Male/Female homing

greyluvver · GAL Membership Co-Ordinator

Male/Female homing

Missy · Master

Lita

Before I homed Missy I had one girl and one boy - I now have one boy and two girls ! - Max must have thought he'd died and gone to heaven !!!

Dave · Enlightened One

oh, good question Lita!..It's always been GAL's policy to home opposite sexed dogs into a home where there's going to be 2 dogs, obviously that rule goes out of the window when it's a third dog we're homing!!..

If I remember rightly in the 18 months since I picked up the homing job there's only been 1 occasion where I've homed 2 same sexed dogs (females) together...

Karen G · Master

Sorry Dave, can't help Noah & Dinah are opposite's and get on fantastic

CAROLE ROBINSON · Old Hand

Actually Dave, we have recently homed a female lurcher to a home where there is a resident bitch (Cavalier) and they seem to be getting on well.

CAROLE ROBINSON · Old Hand

No that's not strictly correct - the homing was by SPCA - but anyway it's working out.

Christine Young · GAL Newsletter Editor

Does anyone have multiple males in their house? I believe there's someone in GAL - sorry can't remember her name who has seven lurcher boys!! I'd be interested in how they all get along - but is it really bad news to home two males? Does it make a difference if they're both neutered? I know, I know... too many questions...

Christine

UndercoverElephant · Master

I think the main reason we were considering a second male is that the dogs that Blue gets on best with (Charlie, a Lurcher boy - about the same age as Blue, and Archie, a ten year old Greyhound) are, well, dogs. They are both pretty big fellas too (like Blue), and when they meet they go through the whole posturing and flexing thing and then just get on with having fun. With the smaller boys, or with the girls, he can get quite dominant and barkey, but never with these two.

That said, this is going by meetings on walks, if they tried to live in our house, perhaps it would be different.

FAJ · Enlightened One

Phil - can't wait to see what Blue and Harry make of each other! They're both big lads so watching them posturing could be fun......

Fiona

UndercoverElephant · Master

Blue is such a flexer, he really does love to make his muscles ripple. I bet that him and Harry will get on great - as long as Harry's not too young (he's got to the age where he can't stand these little whipper-snappers)

Phil

sha · Master

Hi everyone

I have 4 bitches in my house, one being Misty the foster dog. They all get along fine. I show my dogs so they are not neutered. I don`t keep a stud dog as it`s too much hassle, (although lots of my friends do) I`ve only ever kept bitches (i do like dogs - honest!) They do establish a pecking order within the pack, and quickly learn their position. They accept new bitches quite happily. A friend of mine has 3 male Whippets they seem to get on ok. Maybe we have just been lucky!

Sha

denise · Master

At present we have 1 dog and 5 bitches. It's just they way they arrived we didn't deliberately choose a particular sex. However we have had some problems when introducing another female foster dog.

Saska is our dominant bitch with Moppet occasionally pushing her luck. Fostering another dominant bitch caused major upset with Saska coming under serious attack twice. I now only foster males.

Hogan is happy to accept another male and I've never had a problem with the male fosters I've had, well not a dominance problem anyway (just the occasional cocking of leg and trying to hump the girls).

I remember Glenda describing aggro between same sex dogs as:

Dogs = handbags at dawn, in other words lots of posturing, noise and lip curling but nothing too serious.

Bitches = much more serious, will fight to the death if necessary.

I think it's important to ensure that same sex homes allow their dogs to find the natural hierarchy in their pack and not interfere even if it means your longest canine resident now finds themselves at the bottom of the pack.

Denise

skinnydugs · Master

Hi I have 5 bitches and 3 dogs at home. They all get on well but Aisha the saluki is the one I have to watch. She will take every advantage if say one of the girls is seperated from the pack for a vet visit, then I have to put Aisha out into the garden and bring in the other bitch and then let Aisha back in as she would try and position herself higher in the pack, which would most definitely end up in a nasty fight. I would defo say that it does depend on the nature of the bitch.

Esther