She was always a dominant one while playing with other dogs, this was obvious from a very beginning and I liked that quality in her. With all the difficulties the terrier brings into your life there is a plenty of joy to compensate with.
As she was getting older I started noticing some first signs of aggressive behavior - crazy barking while passing other dogs we'd met on walks, however when she had a chance to play with them I did not see any signs of aggression.
One morning in June of 2007 I was walking my dog when I ran into a man and a yorkie. This really wasn't an unusual situation as we would run into many people and dogs on our walks all the time. As the person and the dog approached and the dog started their ceremonial sniffing of each other I sensed the tension between them, but before I had a chance to do something about it, one of them growled and a fight started. I still cannot tell you who initiated it. Needless to say that when 30 lbs dog gets into a fight with a 5lbs one the result is pretty bad. This was such a shock that I have decided that this is a time for an intervention by a professional. Brandy was about 18 months old then. Luckily for me and her, the yorkie recovered quickly and because the yorkie's owner and I both felt at fault, he didn't report me to the authorities, but I had an expensive vet bill to pay.
Now, how would you go about finding a professional? I went online and found a yahoo group dedicated to dog aggression. The answer to me was: " go to dogpro.org and find a trainer", and so I did. I have to say that I found that it extremely hard to evaluate a dog trainer, and I was mistaken that every person listed on that site is highly qualified to train my dog. Every dog trainer you would fine online would have a nice website with plenty of testimonials from their clients saying how he/she was able to transformed their Fido into a perfect dog. So picked one that seemed qualified and made my call.
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