March 2006
Monthly Archive
Training17 Mar 2006 09:07 pm
In a previous housetraining post, I mentioned Poochie Bells, a housetraining aid. We got our Poochie Bells yesterday.
I’d say that Chester is maybe 80% housetrained now. It’s rare that he has an accident; maybe once every couple of weeks or so. But he isn’t very good at signaling to us when he needs to go out.
He doesn’t whine. He doesn’t pant. He doesn’t wiggle. Sometimes I could tell just from his behavior; he’d be nervous and pacing back and forth. And sometimes he would go to the back door. But sometimes there was just no signal.
Mostly we’ve been taking him out on a schedule. I knew that once he finished his walk, and done his business, he was usually good for about 4 or 5 hours. Still, we have to watch him a lot, looking for signals. It’s frustrating at times, because you want to relax occasionally, too.
I hung up our Poochie Bells as soon as we got them. Chester happened to need to go out then, so I rang the bells for him (which seemed to scare him), gave our command (”go outside”), and took him out.
Two hours later my husband came home. We were talking, and Chester went over to the back door. I didn’t think he needed to go, since it hadn’t been that long, so we continued to talk. Chester went back to the door, but we continued to ignore him. And then he rang the bell!
We dutifully took Chester outside, where he promptly laid down. Great, he didn’t really have to go, we figure. But I said walk him around a little anyway, just in case, and sure enough within a minute he’d pooped. We were astounded.
This morning he went to the back door again shortly after we fed him. Now, you must understand that Chester has never been a normal puppy who needs to go right after eating. So again, I assumed he didn’t have to go, and tried to get him back into playing. He went back to the door, but I called him over again. However, when a little piece of poop flew out, I realized he really had to go — but he never rang the bell.
No biggie. I didn’t think he’d learned it that quickly. Normally we go out for our morning walk around 9 - 9:30. But Chester didn’t seem to need to go then, and it’s a cool day. I didn’t want to take him out if he didn’t really need to go, so I decided to wait and see if he’d ring the bell.
He was with me in the living room, mostly snoozing in the dog/cat bed. He got up a few times to play, but always came back to the bed. Then around 10:40, he got up and headed toward the back door. He stood there, and after a few seconds, he rang the bell! And yes, when I took him outside, he pee’d.
Actually, I was so excited that I just opened the door and let him out, minus his harness and leash! I didn’t even realize what I’d done for a few seconds, but then it dawned on me. Luckily, he kept looking back at me in surprise, and I was able to easily pick him up & bring him back in to get him suited up properly. I still can’t believe I did that.
Even though Chester isn’t always ringing the bell yet, he is going and standing by the back door more. It’s almost as if he now truly understands that’s what he needs to do in order to go outside.
I’ll keep you updated with how it goes, but I must say so far I’m extremely impressed. I have no commercial interest in this company. And you don’t need to buy Poochie Bells, either, you can use any bell.
Technorati Tags: housetraining, Poochie Bells, a housetraining aid, accident, signaling, schedule, bells
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Behavior15 Mar 2006 09:30 pm
Yesterday I was harvesting some asparagus from my very neglected garden (luckily asparagus is a perennial that just comes back year after year). It was really way past its prime, and I was sure how it would taste, but I decided to give it a try, anyway.
I brought the asparagus inside, and began cutting it up. Simba appeared out of nowhere and began demanding his share. Simba is a rather strange cat, he’d actually train for things like carrots and asparagus and red bell pepper (the weirdest thing I’ve seen a cat eat).
I never intended to give him red bell pepper, either, but he demands that, too. He’s picky, too: it must be red bell pepper, not green bell pepper. I can’t blame him for having good taste, after all.
Gizmo is much more of a cat. He doesn’t like much people food at all. He’ll come running when he sees me give Simba a carrot, for instance, but then he just looks so disappointed.
Chester, I swear, is a walking stomach. He’s always on the lookout for food. He’s slowly getting better about begging, but it’s a slow road. He likes carrots, too, but I found out giving him a whole baby carrot wasn’t a good idea: the second one he ate he promptly got stuck in his lower jaw and it took both of us to get it out.
He will train for carrots, too. We took a long walk at a local hike and bike trail today. I sat down in a gazebo about midway, and had a couple of cookies I’d brought along. I had Chester do sit-stays and down-stays for carrots (already cut up). I’m working on getting him to obey the down command when I’m standing or sitting. He’s gotten used to us being right next to him when we give the signal, but doesn’t want to do it if I give the signal while standing. After just a couple of sessions concentrating on that he’s gotten much better.
Chester also adores banana, he liked the asparagus, too, but had trouble eating it. He liked apples, but once again had trouble eating it. I’ll have to try him out on a few more veggies. I know that it’s important to expose them to a wide variety of food while they’re still young, since they often become much pickier as they get older.
Technorati Tags: asparagus, red bell pepper, carrot, down command, veggies
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Training07 Mar 2006 07:59 pm
The basic premise behind housetraining dogs is that you want to limit the number of inside accidents that happen. The theory being that the more the dog goes inside, the more he thinks it’s okay to go inside.
The problem comes with just how does your dog tell you it’s time to go out? In order to be able to keep an eye of Chester, we block off the house into smaller partitions. We took about an x-pen and use part of it to block off one hallway, then use a baby gate to block off the entrance to the kitchen.
This allows us to keep him in the office, in the family room, in the kitchen and family room, in the kitchen only, in the kitchen and living room, or in the living room only. But here’s where the catch comes in: he can’t get to the back door from most of those locations.
If he’s in the living room, for instance, and he goes to the baby gate, I’ll often assume that he either needs a drink of water or needs to go out. So I’ll open the gate, and see what he does. Usually he runs right back to the mat that’s under where the cats are fed, and cleans up any remnants he can find (despite the fact that they are only fed twice a day, just like him).
But if he goes to the back door after that, I’ll assume that he needs to go out.
The only problem is that sometimes he just wants to go outside, but he doesn’t have to go to the bathroom. This can be very frustrating if it happens a lot. Most days, if Chester gets his walk in the morninig, this doesn’t happen. Yesterday I was sick, and I just wasn’t up to walking him. But then he went to the back door at 9, at 10, and at 11. But he didn’t need to go to the bathroom until almost noon. I was not real happy with him, considering all I wanted to do was lay on the couch.
I have been considering teaching him to ring a bell when he needs to go out. Most dogs get the hang of this quickly. One option is Poochie Bells (or you can just rig up bells yourself. Another option I’ve come across is the electronic pet doorbell
I only have two concerns, which is why I haven’t done this yet:
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He’ll ring the bells when he wants to go out, not just when he “needs” to go out.
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The cats (who are larger than Chester) will also love to ring the bells, and I’ll still be getting up more than necessary (how lazy does that sound?).
Now that Chester doesn’t need to go out so frequently, though, I’m leaning more towards trying this. The worst that can happen is it doesn’t work — and then we can just take it down. The best that will happen is that it works, and we don’t have to watch him like a hawk at certain times any more.
Yesterday Chester only needed to go out four times to do his business. I think we ended up actually going out about ten. He’s getting neutered tomorrow, so from what I’ve heard there will be some regression for a few days. But we’re now getting to the point where I can actually get things done — sometimes.
Technorati Tags: housetraining dogs, accidents, baby gate, Poochie Bells
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Uncategorized04 Mar 2006 02:37 pm
Last Monday, Gizmo jumped up on the top of the couch and curled up behind me, as the cats often do. Not long afterward, Simba did the same by the other shoulder.
The truly amazing thing is that shortly after both boys curled up with me, Chester jumped up into my lap. Normally, when Chester jumps up on the couch, Gizmo will leave. Not only did he not leave, but a couple of minutes later he moved down into the cat/dog bed a mere six inches away from Chester. That’s unprecedented.
He didn’t stay there long, maybe five minutes, but that’s only because we were having work done outside the house and he heard something that drew the three of them over to the window.
That’s not the first time I’ve had all three of them side by side, but it’s the first time it’s happened on its own with no treats.
Many people throw animals together and figure out they’ll sort it out on their own; and often they do. But sometimes they don’t. And sometimes all you’ll ever get with that sort of introduction is tolerance. That may be all I’ll ever get from Gizmo toward Chester, but I still hope for more. It’s been three months now, and they’re definitely making progress.
I found when I introduced Puss to the boys, it took about four months before she even began to get comfortable with them. I think part of that is just the time getting used to each other, and part of it is that they begin to mellow out (slightly) around six months of age.
The pictures I have here aren’t of Chester and Gizmo, because unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures that day. However, yesterday, Chester was curled up once again in the cat/dog bed. Simba decided to curl up next to him — which is not terribly unusual, as I’ve had them curled up somewhat close together quite a few times; but never as close as they were yesterday.
Look closely at the first picture, and you’ll see that Chester actually has his leg on Simba. The really interesting thing about this picture is that if it were Gizmo curled up in the bed intially, chances are he would have jumped off or Simba would have made him jump off. Simba actually seems to be more tolerant of Chester in some ways than of Gizmo. Maybe it harks back to the fact that Chester is still a puppy, and Simba is cutting him slack. Or maybe he just likes Chester spunkiness.
Technorati Tags: introduction
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