Should Your Family Adopt 2 Puppies or 1?

If one is great, two is better? Definitely not when it comes to puppies. But you have two children, why not two puppies? Most families don’t realize the time and effort required to raise one puppy, let alone two. Adding two puppies to your family more than doubles the time spent training, socializing, exercising and managing. These are just some of the reasons that I strongly discourage families from adopting two puppies at the same time, especially puppies from the same litter.

Adopting two puppies in some ways appears to make life easier. Two puppies can entertain each other. Two puppies keep each other company.

Yes, but puppies adopted together will bond stronger to each other than to you or your children. Their main social outlet will be each other. Unless there is a constant effort to separate them and give them individual experiences, they can grow so dependent on each other that they cannot function as individuals. To the point that many sibling dogs develop anxiety when separated. That strong bond they have means they won’t grow into adaptable, confident individuals unless great care is taken to do everything separately.

To do it right, they will need to be separated for everything. That means individual walks, two crates, different puppy socialization and training classes and spending lots of time with each puppy alone. Remember I said more than doubles your effort?

And just because they get along as puppies, doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing when your two puppies grow up to be adults. Puppies adapt and change as they grow into adulthood. There are bumps along the road to social and sexual maturity including fear periods. Siblings can become competitive, antagonistic and sometimes violent towards each other if steps aren’t taken to manage them safely. The most serious situations can be two puppies from the same litter and of the same sex.

There are families that adopt two puppies that make it work, and most acknowledge that raising two puppies ends up being much more work than they ever anticipated. My best advice is adopting one puppy that best suits your family and getting that puppy to the point that you are past all the growing pains (2 years of age or older.)  You want your first dog to be a good role model for all the pups that might follow.  For most families, one puppy provides more than enough companionship and love for everyone.