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Permalink Reply by Boo Buchheit on June 28, 2009 at 6:41am

Well maybe not trouble, but certainly a challenge. Dealing with the needs of two pups is time consuming and takes extreme patience. I am not sorry I got Randy and our situation is working out well now, but I wish I had waited until Leo was older and more mature. 9 Months is about the time Spencer could go through the rebellious teen stage and he will need a great deal of attention to work through it, adding a new pup to this mix can be trying. I have really had to stay on top of Leo's behavior which could leave Randy short on attention and training. I have lots of time for my boys, so neither of them is lacking what they need, but not everyone has my situation (a good work schedule and essentially no life other than my Corgis).

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Permalink Reply by Sam on June 28, 2009 at 7:19am

Lots depends on the time you have, the patience and the ability to double everything you are doing right now. Some pups are much easier to raise then others and you must be prepared for an entire new set of challenges should they occur. You will also have to change some of the dynamics of your home as owning two corgis will present some different circumstances then one. You must also consider if the additional financial comittment will pose issue for you. You will have puppy vaccines and a spay within the first six months. There is no shortage of corgi pups so if you choose to wait there will certainly be one available. The puppy breath is so hard to refuse. Perhaps think of the things above for several days before making a decision. Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Stephanie on June 28, 2009 at 9:47am

Also, and I can't guarantee how accurate this is, but when I looked at getting another puppy, a dog trainer friend of mine told me to wait because if you have two puppies in the house, they create their own "pack" without you. Instead of you being the leader of their pack, one of them becomes the leader of their little tiny pack, leaving you kind of on the outskirts which can make them a little harder to manage.

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Permalink Reply by Beth on June 28, 2009 at 10:43am

Oh, new puppies are so cute! The sweet puppy smell! The little pink paws! All that wriggling and pouncing! It can be hard to resist.

Some things to consider:

Spencer is entering his teenaged years, and he may well remain the model citizen he is now, but it generally requires some work. You must continue extensive socialization. Until now, his interactions with other dogs are based on the understanding that he is a puppy, and therefore has low rank and also deserves more tolerance. That may change. You may find, for example, that as he comes into adulthood he wants to be dog-dominant. Behavior other dogs tolerated from him may become intolerable (Jack had a bad habit of leaping at other dogs heads in play; when he was a puppy no one minded, but as he got bigger he soon learned that is considered rude and you must sniff behinds first). Now that he is house-trained, you can start socializing him in places an accident-prone puppy would not be allowed.

He may start going backwards on some behaviors. Jack reverted to shoe-destroying. Some forget their house-breaking. Many adolescents go through a period of open defiance. Jack, for example, began refusing the "down" command (which I use for lying down). He would stare at me. He would offer other behaviors, such as giving me his paw. He would intentionally look to the other side of the room, as if to say "La-la-laaa, I can't heeearrrr yooouuuu." We had to go back to square one and work on that one, quite a lot.

If you are planning on traveling in future, now is when you want to get your adolescent dog used to being boarded, if you have not already done so.

Coming up on a year is when serious training begins. Soon you can begin working on long stays, on staying in position while you leave the room. You can start working on having your dog give you his attention even when there are irresistible distractions, like other dogs running loose nearby. It will soon be time to work on other tough things, like walking past food within his reach. You will want him to be able to "leave it" both on leash, and eventually off. It takes some work, parading your dog around through an obstacle course of scattered treats.

The list goes on. I probably put as many hours into my dog between the ages of one year and about 20 months as I did when he was a puppy. Between about six months and a year we had a nice break where we mostly reviewed what we already knew a few times a week, but then it really picked up again when he moved into adulthood.

One final consideration: while none of us can predict our dogs' future health and longevity, if you get two dogs within 2 years of each other, you greatly increase the odds of having to deal with two elderly dogs at once, and all that may entail.

That is not to say you can't do both. Some households really do have the time to put that much effort into each dog. Ours did not. We will wait til Jack is around 3 (we would have added another this year, but it did not fit well with our schedule).

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Permalink Reply by Bill, Sharon, Zoe and Ziggy on June 28, 2009 at 10:56am

Hello to All,
I have waited for 4 1/2 years to add a little guy to our family. My spayed female, Zoe, is now 4 1/2 yrs old and we brought home 13 week old Ziggy a month ago. For us, it has gone really well. We also took Zoe with us to meet the puppies and Ziggy was submissive to her immediately. She has shown him how to use the dog door, which he can now fly through, and she seems to really enjoy having him to wrestle with. I stopped the potential food aggression problem by feeding him in his crate from the beginning. We still have to be cautious in the kitchen, which is her territory (you know those piggy corgi's). Zoe does get lots of extra attention and Ziggy just seems to roll with the flow for now. We are blessed that my husband Bill is home during the day, so Ziggy doesn't have to spend a great amount of time in his crate. Waiting until Zoe was older really seemed to work out better for us. Good Luck. Having two is just awesome.

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Permalink Reply by Derek on June 28, 2009 at 3:32pm

corgi math is funny. corgi + corgi = 10 times the energy. As long as you think you can keep up with them, I think it would be great. Teh older dog is usually helpful when it comes to teaching the younger one about pottying outside. My advise is make sure their food and water are far apart. The kindest dogs can still be particular about a little one intruding on their dinner!

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Permalink Reply by Spencer (and his parents) on June 29, 2009 at 1:01pm

Thanks for all the helpful advice. As much as we WANTED to get Spencer a sister, when we sat down and thought about it we realized he has so much more to learn and I don't want to deprive him of our full attention just yet. And we have a few planned trips coming up and I wouldn't want to leave a new puppy. We decided we'd wait until Spencer was about 1.5 - 2 years old.

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Permalink Reply by Sky and Lyla on June 30, 2009 at 12:51am

I added Lyla when Sky was about 10-11 months. It was a good time for him. He was still puppy enough to really enjoy playing with her, but he was also obedient enough to be a good example for a new puppy. I think you just have to know your dog and what would be best for him (since he is your first loyalty right now). I know with Sky, I wanted to have all his "annoying behaviors" fixed before I got a new puppy. He was easy to train, so it didn't take us long, but some other dogs might take longer. Just a word of caution, adding a 2nd dog really does subtract a lot of time, attention, and training that you used to devote to the first one. In my experience, training the 2nd has been harder just because my time is split in two now. Give it a lot of thought. Good luck and let us know what you do!

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