OK! I just got my new puppy yesterday (and got to drive for another 4 hours home :P).
We were very tired and bought the cheapest baby gate we could find. However it's not long enough to cut off the kitchen from the rest of the room, so we put up a box right next to the gate and made sure that it's sturdy. It held without any problem.
However, I think my puppy is a little too smart, haha. He was able to take down our set-up within an hour (and also rip apart my fiance's book cover), and he's most likely taken down our most recent try to set up a sturdy gate.
I asked someone from PetCo and he said to try getting a better gate and changing the screws out to be better ones, but the problem is that we live in an apartment and we can't put screws into the cabinets. Does anyone have any other ideas that I could try?