Adding second female

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momtobrndon

Boxer Pal
Do you think adding a one year old female to a house with a 3 month old female would spell disaster? Someone locally is trying to rehome a one year old due to them not having anytime for her. Thought maybe our puppy would enjoy a friend and stop biting on us so much. Thoughts, concerns??
 

Caney Creek

Boxer Insane
Bad idea. Without even going into the whole female issue, you now have ONE puppy that is not yet trained. The last thing you need is to bring another untrained (that's basically what "we don't have time for her" means) puppy (yes, at 1 she's really still a puppy) into your home to serve as a distraction for your current pup. NO training would get done. In theory it sounds like a good idea -- they'd keep each other company and serve as 24-hr playmates -- but the reality is that you'd have two untrained dogs that feed off of each other's bad behavior. If you think training ONE puppy is hard... try training TWO :eek:

Now for the female issue ;) It's not advised to have 2 female boxers in the same household because boxer females are generally very territorial, and bitch fights are serious business. When two females fight, they are not doing it to establish rank like two males would -- on the contrary, females fight to take the other one out. It's not a "one time and we're done" type deal, it will happen again and again as long as they are together. Of course not all females will fight, some females get along just fine all their lives -- really it just depends on the individual dog's temperament. But, it's more likely to happen than not happen, and it's too much of a risk to take.

The other thing besides gender that increases the likelihood of two dogs fighting is closeness in age. Less than a year is considered VERY close in age.

One last thing to consider: if the two dogs in question were to fight, they wouldn't start doing it until BOTH have reached adulthood. So basically, you'd have two dogs that got along great together until the youngest one gets to be 2 years old... and THEN the fights would start, if they were going to start at all. And THEN you would be faced with the decision to rehome one of them, after years of growing attached to them both.
 
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cdnbxrlvr

Boxer Buddy
Thanks for that insight Caney Creek. We too had considered getting another boxer female but I had no idea that females could fight like that! I guess my bouncy, wiggle butt could hold her own if need be but I am blinded by our love for her and her goofy disposition.
Definitely something we will look into further.
 

Caney Creek

Boxer Insane
Thanks for that insight Caney Creek. We too had considered getting another boxer female but I had no idea that females could fight like that! I guess my bouncy, wiggle butt could hold her own if need be but I am blinded by our love for her and her goofy disposition.

I know, it's hard to think that our lovely little girls could be capable of such:)

Of course, it doesn't always happen. I have 2 females after all ;) However when we added Caney to the bunch we were NOT aware of the female thing either. Lucky for us though, we have 2 things working in our favor: one is the 6 years between the two dogs; and second, Caney is almost 3 years old and has turned out to be more the submissive type (Creek is more dominant). If it didn't turn out that they complemented each other like that, we might have problems. And even still, I am always monitoring their interactions for any little signs of a squabble.

Females can work, but it's definitely safer to go with opposite sexes. If you search the forums you will find many other accounts of members owning two females where it didn't work out so well :(
 

ZOE*BOXER

Boxer Insane
I have 2 females as well. Just as Caney said, there is almost 5 years between them. That I am sure helped. Zoe was 5 and Cat was 6 months when we got Cat. They get along great although it did take some work at first. ;)
 
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