The Adventures of My Two Puggles: Their first Month Home

So... there's definitely a difference from play fighting and real fight, right? Here are my two play fighting:

And here they are real fighting (as I snap a picture :-) )

From almost the first day we brought them home...okay maybe the second, there hasn't really been one day where these two don't fight. And 'what are they fighting about' you might ask?
Apparently, the books, people, pros etc, call it "dominance". Who's the man of our house? So, our job: to show them we are the "men" of the house!. MUCH easier said than done! ... Let me say that again...MUCH easier said than done!


We've been taught to role them and pin them on their back until they submit, which might work if they were lil pups, but not almost a year old. We've been taught time out's...uhhh...not so much. We been taught sternness... and... we're still trying.

Then my mother found this infomercial: The Perfect Dog, by the Dog Father. What won her vote was one of the testimonials from an owner of....yup...you guessed it... two Puggles. By the way, if I forgot to explain what a 'puggle' was, it's a cross between a Pug and a Beagle, very stubborn - I mean smart dogs. So she was very passionate about us getting these collars and training DVDs that would instantly change our dogs.

We ordered it...approximately $180 CDN (w/ taxes and shipping and handling) Watched the DVD that instructed us to watch it 3 times over before performing the commands, and then, on one sunday night, we said "let's do this".

You have to understand our frame of mind... at this point, it's probably early February and truly... anymore outbursts and we're sticking a stamp on them and returning to sender! So the boys get into one of their fights, we utilize the power of the collars. We go at it for 10-15 minutes and guess what! Pugsley's collar BRAKES!!!!! - along with our spirits! Can you believe this collar? It broke! Snapped! Now I'm not saying that there's no chance that this one was defunct, but seriously? We were so sad!

Anyhow, there was however, a silver lining - a very dim silver lining...maybe a light shade of grey even! MarcAnto's (my husband's) co-worker Virginia, told us of this school for dogs. She said great things - including the fact that she sent her own crazy pups there many moons ago. The school (BRB K9 in Mississauga) had a great reputation for training movie dogs, the Police's K9 Unit, and overall challenging - but loveable pups.

We called, but just missed the cut-off for the novice level for February, and the next one didn't start till April 21! So, we'd have to be patient and do our best to deal in the mean time.