[rineps]

I have a female German Shepherd that is 4 months old today and my sister has her litter mate. When we first brought them home at 8 weeks their play was fun and mostly harmless however, It's gotten increasingly more aggressive and my dog seems like a rabied crazy girl. We keep them on leash and my girl doesn't give up. Keeping in mind that she only behaves like this with her sister, not other dogs. With, other dogs she is somewhat timid. We walk them together, they go in the pool together (again all on leash). My question is how do I know if their play is harmless or if my girl really wants to kill her sister? Ugh..........very stressful

 

[RubySlippers]

I'm sure you'll get some good responses from breeders or others that have been through the sibling thing with their dogs. In my case I only have Ruby, but we see her sisters at her training class. I would have expected her to want to romp and frolic with them- nope. Like yours, she does well with other dogs, but if it's one of her sisters she quickly gets fluffed up and will snarl at them. All I can think of is that it's a hierarchy thing. Who's top dog of the originial pack and all.
As far as cues that it's not play. Ruby will immediately try to stand taller- almost on the tips of her toes. She will also prick her ears forward. And the definite tip off is that she will become very still when they are close- like she is waiting to pounce. When she plays or is relaxed she's almost in constant motion and no rigidness.
In the very beginning she played with her sister once. They were rambunctious but then I noticed that one kept pinning the other day and it quickly escalated into grabbing for each other's scruffs- they don't play together anymore.

My point is that they may just not want to be buddies. I know you can train them to behave themselves around each other, but I don't know if you'll actually get them to like each other.

Again, I'm sure you'll get someone to respond that has a lot more experience with this. I'll be interested in finding out too.

 

[Amaruq]

I think with littermates it is almost a personality conflict. Sometimes personality wise they are too much alike and you know opposites attract and similar attacks. I seem to have the exception to the rules. I have sisters that I have had together from the day they were born. The ONLY time there has been blood shed between them- they were less than a year and Rayne had the zoomies with a toy, KC tried to grab the toy and got the tip of Rayne's ear instead. BLOOD everywhere up and down the hall. They are crated side by side, out together all the time including when they are in heat, they eat side by side......no issues. Drive and work ethic wise they are IDENTICAL. Both high drive like to work yadda yadda. Personality wise they are polar opposites. Both are tough as nails but Rayne is animated, has a wicked sense of humor and basically the class clown- she would have been a fixture in detention but smart enough to still pull in excellent grades. KC comes across as more reserved, quite and studious. KC would be on the deans list from K-her masters degree.

I think they get along just fine because they have such different personalities.

You might find that personality wise they are more alike than different. They might also be more closely "ranked" but with littermates I think a lot of it is more personality related. They have both been in their new homes and SHOULD have a new pack to be members of and rank should not be as much of an issue IMO.