Three Dog Fight

"You finally got rid of all the kids," my landlord said. "Why on Earth do you want three dogs?"

...At my age. 

He almost said it, stopped short of insulting me in my own backyard.

I shrugged.

"I'm here by myself," I explained. "I like the company."

What I wanted to say was that I prefer the company of dogs to landlords who come around every bleeding day in the summer, and hammer while my husband is sleeping off his shift work. 

Like the dogs, there's no point talking to Doug.

Scott asked him not to come over on my birthday, and he showed up with his girlfriend and chatted up my entire family over the fence.

Doug is like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz -- tall, made of straw, and with few brains. 

He doesn't have any kids or dogs. He is, it seems, allergic to anything with a heart. 

The next time Doug encountered my dogs, he found himself pinned to a wall with Viggo, the Chocolate Lab, licking his ears, and Pearl, the Mini Aussie, gnawing on his ankles. Like I said, Doug is allergic. That will teach him to come into my yard unannounced.

Most people look down on me because I have these idiots plus Sophie the Pug. They think I'm Lisa Low Rent, the kind of person who lets the dogs lick her face after they've eaten poo.

Let's get something straight. I don't let them. They do it on their own. 

I love my dogs.

But this summer, I realized I might have swallowed the bone I was chewing.

After Viggo got himself castrated, the dynamic in the house changed. Pearl, my sweet, sweet girl started picking fights with Sophie the Pug.

Then things turned really nasty. 

It became not unlike a bar fight before police arrive.

And I was the police.

There is nothing good about a fight involving a pug. 

A pug is like a loaf of bread with a smashed-in face and a curly tail.

There's a lot of gnashing and head twisting on the part of the pug.

And Pearl, it turns out, is a killer.

She goes for the jugular and won't let go until I manually remove her mouth from Sophie's neck.

It is truly terrifying. 

And painful. 

Over the summer, my fingers were turned into steak tartare. My heart often felt like it was going explode in my chest. And the neighbours began to speculate that we were performing exorcisms our backyard.

Anything could trigger these fights: an empty food bowl, the crinkle of grocery bags, an inconvenient corner, The Real Housewives of Atlanta. 

And the violence began to escalate. 

It was getting crazy and dangerous. 

So I put up a notice on Facebook asking someone to take Pearl before she ate Sophie's liver with a side of fava beans. 

I got a few offers but |I couldn't let her go. She was Viggo's best friend, and separating them would have been cruel.

Then a Facebook friend recommended that I call a guy who calls himself The Dog Father. Dan Lafortune specializes in working with dogs who have severe behavioral issues.

I called him up, and he came over.

Within ten minutes, he had the three dogs lying at his feet. On his order, the dogs waited at the top of the stairs while we practised answering the door. He even had them eating in the same room.

It was just like a YouTube video and I was the YouTube idiot.

Dan explained what I already knew: that I make a lousy Alpha Dog. In my house, the only thing I'm in charge of is the remote.

So Pearl had to make a decision.

She was going to the Queen of St. Laurent Boulevard, sans dragons, of course. 

Dan spent two hours with my pack, explained the importance of the daily walk and a feeding regime. 

"You have to be the Fonz," he said, as he threw his shoulders back and tossed a look at the dogs who were laying on their backs with big poo eating grins on their faces.

He then showed me how to walk the three so they didn't walk me.

When Scott got home, I was pumped. I showed him all the techniques and we began our training in earnest.

That was November.

Today, the dogs are perfectly behaved and all sleep at my feet and obey my commands.

They wait on top of the stairs for company to enter before they are given the command to approach.

They sleep together, complete each other's sentences and wonder whatever happened to that crazy woman who used to live in the basement, but who is now once again cohabitating with her mate.

Yeah, right.

I've taken to dog training the way I took to learning French.

I order beer and I get Coke. 

And the dogs just laugh at me.

But thanks to Dan, I have developed my own regime which seems to work.

Viggo and Pearl sleep with Scott upstairs while Sophie snuggles with me every night.

Pearl and Sophie take shifts being put in a bedroom with a few toys.

Viggo is still a gigantic asshole, and pukes up Scott's Calvin Klein's. 

When they are together, Pearl and Sophie are on leash the whole time.

It's not perfect, but believe it or not, the dogs are happy.

Thank the Lord for leashes and crates.

And I can say confidently, my life will be this way until either Sophie or Pearl die.