Owners that went from 1 dog to 2 dogs, what were the pros and cons?

[blessed_with_girls]

Hi all

We have a smallish dog (cocker, jack russell cross) who is very portable, happy, confident and well behaved. He comes to most places with us. We have a number of friends who will look after him when we go away but can't take him with us (4-5 few times a year).

We are seriously thinking about getting another dog which would likely be a rescue lurcher as my kids love dogs and especially lurchers. I'm conscious of how this could make things like going away more challenging as asking someone to look after 2 dogs is a much bigger deal than looking after one small one.

When you went from 1 dog to 2 dogs, what the positives and negatives and did it take a lot of adjustment?

Thanks in advance

 

[tadake]

@blessed_with_girls Someone with their 18 week old husky moved in with us and our 12 month old Beagle. There was a bit of jealousy from the beagle- he was used to being the baby and now this big guy is!? Wtf!? A little adjusting with the toys and did NOT want to share bones. Still gets moody if he's overtired. Other than that, absolutely perfect blend. No other issues. All can be corrected. They play constantly and tire each other out. It's fantastic and I love having both together.

 

[spb1987]

@tadake That’s been my biggest worry as we look for a second dog to add to our home. Our girl is very submissive to dogs she meets in public and has not shown any sign of aggression, but I’ve been super paranoid about bringing a new dog (we’re looking at adopting so the dog could be older or younger) and our current dog not acclimating well or acting out of jealousy

 

[tadake]

@spb1987 Catch it early and don't let it grow into an issue and I promise it's worth it. Good luck!

 

[blessed_with_girls]

@nancycc Thanks for your reply and your English is perfect (much better than many English people).

I'm not so worried about how the dogs will get on as our current dog is very relaxed and friendly and we would make sure we got another dog that was similar. I'm sure that they would need to work out their relationship and there would be a bit of snapping and posturing but I think that's natural.

 

[timmccollum]

@blessed_with_girls We have two standard poodles, 9.5 months (Madigan) and 4 months (Huxley). We'd had Mads for about 6 months when we brought Hux home.

For us the pros have definitely greatly outweighed the cons, but that's a lot to do with our lifestyle. It's just me and my husband, we spend our weekends at parks anyway, and if we holiday somewhere we can easily take the dogs along (camping, cabining, road trips). I work from home so we don't bother with daycare, which would be a huge expense for two pups!

We also lucked out in that Mads didn't have "only child syndrome," and the boys clicked right off the bat. We've done a ton of work to avoid littermate syndrome, which I guess wouldn't be an issue for you.

The benefits have been amazing. The boys are so happy and silly, and though it's chaos sometimes there is so much joy and laughter in our house because of them. The antics they get up to are hilarious! Mads was such a quiet and chill puppy before, and suddenly he's silly and goofy and playful all the time.

It also helps me get work done, because working from home with a clingy puppy makes meetings difficult haha. They entertain themselves a lot.

Really, the only "con" has been costs (food especially), and I don't consider it a con so much as "the price you pay for all that love," so it's worth it.

 

[messi]

@blessed_with_girls It truly depends on each dogs personality. It’s like bringing in a roommate , there’s a million possibilities and you don’t know until you try.

When we adopted my uncles shihtzu, he pooped in the house immediately to claim it (and only ever did it once lol) but my lab never really cared. They co existed perfectly but weren’t bffs. They never cared to cuddle (only came close to it when they shared the same sunny spot) and only tried to play a few times because they had very different play styles.
We didn’t realize just how much they cared about each other until the lab passed and the shihtzu looked for the lab and took over her perimeter check when he realized she wasn’t coming back.

One thing I will warn you on: while yeah they can teach each other good things , they’re more likely to share the bad habits.

Shihtzu taught the lab to be afraid of thunder and fire works, lab taught the shihtzu to bark at squirrels and people coming to the door

 

[veegee]

@blessed_with_girls We got our (at the time) 1 yr old Newfoundland a lab mix last year and it was a wonderful decision. The Newf was a rescue so he had pretty bad anxiety, but the new dog assisted with bridging the gap and now you’d never know either had a difficult past. I work from home and we don’t have kids so having a second dog has been easy and assisted me during the day by them entertaining one another.

Cons:
- went through the last year having to replace multiple pairs of shoes, again; and pillows and socks lol
- they have a tendency to not like being separated so kenneling isn’t really an option if needed
- if one does something wrong the other usually assists, like on the rare occasion trash is gotten into it is now double the problem lol
- they play loudly and aggressively so that took Time getting used to
- our yard is destroyed to sand; now dirt and dust increased a noticeable amount in our house (but we live in Florida and the ground is actually sand, to prevent full destruction we made a dog run)

** for going out of town I found a neighborhood kid that watches both pups at our house for $50 a day so it’s not too bad

 

[gauss]

@blessed_with_girls we adopted a 4 month old hound/maybe pittie mix about a year and a half ago. he is the sweetest, loviest dog on the planet and is now two years old and capped out at 57 pounds. his biggest problem has always been that he’s just a little bitch about everything (i.e. took him two months to walk up our two front steps without being carried and still will not dare to walk down the basement stairs). we got a cat to give him a friend while we are gone, but he is even more scared of her than anything else. we finally caved about two months ago and adopted a second 4 month old dachshund/chihuahua. when i say that he changed overnight, i still can’t believe how much she helped him. he’s become so much calmer, more mature, and protects her from everything, including the cat. she weighs about 13 pounds now and is not expected to get any bigger than 15. she copies everything he does, which has helped loads in her training, and he copies her good and gentle behavior as well. she has helped him become so much braver