Hello German shepherd puppies lovers:

One of the most heart-rendering reports I received from a client was about a German shepherd puppy I sold to them.  From what I understand, they had two adult shepherds and a very young puppy (10 weeks or so) and went away from the house.  Somehow the containment area between the adults had been breached and the puppy got in with the adults.  They called me, understandably distraught, and told me they had found the puppy with its neck broken in the adult area of the kennels.  These were good people, responsible people, but somehow a mistake was made.

A second client called me and was beside herself because the adult female she had imported fought everyday with her male, and that much blood had been shed.  She herself could be severely injured in the process of breaking up one of these fights. Supposedly she had followed the rules before making the decision, male with female if adult.  She just couldn’t understand what had happened.

I would like to do a couple of blogs on this issue.  What are the simple basic guidelines for mixing genders and age?  What is the proper age and gender to bring a dog into an already existing pack ?  How do you decrease the problems and how can you determine if there may be a problem?

In this blog I will give you just a couple of basic, general rules for mixing genders and age.  But remember, current pack dynamics, individual dog temperaments, must be analyzed in addition to these simple guidelines.  But here they are.

Probably the ideal is to begin with puppies that are opposite genders, brought in together into a family.  This way they will grow up together, set pack order normally quite well through ritualistic, non-injurious pack order confirmation.  Next, probably would be a puppy (male best, female second) with an adult female, especially if they have been bred or if it is the mother.  This way the maternal instinct with be strong.  Next is probably an older mature male with a female puppy.   Following this might be an adult female with an adult male.  Next, and starting to get into an area that raises potential red flags, would be two male puppies brought up together.  Now we move into the pairing which are clearly risky.  This would include two females or two males.

I will discuss more in the next article.  And clearly there are other variables which can be even more determinate, such as temperament, and expertise of the owner to read the signs and properly socialize them together safely, or how much time they have to spend supervising them when they are together.

I hope this was helpful.

Please visit our website for tons of information at “Banffy Haus K-9 University“  or our blog on German shepherd puppies and dogs.