Wow. What's it like having five dogs? I have two and have been up and down constantly about a Bernese Mountain Dog. I already have two, and I'm not sure how three would work out.. lol (MY OG dog would be fine, but I ended up saving one from a bad situation and she's.. I'm not sure how that would go :/)
We've always had a lot of dogs so at this point it's really just normal for us. The only issue we really have is all of our dogs are rescues and a lot of them have some sort of issue (behavior, medical, deaf, etc) so they're more work than most dogs. Also, outside of our first two dogs who recently passed away (we got them as puppies at the same time), the dogs don't really play with each other. They were all adopted years apart and didn't bond as puppies so they're more like roommates who are cool with each other.
When we had our son, Ill admit that having 4 dogs was pretty hard but now that he's a bit older (7), we've found our groove again. We wanted to get 2 dogs at a young age so my son would have his own dog that bonded with him but also so the dogs would bond with each other like our original 2 did.
Dog poop is by far the worst part. We have a dog run with a patch of fake grass and if it's not picked up daily and rinsed every weekend it can smell pretty gnarly. I remember a particularly busy time when no one cleaned the dog run for a month....NEVER again. We're religious about cleaning it now.
Also vet bills could be an issue. You may get lucky and have healthy dogs that require nothing outside of regular checkups, cleanings, and vaccinations. Or you may have 2 dogs that both require surgery or something very expensive at the same time and it can hit hard financially. We take our dogs to spay neuter clinics which are WAAAY cheaper than regular vets for things like teeth cleanings, shots, and spay/neutering. We also used dog insurance in the past but cancelled because it was pretty expensive and got more expensive as the dogs aged. They also didn't cover all that much. Instead my wife puts 30 and I put 50 bucks per paycheck into our rainy-day pet account. We've had a positive balance for 10 years and actually had enough to use it on other things like a vacation. (its hovering near 6-7k right now)
Long as you love dogs and have the space and time for them, go crazy. It's not double the work to have 2 dogs vs one..I feel like each addition takes less and less work with only a marginal increase in effort with a MASSIVE increase in joy. We'll likely end up with 4 dogs if we don't keep both puppies. Our current herd is;
- Bruno - 12ish year old German Shepard mix we rescued from the streets. He had a rough life and was severely abused by someone, lived on the streets for months, and was hit by a car (all before we had him).
- Banjo - Beautiful 11 year old Border Collie who had severe behavior issues. He's a lot better now but we have to always be vigilant with as he's bitten people in the distant past
- Winnie - 9 month old Chihuahua we got from a rescue. We've only had her for a month and the new puppy was supposed to be her bro/best friend.
- Unnamed Puppy #1
- Unnamed Puppy #2
Border collies are my favorite breed. Unfortunately I live in an apartment and will have to wait until i get a house to own one. Would be animal abuse to have a collie in an 800 foot apartment imo.
My parents border collie, patches, played fetch for over an hour in her heyday. Shes old now (14) and can only last a few throws.
Beautiful dog! In the future I definitely want a chocolate border collie.
Makes sense to wait. Honestly we have a large house but our yard is really small and not the most dog friendly but we live right across the street from a giant park so they basically have a multi-acre grass yard which I don't need to maintain. When they're home they just lay around and barely even step into 90% of our houses square footage.
While you might have seen the parents, that does not mean the babies are healthy. Did you see the medical papers of the parent dogs?
Tests for CEA, PLL, PRA, GCS, NCL, HD... these are just a few.
The reason why dogs from official breeders are more expensive, are because they have fees to be part andare able to carry the label. The label means that the dogs are all tested for diseases, live in controlled homes that meet guidelines etc.
Of course even a breeders dog can end up sick, but they take all precautions as possible to limit the possibility that your border collie ends up with seizures.
A responsible person would never give tWo puppies into one home.
There is no such thing as accidental litter. You can fix the dog before hand, and even if the dog ends up pregnant there are ways to cancel the pregnancy too.
If someone has an "accidental litter" he either was irresponsibly not watching the dog during heat and wanted to save the money (as in not fixing the dog) or to cancel pregnancy/decided to earn some money with the puppies. And cancelling pregnancy is not a huge thing, there is no op needed.
Go be negative elsewhere. If the puppies are sick, we'll invest whatever time, effort, and money necessary to help them.
So judgemental..a responsible person would never give two puppies into one home? Why? Because they'll bond with each other more than with their humans? None of the breeders we spoke with had any issues selling multiple puppies, especially once they knew we already had a large pack so there's little chance they'll only bond with each other, not their humans.
