accurate. Now, let's talk about the symptoms of Litter Mate syndrome. The first one is fearfulness of unfamiliar people, dogs, and other novel stimuli.

The second intense anxiety when separated even briefly, the third difficulty learning basic obedience skills and the fourth constant fighting with each other. I will add a fifth that's not listed in this article, and that is that the puppies want to constantly play with each other. They think that life is all about play, that there's no discipline, structure, obedience, training, nothing, that it's all play, play, play, and the problem is when owners allow their young puppies, 8, 10, 12, 16 weeks old to do nothing but play, the puppies think that's what life is all about, playing with each other, and they have no other interest in anything else. They can't even focus on anything else. That is a big problem I have found when people adopt two puppies from the same litter, Dr. Ian Dunbar, who's a pet veterinarian and dog behaviors says it's a disaster waiting to happen for the litter mates because they don't get socialized to other dogs or people, let alone to their owners.

He goes on to say, but when the puppies are five or six months old and meet an unfamiliar dog in a novel setting, they absolutely freak out. I have found this to be pretty accurate. Puppies that come from the same litter are often under socialized because the owners think they've got each other. They don't need to be around other dogs. They don't even need to be around a lot of other people. They've got each other, and this is a big mistake when an owner has two puppies from the same litter. They have the mindset that they have a backyard and then dogs can play in the backyard and in the house, and they never have to take the puppies anywhere because they've got this environment where they can play with each other all the time and they're getting their needs met. This is an absolute disaster because the puppies, like Dr.

Ian Dunbar said, are under socialized. They're never separated. They have severe separation anxiety from each other and from the owners, and they just can't function in life. Patricia McConnell, who is a dog trainer to dog trainers, has written one of the best books on dog training that all dog trainers read called The Other End of the Leash. Here's what she says about Litter mate syndrome. They're so busy playing with each other that you become the odd man out. It seems harder to get their attention, harder to teach them emotional control and harder to teach them boundaries. She says, I have even seen some nasty cases of bullying and outright aggression between dogs of the same litter. All of this information I have found to be very accurate and true when I have been called in to train two puppies from the same litter, and I really appreciate what Patricia McConnell has said in this article about the Litter Mate syndrome issue.

Nicole Wild, who has also written many books for dog trainers and on dog training says people assume that having two same age pups who play together and interact constantly covers their dog to dog socialization needs, but they in fact don't learn how other dogs play and have no idea about social skills with other puppies, adolescents, or adult dogs. That is a great quote, and I already mentioned something similar to this earlier in this podcast. How do you prevent Litter Mate syndrome when you've already gotten two puppies from the same litter? Let's go through some of that right now. This information is gonna come from my own

Experience, not necessarily from the article. However, the article does say something similar to what I'm gonna tell you right now from my own personal experiences with training two puppies from the same litter. First of all, you have to train them separately. You have one dog over in the crate and the other dog is being trained for about 20 or 30 minutes, and then you switch them out. Second thing, you take them for walks separately. This is gonna help them to learn to be apart from each other and to be civil while walking on a leash and have good leash manners. If you try to walk them together as young puppies, they're going to play all the time. This is not a good idea. The next thing that you must do is once they've got all their vaccines and they're able to be taken socially to places you want to take them individually with you, anywhere you can Pet Store, home Depot, tractor Supply Company, Lowe's, take them to work, take them for rides in the car, go through the drive-through.

These are all socialization skills that each puppy needs to do on their own. The final thing that you're gonna do is you're going to have a very clear structure and routine for them where they are doing things by themselves and not necessarily doing everything together. They're going to eat separately. They're gonna sleep in separate crates. They're going to go for walks separately. They're going to play with you, not each other separately. They're going to train separately. This is going to help them learn that life is not all about play, play, play with each other, that there's other components to life that they have to adapt to and that they have to deal with. This is the number one thing that I've seen go wrong when two owners get two puppies from the same litter, that they don't separate them enough and they're always together and they can't control the puppies. I hope this information in this podcast was helpful to you today. I will put a link of this article that I referenced throughout this podcast in the show notes. If you have any other questions, please contact us through our website, puppy talk podcast.com. Have a great day.