Little about me. I had my first cattle dog Betsie for 12 years and she was a great dog, I got my next one Sophie shortly after I had to put Betsie down. I had Sophie for 15 great years but had to have her put down about 4 months ago. Both were Females This time I decided to get two Females from the same father but different mothers. I received them 2 weeks ago at ages 8 weeks (Allie) and 9 weeks (Rosie). They have been getting along great with lots of playing bickering (Small disagreements but nothing major) one or the other puts the other back in place and its back to playing. I was just letting them do there thing, puppy play, puppy disagreements, seemed like the were just establishing there pecking order. Well today Allie the younger of the two seemed to take it a to far, she was not interested in going back to playing. she was in full on attack mode. Even after I picked her up and was separating them she was totally fixated on getting Rosie. I took Allie in the house giving her a 5 min. crate training session getting her mind to switch gears while leaving Rosie outside. I then put her outside with Rosie while I stayed in the house and everything seems great since then (About 1 hour). My question is, never having had two Australian Cattle Dogs at the same time I am looking for advise an how to handle this. Am I overreacting? Should I let them fight it out? There young and I want to make sure I am doing the right thing. Any Questions, Comments, or Advise will be greatly appreciated. Thank You
I don’t think there will be a quick fix, but, it seems to me you did the right thing by separating them with one of the pups had had enough. Puppies need huge amounts of sleep, if you research it you will see what I mean, from memory I think your pups need about 18 hours out of 24 If they aren’t getting the sleep they need they will be come irritable quite quickly Is there a chance they aren’t getting enough sleep ?
It's not impossible to raise two pups at once but it has challenges. http://www.animalbehaviorcollege.com/blog/double-trouble-or-double-the-pleasure/
Thank You for the responses. Maybe she was tired and just had enough, everything's been going good today. Thanks for the link also there is some good info I'm going to be looking into and definitely making some changes. Its hard to socialize with other puppies and people, Parvo is terrible here and I'm not willing to take them anyplace until fully vaccinated. Thank You again for the reply's.
