Gundog Training Forum

hi im thinking of geting anoter dog i currently have one ess does any1 have any advice or experience going from one to two!!

if you go for a pup you need to make time for taking to two of them out separately until the pup is trained to a standard whereby you can exercise/train both at the one time.

i was thinking ofgetting a dog part trained or a older dog

Our first ESS pup was 6 months and doing well with training when we got our second, our second was a 9 month old part trained gundog which basically meant it would sit (and by default stay!), heel on and off lead and was ball obsessed for retrieves, the dog fitted and matched well with our current dog so the breeder let us have him instead of waiting for a puppy later this summer.

In our case it has worked incredibly well so far (4 1/4 months with two), our first dog is doing rally obedience training, our second one is just being trained by us as she did some of the training like our first dog but didnt get the same benefit from it.

We have them doing all sorts of retrieves and they are pretty much always walked/run out together and retrieves balls together. We do take them out to do lead heel work separately some times, cos this doesnt go well when they are together, as there is a competition to be in front. We also take the other one out on her own when our boy is doing is his training.

More poo to clear up, more expense, but we really love having the two and it does help in terms of learning more about dog behaviour we are finding.

But there is twice the love, fun and watching them together out is just fantastic, but twice the worry of an injury!

twice the food bill, twice the amount of sh1t to clean up, cover if one is injured and generally more fun!

rg1711 wrote:i was thinking ofgetting a dog part trained or a older dog

Just saw this, and to be honest this was not something we had an idea existed really to buy until the breeder offered us the girl we now have, but it really was the only way that having two so young was workable, so quickly after getting the first, we would have struggled with a 6 month old and a new pup.

We now have the advantage of having two dogs only 3 months apart in age, but both physically similar in maturity and behaviour and the younger one learnt a lot from the older one from her gundog training, and our pet trained one actually taught her a lot too, in our case pretty much only the good stuff from each was taught to the other. The sock nicking youngster still does this and hasnt passed this one downside on to his older half sister!

I think it could be great if you have the right second dog, the breeder of our two was very honest about his assessment of us with our existing dog and the temperament and ways of the dog he offered us and how it would fit etc, and through this honesty and our talking through with him the right dog was met with our situation.

thanks for replys so far , so all in all u find this a more positive experience or if any 1 has two do they wish they had stuck with one

I once had 2 dogs at the same time, but after a few years I managed to get upto 12. Funny how things turn out sometimes

rg1711 wrote:thanks for replys so far , so all in all u find this a more positive experience or if any 1 has two do they wish they had stuck with one

the jump from one to two is far bigger than two to three and 4, then 5 lol...as james' post shows.....so a negative could be it wont stop there...

arwesa wrote:the jump from one to two is far bigger than two to three and 4, then 5 lol...

Agree !..its a change in culture and regime,for you and the 'dogs'!
Every thing you do from then on has a fundamental change in the envoirenment.
Agree wholeheartedly that 'seperate training', (even with an older part trained/fully trained/or any trained dog) ,until the 'structure you desire', is placed.
good luck it aint easy.