-> Well, yesterday we became the happy owners of two yellow lab puppies, Sophie
-> and Hooch, 8 week old littermates.. and what a handful they are !!!! :)

Hi Janis!

I am jealous already!


-> I have them in our 'extra' kitchen off our main kitchen now, with a child
-> gate.. which Hooch keeps knocking over .. but just so I didn't have to
play
-> referee all day and night. I figure I'll let them out after a few days..
that
-> or try letting them out one at a time...

-> If anybody has been through something like this, yer comments are welcome
Lol

I think they are all different. In what I have read and in my
experience, it is good to expose the Pups to Toby in a neutral area,
such as outdoors, The pups will get used to him, but it is the pups that
could now make the alpha dog think he is losing territory, which may
very well be when they grow up, but I think for the pups, it is just a
matter of getting used to everything. For Toby, it is that, plus
security. But if there is no aggression already, I don't think You have
a thing to worry about. The biggest problem would be Toby feeling
threatened. But that does not seem to be the case. With the Kittens, You
know more about that than I do for sure . Other than just watching
how the big one plays, as I assume the little ones at 8 weeks are still
small.. I would just enjoy the the living heck out of em and take
pictures and or videos if You can.. They are only small once!

Have a good One!
Mike


PS.. I am going to be asking You in a while, do the litter mates play
rougher together, than usual, meaning rougher than say two different
dogs, maybe even different ages from different litters. I got all kinds
of advice, non specific, about is it a good idea to get littermates or
not. I finally sided with the it's ok. However as I think I posted to
you before, these two, love each other dearly, but seem to be, shall we
say, so familiar with each other, they can get to playing and at times
just get soooo rough. It could be that it's just their personalities.
But It did make me wish, though I would not trade them for the world.
That maybe I would have raised one to a year and then got another,
rather than raising the two. But again, if it is a personality thing,
that would not have mattered. If it is because they have been play
fighting since the crib.. Then I would have tried to alleviate the
situation. But like I said, they make it sound like championship dog
fights one minute and are curled up sleeping together 2 minutes later.
So let me know how Yours go...
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