Hello Everyone!
I am so excited to be a member of a Berner forum. We have two wonderful Berners at home. A perfect, brilliant and adorable three year old girl-Mirabelle and a precious, (trouble making) 9 1/2 week old puppy-Ollie. Getting Mirabelle changed our lives. We fell hopelessly in love with her and with the breed. It has been a full year since we began our search for a boy Berner to join our family. Now that we have brought him home I am both excited and slightly terrified to do it all over again. I look forward to getting to know everyone here and to sharing our triumphs and stories and crazy-cute photos with fellow Berner lovers.
Thanks!
-Ashley

We also have 2 Berners, a nearly 4 yr girl and nearly 2 yr boy. It's been quite the adventure, having 2 dogs. We were very careful to always have Shady "number one" dog when Leo was a puppy; she got her food bowl put down first, she was first into the truck for drives, first to go out, first to get a marrow bone; you get the picture. It has worked very well - now they are best of friends and Shady, a supremely confident dog, will often lay and let Leo win at their wrestling matches, but when push comes to shove, she lets him know who the boss is and puts him in his place. He needs that kind of guidance-he likes to test limits! Shady is also a "perfect" dog and whenever we need the dogs to quickly obey us, we need only call Shady and Leo will watch her and follow her lead. As long as we have Shady under control, we also have Leo under control. He is a very exhuberant and happy dog who doesn't know his own strength and size so it's important we keep him controlled. We have a small acreage, unfenced, so for the first year we only took Leo out on lead or if we were out there with him; we practiced "come" frequently (with a treat reward) now we let both dogs freely outside, checking on them every 1/2 hour and they are "stay at home" dogs.
I take them walking at local parks and on the river and they are wonderful on lead. We get many comments on the "twins". I have met many people who just want to chat with me and admire the 2 dogs, who usually lay quietly while I talk.
I sometimes rue the time I spend at grooming (not to mention daily vacuuming) when they are shedding and let me tell you, males have a whole lot more hair than females but I wouldn't trade either of them for a million dollars. They are best of companions with each other, fantastic with our young grandson and the latest addition to our house, a young tabby cat.

This is wonderful advice. It has been hard to put our older dog first as the pup demands so much attention. he has very little self control. Having been from a litter of only two dogs this pup has never developed patience or frustration tolerance. He got what he wanted when he wanted it. Which means if he doesn't get what he wants immediately he throws a fit or lashes out. Mirabelle, his older sister, is a saint. We have Ollie in class and we are clicker training him at home. He is wonderful at certain things: sit, front, paw, down and touch-he has those down. But he has also bitten the teacher when she separated him from his friend to start class-he is very bratty and we are struggling. I will work harder to make sure Mirabelle knows that she is the number one dog. Thank you so much for all of your advice!
-Ashley Mirabelle and Olivander