Manpet and I have had animals pretty much since the moment we moved in together (15yrs ago…fark, I am old).

Mostly cats, I have a bit of an obsession. My Dad HATED cats with a passion when I was a kid..so I was never allowed to have one. So I’m just making up for lost time.

We added a dog a few years in, though we didn’t have much luck early on until Sasha came along. We nearly lost her too, but she was tough. She ended up spending 11yrs with us ’til we had to put her to sleep 12mths ago.

We were both brought up with… dogs were dogs, outside…doing dog stuff. You certainly wouldn’t have them in your house, on the lounge or…gawd forbid…in your bed! But after losing Sasha I realised we had missed out on so much. I was determined not to make that mistake again, and next dog that came along we would be adopting the dogs are just like cats method.

So how is that working out?

For the most part, pretty damn good. I have been really surprised by how much we have bonded with them, which we have never had with other dogs. Very cat like with napping and snuggles etc. With the added bonus of being able to take tem out places, tried that with the cats…they were never keen.

But one thing the cats don’t do, that dogs are masters at……destruction!

They are coming up to their first birthdays, so we’re still having teenage puppy issues x2

Winter came super early in Sydney, and it’s breaks my heart to have to shove them out in the cold every morning. Have tried jumpers, they just shred them off each other. The puppies spend most of their time inside when we are home. So it’s only about 6hrs during the day they are outside alone.

Having eaten 3 outside beds and the rip proof outside beanbag (you’d think I would have learnt my lesson after that one) They have been left sleeping on some shredded blankets.

We were getting rid of an old lounge. I thought great, we can put it out there for them to sleep on! Jake did try to tell me it was a bad idea. But pffft I refused to listen, they will realise it’s a warm comfy place to sleep…they won’t do anything to it?!

I go outside to see if they’d been enjoying their new comfy bed and…oh sweet babeh jeebus..WTF have you done!!

6 short hour is all it took.

And, because everyone loves an animated gif. Here is Sookie demonstrating what she did to the lounge. Because of course Eric is too small, his cute little mouth could not cause such destruction (shhh I have deleted the pictures of him caught in the act)

So it has been over 2 months now since Eric joined the family. He is fitting in really well, everyone loves him, including Sookie. My long awaited Frenchie is living up to the expectation, apart from a few small issues.

Being teenagers, and Sookie being the typical stubborn bulldog and OK, maybe she is a little spoilt. We had been having a few small issues with them and had been thinking about getting some training.

Taking his vampire name a little too far, Eric had started biting the side of Sookie’s face.

Yes, I know..it’s terrible to blame the girl, they never ask for the violence bla bla. But honestly, in this case..she has definitely been asking for it!  So, after a few days of it  just getting worse.. I went in search of a trainier to come help.

Have you watched The Dog Whisper? I think we have seen just about  every episode..3-4 times. Gotta love Caesar Millan. It is amazing what he can do with dogs, and yes I know it is a TV show and well edited..but still.

So we had a bit of an idea of what was going on, but really hand no clue how to fix it. And other than using the pssst noise, and poking the kids in the neck when they are naughty we had never tried it on the dogs.

Came across Doggy Style, and despite the name ,  I was impressed by the well designed site..I am a sucker for a pretty website. Also did some digging into their facebook page and read some great things, so made a booking.

Nate spent over 3hrs with us, working on lots of different issues we had with the puppies. He was super lovely and patient, explaining everything. I could not believe how easy he made it look. But slowly with practise we are getting better at implementing the technics he showed us.

It has made a huge difference! They still play fight a lot..but the biting has stopped. As has the peeing on stuff, humping everything, pulling like a steam train on walks and the list could go on.

We still have some issues with Eric at the dog park, I am certain he thinks he is a huge Rottweiler in a tiny body. As we got him a little older than Sookie and he wasn’t as socialised early on, hopefully it is just going to take a little longer. I think the main issue tho is..we are just doing it wrong, maybe we need more training LOL.

Thanks Nate for helping whip our naughty puppies into line!