Training Two Puppies: How to Succeed

Training Strategies

If you have adopted two puppies, there are steps you can take to curb behaviour issues and help with training multiple dogs at once. Many of these suggestions involve the puppies spending time independently:

• Crate the dogs separately at night: Crate training helps with safety, damage control, house training, and travelling. Your new puppies should be crated separately and kept close enough for you to hear them at night if they need you.
• Train them individually: When training two puppies, the dogs should attend training classes separately. Alternatively, if you're training at home, work with one dog while the other is with a human family member in a separate room. You can also put each puppy on a long, comfortable lead outside to get them used to watching each other receive attention.
• Socialize and play with them separately: This fosters pup independence and lets the more timid dog play without competing for your attention. You can try taking one puppy at a time with you on a short outdoor errand, or bring them over to a puppy-proofed friend's house for a meet-and-greet.
• Walk them one at a time: Give each dog your undivided attention on their own daily walk. Even with separate handlers, if you always walk your pups together, "the less confident pup will come to rely on the presence of the more confident one to be brave in the real world," writes Pat Miller, the training editor for Whole Dog Journal. This also gives each puppy time to sniff and meet other dogs in their own way.

You're not trying to keep these two potential best friends apart from one another. Rather, you're just giving them each their own space to be who they are as they develop into well-adjusted adult dogs. As you start to understand their independent personalities and where each one shines you can start to incorporate more group activities that allow them to train as one. Just always make sure to give each one their own love and attention, so that one dog doesn't develop dominance over the other, or one doesn't get jealous of the other. Training two puppies just requires extra diligence in ensuring that each pup is given equal attention.

A Tail of Two Dogs

You should always consider the time commitment and care costs of a new furry friend before you adopt. Give even more thought to bringing home two. If you do decide to go ahead you can succeed by treating them as individual personalities, by properly training them, and by spending time with them around people and other dogs. Taking these steps will help bond your dogs to you for life and put a foundation in place that helps your new puppies wiggle their way into a happy, well-adjusted life as the newest members of your family. Who knows, maybe you'll even become the next expert on how to train two puppies at once, and people will start coming to you for help!