Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum and apologise for such a long first post but hope that you might be able to help us out!

We have two pedigree Bichon Frises, two brothers, both a year and a half old.  We got the first one when he was 5 months old and had been at the breeders/kennels from birth, then his brother a month later as company for the first one.

They are totally different in character - the first one is relaxed, loving, quiet (most of the time!) and fairly well behaved.  The second has always been very hectic, erratic, noisy, a bully to his brother, etc etc!!

We have had toilet training problems from the start - obviously when we got them they were 5 months old so into bad habits and difficult to train, also we've possibly not gone the best way about training them, being fairly inexperienced.  We started off by confining them to our kitchen/extension when we were out or in bed with paper down for them to use.  Its quite a large area and although they did use the paper a lot, they also peed and pood everywhere else!!  Eventually we bought a large "stair gate" which we used to confine them to the extension only, still a decent area for them but not too big.  They continued to relieve themselves absolutely everywhere, including on their own bedding.  After taking advice from the vet, we bought two good sized cages and confined them to them when we were not there.  The calmer one of the two dogs has immediately stopped soiling - he loves his bed, I think he gets peace and quiet from his brother and can play with his toys without being bullied or having them stolen from him!!  The hectic one continues to make a mess in his cage, all over his bedding, out the side of the cage etc.

Also (sorry to go on!!), but the hectic one has always been a problem as far as barking goes, he incessantly whines/yelps/barks when we are not there, to the extent that when we come to see him he is worked up, covered in slobber and panting very fast, it can't be good for him.

They are walked twice daily (99% of the time), first thing in the morning and last thing at night - they always do 1s and 2s each time they're walked - 2s are no longer a problem, but we still have the wee (and barking) problem with the one of them, every time without fail, even if we only pop to the shop for 5 minutes or something.

We are at our wits end and have even considered rehoming the problem dog, but despite his problems we are still inevitably attached to him so don't want to unless we really have to.  The reason we may HAVE to is that we have a baby on the way, due in August!  Hygiene has got to come first and we can't have the current situation with a baby in the house.

One last thing, a local breeder paid us to mate ours with her bitch (tonight and last night) - we tried with the problem dog first and he was not in the slightest bit interested, didn't get aroused and just wanted to jump on her (in a playful, rather than mating, way) - we swapped them over and the other dog did the business within minutes!  Incidentally, I have never seen anything like that in my life, quite an experience!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this (if you've got this far!!), any help or advice would very much be appreciated!

Cheers,

Mark.