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What do you guys think about littermates when it comes to getting puppies and training them. My experiences have been good as they learn from each other and keep each other company, the down side I have seen is when they trash... they both trash and run to catch while trashing. When I sell pups I prefer to sell them two at time. Over all it is my preferred method of getting puppies and training them but am interested in everyone elses thought.

I agree, double your chances. But with the way people are selling pups now, its hard enough to even get one pup

To me it is a great way of evaluating the dogs as a whole, if both make it then you know you have probably got dogs worth breeding and not just a random fluke and if both get culled well that answers that. Often what I find doing it this way is that if a dog has a minor shortcoming the littermate will slightly make up for it.

I think two is a great idea, trying a strain right now, for an outcross, and have a brother and sister. I run five litter mates and brothers together, I liked it, close speed, grit, knew each others ways since birth, and training, were bear catching fools, tough crew, it works.

i agree and almost all ways try and get a pair as well. if one doesn't work you still have something to show for your money. and if both work your ahead. then again if neither work, you know what not to try again. i look at it like this the odds of getting the only two pups out of a litter that areno good is extremely slim. and if both pups didn't make it I don't care if a litter mate is a top hound i won't try that breeding again.. if even one other pup didn't make out of the litter thats a thirty percent failure rate. I don't expect every hound to be greats but they should hunt, trail, tree and handle at the least. the other aspect to a litter is one hound may only show some of the strengths of a breeding to you and two are a better bet to show you every thing that breeding brings to the table. and gives you a equal comparision.

I've had it go both ways. one year I kept 6 pups and they all turned out to be champs. I also had a year that I kept a male and a female. they were both hellofa dogs by an early age, but only seperate.I could turn out on two different tracks and two different lions were usually going up. but if I just took off on a horse ride with those two together, they would start running and barking like they had the hottest track on earth and run all day. the problem was they were just racing each other. I put more electricity through those collars that year than I ever have and couldn't break this behavior. finally I sold the female and kept the male. the female is that dudes best dog now and the male is my #2 dog. but together all they were is playmates. I also have had pups that don't get along with their littermates. some of the worst battles I ever seen. So I guess it varies by litter and by breed. Ive had six that worked together like a machine at a young age and two from the next litter that couldn't be hunted together at all.

With my two pups ran together they was trailing machines and was starting to tree pretty darn good. Our house cat would go out in the brush and we would wait fifteen or so minutes and turn them loose on her and they would track her down and either tree her or bay her up and this was all at five months. They would bark at all different angles and get the cat all rilled up, but they never got to close to the cat. And this cat was no sloutch she would zig zag, go up and under logs, find holes in the brush pile and come out the other side, and was meaner then hell if they trapped it on the ground. Then when one of them was run over and killed about three weeks ago and was never told by the person that run him over until I confronted him, still wonder if i could of saved him if i was told when it happened. The one that is left hasnt been the same since, he hasnt chased the cat with as much enthusiasim and doesnt tree any more. At six months I am not to worried, and the last bear we got he was in there snipping at the bear on the ground, and when i dropped the tail gait to skin the bear out he went completly nuts barking at the dead bear. Still miss the other pup alot though, i wonder where they both would be if i still had both of them.

I'm a big fan of running littermates together for training, etc. The one downfall I see some guys make is they do EVERYTHING together with the littermates and as a result, I have seen dogs get super dependant on each other. While it is a great way to evaluate a cross, a guy has to ask himself if he really has time to train 2 separate hounds and will he/she actually split them up and work with both sufficiently individually. They can handle most of their training together but it is crucial they have good time apart and learn individually.

I have a pair of littermates now that are about 9 months old and it's going well. A lot of times I'll do even small things like if I'm taking the kids to the park I grab one littermate and bring them along, leaving the other home. This lets me evaluate the dog, work on obedience (which can almost never be done in groups unless you are the Grand Master trainer) and it lets the hounds bond more to me without distraction. Also teaches the hound at home that they will live when the other one is not around.

Not all training should be done simultaneously, I like to do combinations of different training regiments with different combination of my dogs.

A old timer once told me "you have one pup you have a dog, you have two pups you have half a dog" his take on it was you can't honestly evaluate what you got. i find it better to train one at a time so you can put all your efforts in that one pup.

I have 2 pups i have been working with, They do good as a team, But they still need the 1 on 1 time. As the team they keep checking to make sure the other ones around , dont get me wrong they still go at it like a die hard but i still like to work with just one sometimes.