View Single Post
  #9  
Old February 9th, 2010, 11:50 AM
dustybird's Avatar
dustybird dustybird is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Geraldton, ON & Lake Of The Woods
Posts: 366
We sort of have two sisters, by that I mean they are sisters but only live together for 6mts of the year. My bosses have one and we have the other, I work at a seasonal resort, hence the six months they are togther.

Anyway they do play rough with each other but as they get older they get a little less rough. Still may seem rough and sometimes scary to us but it's the way dogs play. If one gets a little to rough the other would yelp and the play would freeze for a moment. Until they decided everything was ok and then back to playing. They at times looked like they wanted to rip each other apart when they played, like yanking on each others ears, grabbing any loose skin and shaking etc... but they really were just playing. Again if the other had enough or yelped they would stop on their own. They never once hurt one another, no scratch, or injuries of any kind. If they played to rough in the house we'd break it up, as that kind of play inside was not allowed...something was bound to get broken.

I use to work at a vet clinic so I was always doing a nightly check on them just to be sure.

They definately kept each other entertained and were there for each other if one got into trouble. I also think they kept each other out of trouble. When they first arrived on the island they could fit under the cabins but as they grew they didn't fit so well. Well one day one got stuck and could make it out and panicked, well her sister came and got one of us to let us know. They also sort of taught each other to swim. One wasn't to sure about going in the water farther than a foot from shore and the other was a swimming fool. Well the swimming fool would wade out and swim around and bark, be goofy and eventualy encouraged her sister to give it a try and well now she loves to swim to.

Training is harder so we had to separate them now and then to work with them individualy and then slowly did small training sessions with them at the same time. When they understood the comands on their own we then brought them together.

Having the two of them together was great fun, just watching them and seeing what they learned from one another and of course sitting and watching them nap together was too cute.

It sure will be quite the reunion this spring when we all get together again. Whenever my pup(Autumn) sees another dog on a walk that looks like her sister she gets very excited and cannot take her eyes off the other dog, so I know she remembers.

Anyway just my experience with two sister pups from the same litter. Don't give up just yet they are still very young and there is soo much for them to learn and they do learn from one another.

On a side note we also have two cats, and my bosses have two cats. Mine stay in our cabin and the bosses have free roam of the island. It didn't take long for the pups to understand that the cats were not play things. We had to teach them they were not to chase them and to give them their space and the cats certainly helped reinforce that. From time to time they still wanted to play with the cats, mostly by yipping at them and taking a play bow stance, but they learned what "leave it" means. My dog is left home alone with our cats all the time and she's fine. Also with kids they both seemed to know on thier own that they had to be more gentle with them, we still needed to teach them but they did not play or try to play as rough with them as they did with one another.
__________________
"An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language." ~ Martin Buber

"All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it." ~ Samuel Butler

"The purity of a person's heart can be quickly measured by how they regard animals" ~ Anonymous