Third dog...gender

[g8dgirls]

We are preparing to add a third dog to our household later this summer/fall. We currently have two 18 mo. dachshunds, both altered, male & female siblings. They get along wonderfully and were raised with a large breed until 6 weeks ago when we lost ours (male).

We are struggling with deciding on a gender. We know we want a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon but aren’t sure of what the best fit will be. They got along fine with our older guy but were also raised from puppyhood with him. They did occasionally gang up on him but we never had any fights, just incessant yapping.

They are both middle of the road with dominance. The male did get snippy with my sister’s neutered dog when she tried to dog sit for us. However, my female was freshly spayed at the time. He is fine with him if its just them, and her dog is socially challenged. I am leaning towards a female. Thoughts?

[chestnutmarebeware]

The dog books I’ve seen recommend: 1st dog—either sex. 2nd dog—opposite sex. 3rd dog—same sex as least dominant dog. The experts also recommended not intervening in dominance “fights”, and consistently supporting the winner as official “top dog”, whoever it is. (e.g. Feed winner first, give them the best toy, etc.). It’s when the humans “stick up” for the loser that the nasty fights happen, because it causes confusion and continuous pecking order disagreements.

Of course, then they go on to say that two females seem to fight more than two males (assuming dogs are spayed/neutered). So… :lol:

Since both of yours seem to be equally (or almost) dominant, IMHO, I’d think you’d be best served by bringing in a submissive-type personality, then letting them work the hierarchy out for themselves. Good luck!

[libgrrl]

Two females that grow to hate each other is the worst combo – ask me how I know. In addition to personal experience, the most heartbreaking surrenders at our local shelter were loving owners who had to separate two warring bitches. This happened multiple times.

[LauraKY]

Funny, I’ve had more success with two females than two males.

[libgrrl]

LauraKY – It is obviously all about the individuals in question, and I don’t have any good “science” to back it up. I’ve just been around many many dogs and “dog people,” and the worst horror stories, 10-1, have involved two females that have grown to hate each other. That said, my barn owner almost always has 3-4 dogs, almost all females, and they get along swimmingly.

[wendy]

it’s always safer to only have one bitch per household; when bitches decide to fight, they fight to the death and never “make up”; males will spat and then be best friends the next day. Of course, not all bitches will decide to kill each other, but when they do, it’s bad.
Dogs aren’t actually “pack animals”; when they study free-roaming dogs, the dogs either live alone or in male/female pairs, and form very loose friendships amongst neighboring dogs.
Wolves don’t really form packs either- they form mated pairs, and keep pups from prior litters around for several years, and then the older pups drift away, usually around age 2, to form their own mated pairs. Sometimes relatives of the mated pair will live with them, like the sister or brother of one of the breeding pair. It would be very unusual for unrelated adult bitches to live together.
Hitting 2 years of age is often the “trigger” for severe bitch-bitch aggression- in nature, that is when the young bitches would disperse. Your female is approaching that critical age. If you get a much larger female dog, and your little female objects to its presence, your little one could easily end up dead.
It does depend on a lot on breed and individual characteristics, of course.

[CGirl10]

I find this interesting. I have always heard if you want more than 1 dog to get all males. We currently have 5 dogs, 4 females and 1 male. All of our dog fights occurred when we added another male to the household.

[SquishTheBunny]

I had 5 live together:

Female JRT
Male JRT
Male JRTx
Female Staffordshire Terrier
Female Greyhound X

They were all altered. They all got along very well, with the rare scrap between the JRT’s.

[mvp]

OP, I misread your title and loved it.

Not “I’m getting a third dog and, of the two genders**, which should it be?”

But “Should I get a transexual dog? I mean, why should dogs be limited to rigid gender roles? Why just two of those or categories at all?”

** And I was taught that “gender” is used for people whlle “sex” is still appropriate for animals.

[pAin_t_Misbehavin]

I understand wanting a bitch - I have two of each, and while I love my boys they are blockheads sometimes. To me, girls are quicker on the uptake and far easier to train.

But - I agree with wendy that its easier to keep multiple dogs rather than multiple bitches. Boy fights are mostly sound and fury and when they’re over, they’re over - but the girls really go for each other and have looong memories.

That’s the general rule - although at my house, my two border collie bitches get along fine. The younger bitch is queen of all she surveys - except when it comes to the older bitch. Violet was an adult when Faith was a puppy, and apparently knows all about how to train up a child in the way it should go. They don’t love each other, but they give each other their space.

So maybe, if you get a puppy bitch you’d have a similar experience. I don’t know much about the temperament of a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon. I know dachsies can be little dictators, though, so maybe your girl would whip the pup into shape early on.

[Sonesta]

Well, granted they are all Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, but I have 12 dogs that live together - mostly happily. 3 unaltered males, 4 unaltered females and the rest altered, retired females.

Only once has there been a real fight and it was two girls. A newer girl trying to assert herself as the new queen over the oldest female. I let them duke it out and the old girl whipped the youngster good and that was the end of that.

Of course, when there is a girl in season, I have to separate the boys and they will occasionally have a short spat if they think one of the other boys is going to get the girl, but nothing serious.

[GraceLikeRain]

Personally I would choose another male but that’s because I’ve heard so many stories about bitch on bitch aggression issues. That being said, many people on here say to avoid littermates at all costs and I have a male/female pairing that are fantastic and clearly your two get along as well. Ultimately, providing ample exercise, crating when unsupervised, separating for feeding, and providing at least one more bone/toy than number of dogs will curb many behavioral issues before they start.

[bits619]

If it was me, I’d get the sex that the more playful of your two dogs enjoys playing with the most for example, my highest energy dog is a female golden mix. She almost never plays with female dogs, but LOVES to wrestle with males. That’s one of the reasons it was so easy to keep our last one, the male weimaraner (who is also high energy and playful). Of course now it sounds like a mosh pit in here half the time with them raising Cain, but at least they’re entertained! This is assuming that the less playful dog isn’t grouchy or bossy about other dogs playing.
I think it completely depends on your particular two dogs. We acquired them in the order of girl, boy, girl, girl, boy, girl, boy. Dog 3(female) is fairly low on the totem pole, kind of a pushover… She’s had tussles with other female dogs who weren’t good with other dogs and yep, after that she knew how to hold a grudge against those particular dogs. But I blame the other dogs’ lack of social skills just as much if not more than the fact that they were female.
I’ve had so many come through (fosters) that have had varying preferences that it is really hard to say there’s a universally ill-advised grouping. Right now we have two playgroups of 1B-2G, one 2B-2G, and the big group is 9 dogs, 4 girls and 5 boys.

Of course all these are just anecdotal…

[wendy]

All of our dog fights occurred when we added another male to the household.

yeah, but the males fight, and then they settle the issue, and they are done fighting. Bitches fight to the death- once a bitch-bitch dispute starts, it doesn’t end until one bitch is either dead or leaves the household.
These kind of disputes don’t always happen, but when they do happen, they are really serious.

It does depend a lot on the individual dogs- my current household, if I were to add another dog (not planning to) I’d bring another bitch in rather than a dog, because my old male doesn’t tolerate young males, and my bitch is a hound who loves all dogs and hasn’t any aggressive tendencies whatsoever.

You can kind of predict this by breed- terriers, including daschunds, and certain other breeds like akitas, are notorious for being very same-sex aggressive, while hounds and other hunting dogs like retrievers have been bred to be very tolerant of other dogs.

[candysgirl]

My house consists of my 3yo intact male miniature poodle, my boyfriend’s two spayed standard (8yo) and miniature (4yo) poodles and our roommate’s 14yo intact female lab (just ‘never got around to’ spaying her, she’s never been bred). In the next year or so, after a final litter, we will be adding another female mini who is the sister of the female and the mother of my male. Our two know her and see her on a fairly regular basis.

Our minis are the best of friends and spend the majority of their days wrestling and pestering one another.

The ancient lab is just kind of ‘here’. She will play with the humans in short bursts if you get her riled up, but largely just ignores the other dogs in a very ‘la la la if I don’t look at you, you don’t exist’ kind of way.

The standard wants to be with the minis and seems to relate to them in a mother kind of role more than anything else. She doesn’t often play with them, but will occasionally be enticed to hold onto the rope toy while she’s lying on the couch so one of the minis can tug on it with all their might. She will relentlessly fetch a ball when playing with a human though.

The female mini is the terrorist and ruler of all. If she wants something one of the other dogs has, she will march up and just take it from them. They’ll growl and try to hang onto it for a moment or two, but ultimately she wins every time. When she takes things from the standard, the standard looks at the humans with a, “seriously?! Why do you make me put up with them?!” look on her face.

Poodles and labs are both in the retriever category and tend to get along with other dogs so I’m not sure our household’s experience would translate well to someone with, say, a bunch of terriers or something with significantly ‘harder’ personalities.

[witherbee]

The way I did it was to just bring the dogs to a neutral location (in my case the visiting room at the local no-kill shelter), and see how they get along as individuals. Our shelter also gives a trial period in case things do not work out when back on your home territory.

I started with 1 female collie years ago and acquired a hound mix and a Chessie - both female. When we moved to FL, the Chessie was the only original cast member left, and we got a female PW Corgi (puppy) and then went to the shelter and got an older female hound mix. All get along famously. Got a male chihuahua puppy, and only issue there was he does not like the Chessie, but he just avoids her. Also, until he was old enough to get neutered, he did a lot of abnoxious sniffing! I was nervous to upset the harmony, but was looking for a small dog to play more with the Chihuahua, so I got another Chihuahua - a female. All 4 females are best buddies, and the male loves all of them but the Chessie.

Here is my happy clan without the newest member:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i245/wtryan/Our%20Pets/174.jpg

[Griffyn]

MVP-I thought it was about a transgendered dog as well! Sonesta- I agree it has alot to do with the breeds of dogs in question
my 2 doberman males were fine UNTIL the dominant female died, then they hated each other- she sort of ruled the roost with the iron paw. Most of the horrible dogfights I know of personally have been between 2 femalesthough.

I would chose among the less dominant dogs in the litter after puppy testing them