Re: [pyrnet] Question!

["Jessica @ DaVor" <woods@davor.com>]

Sue,

I haven't done it with dogs--Mom's house isn't big enough for two pyrs
(*pout*)--but my experience has been, if you're going to keep two male
animals of any kind together, get them both young, get them both neutered,
and you shouldn't have too many problems.  Our rescued bunny boys grew up
together, as far as we can tell (we think they were littermates due to the
similarity of their coloring) and we had no problems after we got them
neutered.  I think that's why they were abandoned by their previous
owner--we put up with about a week of spraying and dominance related
"humping" (for lack of a better term) before getting them fixed.  I'm happy
to report a year later they're litter-box trained and we have seen no more
fuss.  My thought would be, if you handle two females the same way, you
shouldn't have a problem.

My cats, on the other hand, are male (10) and female (4) and I added Tooki
to the household as a tiny kitten (another rescue, she was about three weeks
old and fit in the palm of my hand).  We had a few "new kitten muscling in
on Mommy time" issues at first, but then no problems until her first heat,
when she went utterly "death to everything but Mommy."  We thought getting
her spayed would change that behavior, and discovered to our chagrin that it
actually heightened the behavior.  (Elric was already neutered as a kitten
so there was no chance of their breeding before we got her spayed.)  We did
about 4 months of separation/reintroduction therapy and Tooki gets
medication.  When she went off her meds over New Years (trouble with the
pharmacy that mixes the solution for us) the behavior returned but to a much
lesser extent.  Tooki's case is unusual, according to my vet, but the point
is, even if you see some trouble at first, a good bit of it can be trained
away with patience.

Hope this helps some!

Jess &:
Sam the Pyr (part-time); Elric & Tooki (cats); Caramun & Raistlin (bunnies);
 and Methos the black bear hamster
Levittown PA
woods@davor.com