Littermate Syndrome

Question
Hello,

I recently adopted a yellow female labradoodle puppy, Lucy. She is 12 weeks old right now and has been living with me since she was 8 1/2 weeks. My friend also adopted a male labradoodle puppy from the same litter, Miko. He is also 12 weeks old and has also been living with her since 8 1/2 weeks. They live in separate homes right now, but are neighbors.

Both dogs are training very quickly and almost completely house trained. They are both gentle dogs who are appearing great with people and other dogs so far. Lucy is very outgoing and confident. Miko, on the other hand, is more shy and does bark a little bit when he encountered people and dogs. They are both crate trained and willingly and comfortably go into their crates for the night and while we are gone.

Recently, we have both had a career change and are moving to a different city. We are thinking it would be best to live in a house together.  If we were to do this we are very worried about the puppies acquiring littermate syndrome. We would be moving in about a month, when the puppies are about 18 weeks old (until then they would continue to live separately).

So far, the puppies see eachother a few times a week for play. However, we do not leave them together for extended periods of time and never leave them alone together. As they both live in separate homes, they are fed separately, sleep separately, and are being trained separately. However,  we are worried that moving in together would hinder their learning process and put them at risk of littermate syndrome.

Both dogs are very well behaved and are learning very fast. When the dog's play, Lucy is usually dominating play. However, after the puppies play and Lucy and I leave for home, Lucy seems to be somewhat withdrawn and upset for the first little while. She quickly bounces back after being home for a while, but I do worry this would be worse if they were living together.

Myself and my friend have read a lot about littermate syndrome. We understand that if we were to live together the pups would have to be separated and treated as individuals. We are still wondering what we should do. Would it be best to live separately? Or, if we worked hard to keep them separate with living/training under the same roof, would we have the same results as if they were to be raised in different homes? What would you suggest? And, if we were to live together, how should we go about continuing to raise these puppies?

We are very concerned about this and would love like your opinion and advice. We are worried about turning these amazing, wonderful dogs into dogs dependent on eachother and not on us.

Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Annie

Answer
If you plan to live together, the dogs need to be spending a great deal of time together (every day) in your home and your friend's, alternately.  Littermate syndrome is a byproduct of quite similar temperament; from your report, these dogs appear to have quite different temperaments, one being more outgoing and assertive, the other less so.  I think you are worrying far too much about something that may never occur when you should be worrying about socializing BOTH these dogs, EVERY DAY, to other places, people, dogs, traffic, etc. AND providing a training venue where they will learn to "work" (positive reinforcement ONLY) with other dogs present.  Look for a puppy kindergarten now; observe two or three sessions before introducing your puppies.  Be certain all puppies are approximate in age AND size and that the trainer is an experienced, credentialed positive reinforcement trainer.  Once you've made the move, puppies will be old enough for novice obedience class; in this class you and your friend should 'swap' puppies several times during each training session and, with the help of the trainer, you will make a successful transition into living together.

To learn about positive reinforcement training for puppies, as an adjunct to your experience with a training venue, go to DogStarDaily.com.  This is Dr. Ian Dunbar's site and carries a full explanation of "Sirius Puppy Training".  He also has a book, "Before and After Getting your Puppy: The positive Approach to Raising a Happy, Healthy Well Behaved Dog".  The single greatest failure of most puppy owners is NOT socializing their dogs well.  A well socialized dog will be a confident, happy companion.