My first meeting with Tiger Woods (black/brown) & Coco Chanel (sandy/white) was when they were 9 weeks young. They were only in their new home a few days. Half of their time was spent snuggling into each other for puppy snoozes, the other half they were doing their best impressions of tornados! Their guardian didn’t have any specific training in mind when she phoned me, but just that she knew hiring a trainer would be beneficial. She booked her appointment with me two weeks before she even collected them, so it was promising to me that I would have a proactive and enthusiastic puppy parent to work with, which would ensure they were on the right track.

They were toilet trained within the first week, they took most of their play biting out on each other, so the guardians didn’t experience much of it, and we pen trained them for nighttime, so they weren’t separated in crates and still had plenty of space to do their favourite activity – snuggle!

It quickly became evident that walking was turning into a nightmare! They had to sniff what the other one was sniffing, they were pulling to here, there, and everywhere! Tiger was nervous of passing vehicles, while Coco wasn’t bothered. Coco wanted to chase birds, while Tiger wasn’t bothered! We had a lot to work on!

So, we set up an intense training protocol. Every 2-3 days, I would come by and train with one puppy and guardian for 30 minutes, then we would do a swap and train with the other puppy and guardian for 30 minutes. The boys missed each other when they were separated, but they always had someone at home with them, and were given enrichment activities to help them adjust to the new routine. Although they share the same genetics, the brothers learned differently and at different paces. Coco was less keen to go too far from the house, so he took longer, meanwhile Tiger just loved the attention he was getting from us, so we got further with him. After a few months of training separately, it was time to train together – we felt like we were going back to the start all over again, but once the excitement of being out together wore off, they took to the training together brilliantly and another few weeks later we were able to take the training further and further.

The boys are now almost four years old, and I often see them walking with their owner who is proudly beaming from ear to ear – she has one dog on her left side, one on her right side, her arms are relaxed, their leads are relaxed, and all parties are safely enjoying their walks without any stress at all!