Thinking of expanding our Doodle family...

[Tara aka Harry & Wally's Mom]

We are thinking of eventually adding a second doodle to our family. We want to wait till we have Harry full trained before we bring another puppy into our home. Hoping he would set precidence and help train the 2nd puppy easier. Dont want to beign another puppy into the home now where they would be able to pick up on Harrys few bad habits that we are still trying to break him of.

-If you have a 2nd dog did you wait until your 1st was a certain age before you added another?
-I have heard sometimes if you put 2 males togather sometimes they can be more aggresive?
-Any other pluses/minuses for adding a second dog?
-Any tips?

Thanks :-)

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

My first dog was our 5 1/2 year old chihuahua and he was an easy puppy and is an easy adult dog. We originally wanted a male mini goldendoodle, but would have had to wait until the next litter of pups, so we got a female instead. Also found out DH wanted a little girl :) I think it is good having the opposite sex - Peri and Taquito love eachother so much. But then again, Taquito likes males and females equally. I also heard that neutering helps with the aggression, but I am no expert.
I am a big advocate for second dogs. They are almost easier because they play together! I think every day "what would I do without Taquito to entertain Peri?"!!

[Michele Barton]

Hi, I was going to copy and paste my answer to Kendra from another discussion not too long ago regarding this. Instead, you might want to go to that discussion - there are some different and very good perspectives regarding adding a second dog. The discussion is called "Need advice for getting a 2nd doodle ASAP!"

[F, Calla & Luca]

At the end of May I got a female labradoodle puppy who was 4 months old when my male labradoodle was 14 months old. We just suddenly entered adolescence with her, chewing thing she shouldn't, repeating behaviors she's been scolded for,etc. Despite that it has been very good. They play fight (we've never had a real fight or aggression) and chase each other endlessly and tire each other out. Unfortunately, I now rarely walk them because I could certainly use the exercise. I feel much less guilty about leaving them home. All in all I'm glad I got a second. For me one is better than 2 and I'm sure 3 would be worse than 1 or 2.

[Ginny Nightingale]

Ditto--I got a second doodle when my first was 2, but it could have been sooner. Having the older one all trained was a HUGE help. When she would follow a command, the new puppy would do the same or at least settle down.
I love having two butit was tricky at first. Not all dogs are best buddies immediately. The best advice I got was from this site--people told me to give my two doodles at least two weeks to get to know each other. It was better to keep them separated and allow them to get together with supervision for a short period periodically. It worked! After two weeks, we gave them more and more time to be together and they were fine within three weeks without separation. I still have to supervise since the puppy is now bigger than the other dog and gets too carried away at times, but other than that they are great company for each other,

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Tara you should join the group "Multiple Doodles (or dogs)" if you haven't already!

[HANNAH 8/2/07 & HONEY 7/2/08]

Thought about adding another doodle when Hannah was about 9 months old, but waited till she was about 19 months before getting Honey, due to medical issues with my Son's American Bulldog Magnum and paying for him to be Neutered.
That is most likely true at times when they live together, and depending on the breed, my sister had two male Pit's and they were neutered, but once the pup hit 6 months old he started tearing apart her older male...both dogs were equally sweet and could be mild mannered, don't know what set Rocky off to challenge Rambo...but eventually she had to have Rocky put down because of his aggression. My brother's two German Shepherd, and Doberman, never fought at all, and they both were neutered males. The pluses for my two are they have each other, but when you seperate Honey from Hannah...Honey does not like to be alone now at all. If I go away and leave both in their crates, no problems, if I leave Honey alone in her crate she will bark non stop for about 20 mins before she will calm down. Since I am keeping Honey, it's not really an issue...but if I had a rescue here, I would seperate them. I feel it is much easier for a rescue to move on to it's new home, and not be attached to my dogs. I also have this delemia where they need to have their own identities and do things alone at times with out each other. Sometimes you don't pick up on this issue with mulitple dogs untill one passess on., so it's important to me that they both obtain their own identities before hand.