# Ep 96 The Truth About Littermate Syndrome & Multi-Dog Struggles

An episode of [Help! My Dog: The Podcast. Dog Behaviour & Training Strategies that Work!](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1721245241), 1 Oct 2025, 11 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2287608/episodes/17821859-ep-96-the-truth-about-littermate-syndrome-multi-dog-struggles.mp3

Littermate syndrome is one of those topics that sparks a lot of debate among dog owners and trainers, and it’s easy to see why. In this episode, we’re unpacking what really happens when two puppies grow up side by side and why it can lead to tricky challenges, all from a concept training perspective. From subtle influences in behaviour to big spirals that leave both dogs struggling, we’ll explore the hidden dynamics you might not have considered. Whether you’re already living with littermates, thinking about adding a second dog or just curious about how dogs influence each other, this conversation will give you plenty to think about. We’ll talk through the risks, the patterns to watch for and the practical steps that can help. Find out whether there’s any real truth behind the controversial subject, and see how the same drivers can apply to any multi-dog household! ................ Whether your dog is unpredictable with other dogs or predictably bad… Whether it looks like freezing, barking, lunging or running away… Whether you are just starting out on your dog-owning journey or your dog has been labelled as having a “behaviour problem”… … this episode is for you and is going to give you huge insights! Want to join the Help! My Dog Online HUB? Here's the link: www.helpmydog.com/hub Dr Tom Mitchell is a world-renowned veterinarian, behaviourist and dog trainer and director of the Behavet behaviour clinic (rated Excellent on Trustpilot), which sees over 400 pet behaviour consultations each and every month no matter where you are in the world. In 2023, he founded Help! My Dog, an online dog behaviour learning platform to help even more owners all over the world and show that dog behaviour transformation is not only possible but it's FUN, with the right know-how! Make sure to subscribe/follow the podcast for the free weekly episodes! Useful Links: Follow Help! My Dog on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/helpmydogofficial/ Schedule a Consultation with Behavet: https://www.beha.vet/ Follow Behavet on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/behavet

## Transcript

[0:00] SPEAKER_00: Stress buckets fill very quickly with exciting things and scary things.
[0:04] SPEAKER_00: You've got to realize that with a multi-dog household, each dog is paying into each other's stress bucket, so you're getting double for every event.
[0:12] SPEAKER_00: Before we dive in, a warning.
[0:15] SPEAKER_00: The content of this podcast may not be appropriate for some young listeners.
[0:20] SPEAKER_00: This is real life, and that means that sometimes it can be a little bit graphic.
[0:25] SPEAKER_00: So listen on at your own peril.
[0:28] SPEAKER_00: As a veterinarian, dog behaviourist, best-selling author and trainer, over the past decade I've had an obsession with transforming the behaviour of dogs.
[0:37] SPEAKER_00: Understanding their brains and creating practical strategies that you can implement easily at home.
[0:43] SPEAKER_00: I know all too well when the dream you imagined when you first got your dog is far from your daily reality.
[0:49] SPEAKER_00: In fact, out of the blue, a few months ago, my little dog Gorse was bitten by a dog 20 times her size.
[0:56] SPEAKER_00: And suddenly our life of stress-free walks, a calm and cuddly household, and being teammates was replaced with reactivity, anxiety, and worrying about what's around the next corner.
[1:07] SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
[1:08] SPEAKER_00: Tom.
[1:08] SPEAKER_00: This is the Help My Dog Podcast, and this is me documenting that journey of transformation, sharing my knowledge and experience with you, and having a few laughs along the way.
[1:19] SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to this episode of the Help My Dog Podcast.
[1:23] SPEAKER_00: It is Tom doing a strange voice.
[1:25] SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about a bit of a controversial one today, and that is littermate syndrome, because we've been asked about it.
[1:36] SPEAKER_00: It was we had three emails about littermate syndrome, and I thought, you know what, let's do it.
[1:43] SPEAKER_00: And I think the first thing that I want to dispel is that littermate syndrome is an unavoidable consequence of having littermates.
[1:53] SPEAKER_00: Okay.
[1:54] SPEAKER_00: First thing I want to dispel that's simply untrue, and we'll talk about that in a second.
[1:58] SPEAKER_00: Second thing that I want to say though is that having two dogs from the same litter is very tricky and leaves both of them very vulnerable behaviorally.
[2:13] SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna talk about why that is from a concept training and help my dog perspective, okay?
[2:21] SPEAKER_00: Um, because it's down to two things, and then we can talk about what we do about it, right?
[2:26] SPEAKER_00: So um the two reasons why this can be very difficult is because there are two spirals that can easily happen, okay?
[2:34] SPEAKER_00: The first spiral is what I call a skill spiral.
[2:39] SPEAKER_00: In other words, if you've got two dogs that both have the same skill struggle, as in they both struggle with disengagement, or they both struggle with calmness, or they both struggle with optimism, or they both struggle with a dimmest, lack of a dimmer switch.
[2:58] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[2:59] SPEAKER_00: And those dogs basically go through life together, they just become more extreme in that deficit because they're effectively both um struggling at the same time, and with one struggling, the other one struggles more, with the other the other one struggles more.
[3:16] SPEAKER_00: Example, let's say they both struggle with disengagement, right?
[3:21] SPEAKER_00: They see a bird.
[3:22] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one runs after the bird, the other one now has an even harder time to disengage.
[3:29] SPEAKER_00: So now they're not gonna disengage either.
[3:31] SPEAKER_00: Now the second one is hot on the tail of the first one.
[3:35] SPEAKER_00: Because of that, the first one is gonna find it even harder to disengage, and so on and so forth.
[3:40] SPEAKER_00: And I get that's an extreme example, but you get the idea.
[3:43] SPEAKER_00: Lack of a dimmer switch is another one.
[3:45] SPEAKER_00: Um lack of a dimmer switch is basically going from zero to 100 in arousal level without anything in between.
[3:51] SPEAKER_00: If you both kind of have this problem and the the guy next to you goes from zero to 100, you're highly likely to go to zero to 100 as well.
[4:00] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[4:01] SPEAKER_00: And because you're now at 100, they're still at 100, and and you're still at 100.
[4:05] SPEAKER_00: And so effectively, this they can they can inadvertently grow each other in the direction of their weaknesses, yeah?
[4:14] SPEAKER_00: Um, let me give another example.
[4:17] SPEAKER_00: Optimism.
[4:18] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, novelty appears.
[4:21] SPEAKER_00: Little friend over here goes, oh my god, his novel is scary.
[4:24] SPEAKER_00: It's even harder to be optimistic when there's somebody sat next to you screaming the sky's falling.
[4:30] SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
[4:31] SPEAKER_00: And and so you can see how they end up in a skill spiral.
[4:35] SPEAKER_00: Um now the second spiral that they can end up in is an emotion spiral, okay?
[4:41] SPEAKER_00: The idea being that emotions to some extent are a little bit um, it's called social contagion, right?
[4:48] SPEAKER_00: Um you if if the I don't know, if the person next to you is scared, then because we're a social living species, we can easily just start to become scared or worried or anxious without even realizing.
[5:04] SPEAKER_00: You ever have that where you've got like a really anxious person in your life, and you spend time with them, you're like, God, I'm like, I'm feeling a bit anxious now.
[5:11] SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I'm anxious, but it's just because they you've been with them so much and they're really anxious, and you you and that's just the way it goes.
[5:18] SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the the same thing can happen.
[5:22] SPEAKER_00: And you know, you think about you think about the emotion spiral, and you think the challenge with two dogs that aren't skilled have the same level of lack of skill, and this is true not just of litter mates, I should say, for all of this, any two dogs with the same problems, the the same skill deficits, yeah, or the same lack of emotional robustness, this happens.
[5:47] SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you think like there's no option for medium emotions, there's no option for a little bit frustrated, there's no option for a little bit anxious, there's no option for a little bit excited because you're bouncing off the other individual.
[6:02] SPEAKER_00: They're a little bit frustrated, you're a little bit more frustrated, they're even more frustrated, we're all frustrated.
[6:07] SPEAKER_00: Same for excitement.
[6:09] SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we start to get to this world of extremes of emotion in response to things.
[6:15] SPEAKER_00: And as I say, this is true of all multi-dog situations where there's a lack of skills.
[6:20] SPEAKER_00: The challenge is that often littermates, they they have the same genetics, they've had the same upbringing up until that point, and they're, you know, they're relatively um learning naive, and that you've not started working with them.
[6:33] SPEAKER_00: And so they often have the same skill deficits to some extent, or there's certainly overlap there, and they just become extreme like caricatures of themselves because they're bouncing off each other.
[6:44] SPEAKER_00: And and so, what to do about this?
[6:45] SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're listening to this and you're like, oh my god, I wish I'd listened to this podcast six months ago.
[6:50] SPEAKER_00: I have littermates, or oh my god, it's like you're talking about my multi-dog household and one's a pushon and one's a bulldog, right?
[6:57] SPEAKER_00: But you know, they may as well be littermates from what you're describing.
[7:00] SPEAKER_00: It's not specific to littermates.
[7:02] SPEAKER_00: I can't stress this enough.
[7:03] SPEAKER_00: It's just specific to two dogs cohabiting and spending all their time together with the same skill deficits, right?
[7:11] SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we can see that now.
[7:12] SPEAKER_00: And so um my top tips for you are one, have separate schedules for them.
[7:20] SPEAKER_00: Part of the reason why the skill spiral can happen and the emotion spiral can happen is because they're getting inputs from each other constantly.
[7:28] SPEAKER_00: Try and have them on separate schedules where they have time apart from one another.
[7:33] SPEAKER_00: Try and um, well, not try, must take them on walks individually as well as together if it's appropriate to take them together.
[7:42] SPEAKER_00: Um that's the first tip that I've got for you.
[7:45] SPEAKER_00: Second tip that I've got for you is identify what skills are lacking.
[7:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[7:50] SPEAKER_00: Which are the most important skills that are lacking that are driving most of their behaviors.
[7:55] SPEAKER_00: Counteract that by building up those skills individually and then together.
[8:01] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[8:02] SPEAKER_00: Teach them separately, then teach them together, then bring it out into the real world.
[8:07] SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
[8:07] SPEAKER_00: Where are you gonna learn those games to teach those skills?
[8:09] SPEAKER_00: Help my dog hub, the help my dog walks a stressful 10-day plan, right?
[8:14] SPEAKER_00: That those are gonna be your places.
[8:16] SPEAKER_00: Um, that would be my um my second tip.
[8:20] SPEAKER_00: Third tip that I've got for you is you've got to realize that stress buckets fill very quickly with exciting things and scary things.
[8:29] SPEAKER_00: You've got to realize that with a multi-dog household, each dog is paying into each other's stress bucket, so you're getting double for every event.
[8:37] SPEAKER_00: And so stress buckets can take time to empty.
[8:41] SPEAKER_00: And so when chaos ensues and it all goes a little, it all gets a little bit much and they're over thresholding, you're like, oh my god, lights on no one's home.
[8:49] SPEAKER_00: That should be a trigger for you to go, right?
[8:52] SPEAKER_00: Time apart, passive calming activities, yeah.
[8:55] SPEAKER_00: And if you're in a the the the fourth tip that I've got for you is if you're in a multi-dog household situation where you're like, I'm aware that this dog isn't helping this dog, and this dog isn't helping that dog, and maybe you've got more than two dogs, and so it's even more dynamic than that, and you're listening, you're like, Tom's right, but the issue is I can't separate my dogs.
[9:15] SPEAKER_00: This is where you would really benefit from a behavior clinician actually sitting down and untangling this and and working out what to do and how to do it so that it's easy, yeah.
[9:27] SPEAKER_00: And so if that's you and you're listening, I can't stress this enough, get in touch with behave vet, yeah.
[9:32] SPEAKER_00: Skip the skip the you know next 12, 24 months of trying to figure it out and potentially you know making mistakes along the way.
[9:41] SPEAKER_00: If you go to b-e-h a dot vet, that's b-e-h a dot vet, so the behave vet website, um, and um and just submit an inquiry form.
[9:53] SPEAKER_00: The inquiry form will tell you what the best option is for you to get scheduled in with a clinician, it's all like automated, but you know, you can schedule a call as well to uh to chat to one of the uh scheduling team to understand how it works and you know whether it'd work work for you and your dog, which it will.
[10:08] SPEAKER_00: Um, but I get that you know everyone needs reassurance, and that's why we we have that facility on there.
[10:14] SPEAKER_00: Um, and then one of the behave that team will literally say, right, here's phase one, it's easy, here's phase two, here's phase three, and let's get you, let's let's guide you out of this, right?
[10:26] SPEAKER_00: So, guys, I hope you got value.
[10:28] SPEAKER_00: I hope you can see how litomate syndrome is actually just when multiple dogs get together with a lack of skills.
[10:34] SPEAKER_00: Um, and hopefully you got some insights into how to prevent it, how to work with it.
[10:39] SPEAKER_00: If you're like actually, I think it's too serious with my dogs to be able to implement what Tom's describing, get in touch with behavior, and we're here to help, we want to help.
[10:49] SPEAKER_00: You will get results, right?
[10:51] SPEAKER_00: You results are possible for you and your dogs, and we can't wait to see you next time.

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