This episode discusses why it's not a good idea to get sibling dogs as puppies (but why it does work for cats) and what happens typically when people do tackle this issue.
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
This episode discusses why it's not a good idea to get sibling dogs as puppies (but why it does work for cats) and what happens typically when people do tackle this issue.
Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!
Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!
Hey, this is Pate.
jme:And I'm Jme.
Pate:And we are Motley Zoo Animal Rescue, and we are talking about Rescue Shit.
jme:This episode we're going to talk about litter mate syndrome. Litter mate syndrome is when you adopt two siblings, dogs, or a parent in an offspring or buy them because a breeder told you that was a good idea, which is typically what happens. They start fighting at some point. It stops being, fun family, and it starts being a fight. And the competition for, who's gonna be Alpha, can be pretty serious. One of them is winning and one of them is losing, or they are getting injured and the family is forced to look at the fact that they cannot keep both dogs. They must get rid of one. Why don't you explain litter ate syndrome a little bit more.
Pate:Even though we don't use alpha and dominance anymore as terms in dog family units. The reality is, is that there are definitely dominance issues with dogs and they establish a hierarchy, kind of like you do with your sibling, and sometimes you and your sibling are going to fight. I know my sister and I did okay. I was a brat. But we don't live together anymore. We get along great now. But not having to live together definitely helps with that.
jme:A lot of times people, when they wanna adopt puppies from us, they say,"Oh, I can't choose. Can I take them both"? And we say,"Absolutely not". And my way of explaining it is I say,"Oh, do you have siblings"? And they say,"Yes". And I said,"Would you wanna live with your brother? Forever? And ever. And ever and ever"? And they look at me with terrified looks, wide eyes. And I said,"Yes, the dogs don't wanna live with their siblings or parents forever and ever either". And we will never really know who they are supposed to become if they never leave their sibling because they live within the dynamic of the family and not up to their own individualistic personalities.
Pate:Right. And then the thing with puppies, and I get asked this a lot, is,"What is that puppy's personality"? There's no true personality at that age. You've got some genetic makeup that's going to kind of help with the foundation, but then the environment is going to affect how that dog grows. And if you keep them within a litter dynamic, you're going to have a dominant puppy, and then you're going to have an appeasement puppy. I call'em Omegas, even though we're not using Alpha Omega anymore, it's just easier. So you're gonna have your dominant puppy who's an Alpha, and then you're gonna have your less, dominant dog who gets beat up all the time. And that's gonna be your Omega puppy. And if that Omega at one point, decides that, it's done being the scapegoat, then you're gonna have two dogs vying for dominance. And that can be brutal fights. We're talking stitches, a lot of blood. And is, it is very, very common. And people will say,"Oh, they got along great and then now they're nine months old and they're ripping into each other".
jme:People say nature or nurture, but it's really nature, nurture, and personality. And what if the one puppy doesn't wanna get beat up on? And we have two dominant personalities and they're just never gonna stop. And that's why we have to split puppies up at a certain age because they start fighting with each other.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And it's not funny anymore. It's not playful, it's not cute. We have to separate them and put them in different foster homes so that they don't fight, because that can become a habit. We don't want that to become a habit, but the problem really escalates when you have two dogs with similar personalities that are vying for the top position.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And that's when it gets really rough. And we actually had a situation like that in one of our clients where they bought two Boston Terrier puppies because the breeder told them that was a good idea.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And they started fighting really badly. They brought them to training and we...
Pate:They had to wear muzzles.
jme:Yes. They had to wear muzzles because we couldn't trust that they weren't gonna attack other dogs too. And they were still fighting with each other. So we worked with them on training and they did get better. They got a lot better. But this is a lifelong dynamic. This would be lifelong management of this situation and the family actually had to rehome one of the dogs. And at first it was not working out very well because the dog kept attacking the other dog. You have to try and avoid this when possible and nip it in the bud immediately when you see it.
Pate:Yes. And then there are of course times that siblings will Get along, which is the exception to the rule, not the rule. The exception. And we did make one exception at one point with one of our puppies, Dusty and his sister, Darla. And everyone wanted this puppy because I took great pictures. No, she was just a gorgeous puppy and everyone fell in love with her. And then Dusty, he's our special boy. He had neurological issues. And, he was never gonna be dominant. He was never gonna be Omega, he was never gonna be any kind of label because he was a neurologic dog who just lived in his own little world, you know? And we didn't know his lifespan because of his medical issues. And so we actually adopted them together because of the fact that we didn't know how long he'd be there and he wouldn't do your typical litter mate syndrome.
jme:Well, and he really bonded with her and sometimes they are really good friends with some of their siblings and sometimes they're not. But we really looked at this situation.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:Very, very carefully. And we don't typically make exceptions, but we did. The family is amazing. They came all the way from Alaska.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:Actually to adopt those dogs. And we're still in touch with them. Yes. They actually visited over the summer and I saw them and it was really amazing. So we know that those dogs are doing well, but we would also expect that if they weren't, which we warned them about..
Pate:Mm-hmm.
That they would tell us and we would be able to help them work through it.
Pate:Right. And then that is the exception to the rule that sometimes they will bond, but then sometimes the problem is the opposite. They bond so strongly to each other that they don't care about you.
jme:That is the other problem is that people forget that even if they do get along, they are going to bond to the dog first. They are gonna listen to each other. They're not gonna listen to you. And if you don't take them out individually and treat them as individuals with different personalities, take them on walks at different times. You can't treat twin children like one unit.
Pate:Please stop dressing them the same.
jme:You do have to recognize that they have different personalities and that you need to spend time with them one-on-one. Somehow, when it's the dogs, people don't think that maybe they're trying to get, you know, away with, well, they have a companion and... And they can play with each other. They can play with each other, which is great, but it is not a replacement for you having a good, solid situation with your dogs. And the other problem that happens is that the dogs become codependent on each other.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:What happens when one dies and the other is left without them?
Pate:That's happened too, sadly.
jme:When we're talking about puppy personalities, they are essentially moldable clay. And there is a test you can do at around seven weeks called the temperament test, and you do things like bang pots and hold them on their back and you test their responses to certain things, and this can help give you a clue as to whether or not they are going to have certain problems in the future. But there is no guarantee. And so when people ask us about personalities, we have to tell them they really don't have a personality yet.
Pate:Mm-hmm. They don't, they're like Jme said, they're moldable clay. In this family unit, the way they act with each other is not their personality. Cuz you can take that dominant puppy who has been beating up on all of the siblings, who thinks he's so cocky and he's in control of everything. You take him out of his comfort zone, which is his younger siblings put him in a new environment. There may be another dog in the house. There may be kids in the house, cats, et cetera, that he's not used to, and that dominant, cocky puppy now becomes a chicken.
jme:Or fear, aggressive, which would be worse. Fear often is the root of aggressive behavior.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And so sometimes that strong dominance with their siblings becomes like that intensive fear and insecurity when they're alone.
Pate:Right.
jme:They only know how to be big fish. Little pond.
Pate:Exactly. And then you get them in the ocean and they're overwhelmed. And then on the flip side, you can get that little puppy, the one who gets picked on all the time, the one that you think might be timid, the one who hides behind his mom, and you get that puppy into your home, all of a sudden the puppy's not getting beat up on by its siblings and it becomes super confident and it's outgoing and things like that.
jme:The same thing seems to happen at the shelter sometimes where the dog that is the quietest, hiding under the bed is the one that becomes the total like crazy man...(maniac) when they get home and the one that's barking their head off gets home and they're like, oh, this is a living room? I totally get this. And they go jump on the couch and they sit down quietly and you never hear from them.
Pate:Mm-hmm. Kennel stress.
jme:Since it is so hard to tell a puppy's personality, it's hard to know if the puppy will be a dog that's going to do a job for someone later. So this is the same reason that when people are looking for emotional support animals or service animals, and they say,"I want this puppy". We have to explain to them that that is not how it works at all, and they need an adult dog.
Pate:Right. So what are you looking for in a puppy? If you're looking for a specific service, specific task, you realize that actual service dogs, first, they are thousands of dollars. And the reason why the thousands of dollars is because they are trained to perform certain tasks for a disability.
jme:But 50% of the dogs that go into training fail and they do not become service dogs. And that is because of their personality. Because no matter what you do, they are not dogs that want a job. They are not dogs that are gonna sit calmly. They cannot do it. And I equate this to when, when people tell us they want a puppy as a service dog. I'm like, do you have kids? And they'll say, yeah. And I'm like, are you certain that your three-year-old is gonna become an astronaut and your five year old is going to be the next piano virtuoso? And they just look at me and I'm like,"Neither do we know that this puppy is gonna have the right personality to be a service dog. We cannot put a job on them before we know who they are". It doesn't necessarily take so long to train the dogs. It takes that long for them to grow up and find out what their personalities are like. They don't even start assessing or testing them to be service dogs until they're a year and a half or two years old.
Pate:They are learning to be themselves while they're training for certain tasks. So when I was younger, I wanted to be a vet and then I learned that you had to cut animals open and that kind of grossed me out. So that didn't happen. And that's gonna, and that's a personality thing, is I was dead set. I'm in third grade, I'm gonna get myself a basenji, which I did- and I was gonna be a vet, which I did not. And then I was gonna be a marine biologist and I did not. And then I was gonna be a model slash, I was gonna be the new Gabrielle Reese.
jme:Hmm.
Pate:Volleyball player and a model. Well, freshman year in college, I totally screwed up my ankle. And then that didn't happen either. And that's the same thing with a service animal. You don't know what's gonna happen. They may start loving to be trained at six months. By nine months, they're getting a little bit older and they're like, Hmm, this is boring, I'm not into it. 12 months, they're like, Hmm, oh look, a chicken. No, you're supposed to be focused mister. And he's like, no, I'm gonna go chase that chicken. And that is the reason why even when they are bred to do a job, just become well trained companion animals.
jme:Yeah. 50% of the time.
Pate:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
jme:Do you remember the woman that was fostering a puppy and said that she wanted it to be her service dog? And we gave her that speech and years later she came back and wanted to foster a different dog and said it didn't work out and her puppy didn't turn out to be the, service dog that she thought. I mean, thankfully she kept it
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:Because we, we lectured her really hard on that one...
Pate:Right. Yeah.
jme:But basically she was trying again, and she wanted to try again with another...
Pate:Another puppy.
jme:Puppy, yeah. And I was just like, wow, okay. This, this isn't working at all.
Pate:And then there was a lady who actually was going through service dog training who got a Doberman puppy to be her mobility dog. And I'm like, mm. Dobermans. Not really are that adept at that kind of thing. And he he was scared to go through doors and remember how long it took to train him to go through doors, and she kind of gave up.
jme:That's not a dog that was gonna be a service dog. We didn't know he was gonna be an astronaut or not.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:He turned into who he turned into. And so when we talk about puppies, we talk about nature nurture, and that's why you can have puppies come out different.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:And then personality. And do you really want to put that responsibility on a puppy so early on? Like, don't you want your dog to be happy and if you put a job on them that they are not gonna like, you're not making them happy. It's setting up the situation to end poorly. What you see is what you get in an adult dog. And you might have some information about their history, their experiences, but they are gonna behave like they're gonna behave and...
Pate:Right. You're either gonna know that they want a job, that they have to have a job like Niall, the Pumi, he needs a job.
jme:Lots of dogs need jobs. But yeah, other dogs don't want a job at all.
Pate:No. They, they just want to hang out and be a mooch who just loves treats and to hang out with you.
jme:Well, and they just wanna be...
Pate:And Netflix and chill.
jme:They just wanna be dogs.
Pate:Right.
jme:We don't want people to set up a puppy to have a job that it just isn't gonna want to have or be happy with.
Pate:Mm-hmm. Yeah.
jme:When people contact us to surrender one of the litter mates, we have to find out which one is the aggressor and which one isn't. Because there's a chance that the aggressor is going to become aggressive in the new home.
Pate:Because they've already learned that behavior and that they can get away with that.
jme:Which is what happened with our client dog. The dog learned that behavior and the aggressor was the one that left. We were not consulted about that either, so just so you know, we would've helped them,(right) but we weren't asked to help. So we find out what's going on and who the aggressor is typically, and then, we rehome the one that is being beat up on.
Pate:The quote unquote easier dog. It's easier, a more adoptable dog, the the one that you let go. Unfortunately, it's going to be the easier one because that is the one that will probably be more successful in a new home, whereas the aggressor, the more difficult dog.
jme:And the longer it's gone on, it becomes more of a habit and that's how they think the world functions. And it's not
Pate:So they take a little bit more work. And since you, you already know them, you already love them. You are going to be more willing to work on this behavior to make them be a better dog than a stranger to them.
jme:Yes. And that's the same thing when people contact us for the old dog or the puppy. My old dog doesn't like my puppy. Well, we're gonna rehome...
Pate:The puppy
jme:let's talk about that dog. That's not where people want to go.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:They don't like that. Somehow the dog that is doing the problem thing it becomes like the less favorite child.
Pate:Right.
jme:And they see that as getting rid of the problem.
Pate:Mm-hmm.
jme:But no one wants your problem. No one else wants your problem. So you get to keep the problem. And in litter mate syndrome, when you take the dogs out of that situation, you take one away, a lot of the behavior that you may not like is going to go away.
Pate:Right.
And then you have one dog that's not fighting that you can work on, and we have more belief that it's gonna get along with other dogs in the future, right? Mm-hmm.
Pate:So once you have this puppy, you train it, and when it's an adult and trained and socialized, then you can introduce a puppy into the home if you want to be a multi dog home. We always recommend when you get a puppy that you take that puppy and you train it because if you train it well, when you introduce a new puppy to it, probably like around two years old or so, you've got a very well-trained dog who's gonna help train that puppy.
jme:Yes. That's another thing about it is that we don't want two puppies training each other.
Pate:It's a nightmare.
jme:It is a nightmare and a lot of times people are, well, we're going to gonna get another puppy in a year so that they can be friends. Just, just work on the dog that you have. Just work on this dog.
Pate:Let that personality develop before you throw like a rock and it ripples instead of being flat and smooth.
jme:Well, because you're not gonna know their personality, you're not gonna know which dog gets along well with them either. So it, it all goes back to the same thing is that we have to let the puppies grow up and develop. They need to be able to sleep alone. They need to be able to be without each other. They need to be able to listen to you and you have to treat them as individuals.
Pate:Right.
jme:And if you do that, then you are mitigating some of the chances of these things happening. But you have to work that much harder at making sure you do that.
Pate:Yeah. It's going to be a lot more time consuming because you're gonna have to do things individually successfully. More often than not, it's gonna have to be on an individual basis. Say you take Frank to classes on Saturday and then you take Gerard to classes on Sunday, and that helps mitigate that. If you take him to classes together, they're gonna look at each other, want to play with each other and not listen to you. So it's double trouble. We talked about litter mate syndrome with dogs however, with cats, that's a different story.
jme:With cats, the opposite is really true. It's better to adopt them out together in pairs because they are bonded at that moment and cats are harder to introduce new members of the family to later on in life. And so when you adopt them out together, they tend to do better together.
Pate:Right. The opposite is true with cats and it's called single kitten syndrome, or also known as Tarzan Syndrome because they are wild childs.
jme:So that's if you only have one kitten. If you only have one kitten, they don't have anyone else to bite and scratch and beat it up on, and they treat you like their playmate and they become bitey and difficult. And honestly, sometimes people wanna give up on their kittens because they have become little tarzans and those cats, if they don't get playmates, if they don't get an outlet with a dog they are likely to be bitey, scratchy cats when they get older. And I actually experienced that with my cat Refugee. She came in as a stowaway in a transport wasn't on the manifest, and Pate held her up and was like, oh my gosh, look at this cat. It had one eye bulging and white, and it looked like a little bat. And she did not look like she was gonna live.
Pate:Mm-mmm.
jme:Even a day. But I took her home and I nursed her. And then I realized after a few days, this cat is actually really strong. But I called her Refugee because she was the stowaway. But...
Pate:And you thought she was a boy.
jme:I did think she was a boy. That's a whole other story. As she grew up, she started to get really bitey and like really outta hand. I mean, I've handled a lot of different kinds of cats and I was like, wow, this cat, it's, five weeks old and it's just a terror. I had to borrow some litter mates from a litter. So we split up a different litter, and they'd all been through quarantine, so we knew they were healthy. We split up a different litter and gave Refugee some siblings. And for the first two days she just sat in the corner and growled at them and their play playing and she's just, and then she started playing with them and she started attacking them. Really hard, And she thought this was great. They didn't correct her and so she was just beating the crap out of them. And finally size became more apparent and personalities became more apparent, and she was put in her place. But she would be a different cat today if it weren't for me making sure that she had some siblings to play with to get that aggression out. Otherwise, it would still be coming out on me. We could go on and on for a long time...
Pate:And on!
jme:About some of this stuff, but we have run out of time for now. I'm Jme.
Pate:I'm Pate.
jme:Rock On.
Pate:Rescue on.