Housetraining your dog is like taking a break in your day!

Just take your puppy/dog outside every 2 hours or so and reward them 3 treats as soon as they are finished (within 2-3 seconds after they are done). Therefore, they will quickly learn they are being rewarded for going outside yet they get nothing inside. If they go inside and you don’t see them do it then I would just ignore it and clean it up when they are not in the room. If you catch them in the act then I would say “No, no, no, Outside, outside, outside” then reward when they go outside.

I would consider going out with them every 2 hours and of course after they wake up from a sleep, after a good play, after they have taken a good drink of water. The key is to reward when they eliminate outside immediately after they are finished so they will continue to give you this behaviour.

I can’t believe it’s been six months since we brought Wellie home from Animatch and she became a part of our family.

This has been a good month. The dogs have finally settling into a routine of having me working from home and things are going well.

Initiating the routine for Wellie’s crating has been integral in her progress. It hasn’t been perfect, but she is so much better and we are feeling much more confident about her housetraining.

Every once and a while, Wellie regresses back and lets us know she’s unhappy about something – last week I was out the front speaking with my brother-in-law and Wellie peed in the front hallway because she was unhappy that I didn’t take her out there with me. Next time I’m speaking with someone outside, she’ll be outside, tethered to Thomas, or crated. We learn from our mistakes and move on!

We went to Toronto to visit with my parents this month and I’ve found that Wellie reverts back to her old self when we are in other people’s houses so we’ve been making sure to tether her at all times when she’s out of the crate. I made the mistake of letting her off at my parents house on a few occasions and she had two “accidents”. One was purely her letting me know she was mad, and the other she was playing around with Sonnet and she just stopped and pooped. I think maybe she didn’t realize how much she had to go.

Since we’ve been back home again we’ve been on track and there have been no accidents. We’ve even gone so far as to replace the rug in our living room, which we discovered after feeding some wires under it, that the dogs had been using it as a pee pad for goodness knows how long. Ew. We definitely rustled up some smells that day! Continue reading →

Once again it feels like forever since the last post about Wellie. This month has been full I tell you.

First up, almost immediately following the last post was Westfest. It was a blast and we had a great time. On Saturday (the longer day) I brought Corduroy and she just loves it – she laps up the attention and still wants more. On Sunday I brought Wellie and she did really well for her first big festival. She was very well behaved and went on two long walks with Rolph, the dog walker for Bark & Fitz. The only thing was that she was a bit overwhelmed with all the people. I’ll probably just stick to bringing Corduroy next year, but it was nice for Wellie to go once just to experience it.

One thing I did find out during Westfest is that Wellie really hates skateboards. She actually went crazy nuts barking and trying to get to the skateboards when some kids were skating around at one point on Sunday. I’m not sure where that is coming from, but I’ll be sure to watch for the next time we see a skateboard and we’re not around a bajillion people, to really see what is setting her off about them. The sound? the fast pace?

Once again I wish I could report more success in housetraining, but I am sad to report it’s actually gotten a lot worse. Ugh. While we seem to have the pooing under control, as long as we make her go at her “usual” times (6am and 4pm), but it’s just the peeing now. Well to be honest, I don’t fully trust her not to poop inside yet either, but I’m sure she’ll earn that in time.

So the peeing. It’s not a physical issue, because she holds it every single night. It’s a choice – she’s choosing not to hold it and going all over the house. We haven’t been able to catch her (aside from last Saturday, which I’ll get to in a moment). And the funny thing is that she does it mostly while we are home. I am wondering if it’s something to do with attention seeking? What is working in the mornings is taking her out on a leash, I just don’t know how long I should keep this up for – taking her out on leash every morning. Every once and a while at 4pm if she’s not going poo and just wandering or wanting to go in the house, we’ll put her on leash again and walk her around the yard. I just don’t understand why she would rather always be inside than out – but then tries to dart out the front door every chance she gets. Ack! I think she is singlehandedly keeping the “pee stain remover” industry in business! haha. Continue reading →

It feels like it’s been forever since my 2 month (8 week) update on life with Wellie. It’s been a very busy few weeks and I have lots to report.

I was really hoping that by now we could happily report that Wellie was housetrained…but sadly it isn’t so. Wellie is still having accidents inside and has also now decided that our back lawn is extremely scary and won’t walk on it which makes housetraining all that much more difficult. She darts around the yard and sticks to the edges, or worse, does her business ON the deck. I am beginning to get nervous that her “scared-y-cat” phase has kicked in and we might be at this for a while. Corduroy had the same thing happen at around 13 months – but hers was a reaction to loud noises (especially the evil vacuum cleaner and stove fan). Wellie is 18 months now but I’ve heard the “scared-y-cat” issue can happen anytime up until the dog is two. Have any of you experienced this phase where they get afraid of things that never bothered them before? The grass never did anything to her! haha. Although it looks like we may have had a breakthrough this afternoon – she walked on the grass without much hesitation. Cross your fingers for us!

Since we are still having issues with house-training, we are trying to be diligent about sticking to a schedule. With the yard fear, Wellie has been taking ages to go poo in the mornings and has made me late for work on several occasions because we are out there for upwards of 30 minutes. Yesterday I got really mad at how long she was taking and decided that for the time being, every morning I will put her harness and leash on and give her 10 minutes to go. If she doesn’t go in that 10 minutes, we’ll come inside, have breakfast and go out to try for another 10 minutes. I don’t want her to think that she has 40 minutes to do her business in the mornings – it’s just not feasible. This morning was the first attempt at this and it went really well! She did both pee and poo in 10 minutes! Good girl! We shall see if she is still as good when it’s raining out – she still hates the rain.

Continue reading →

Crates if used correctly can be a very useful tool to help solve several behaviour challenges including housetraining, separation anxiety and chewing. Below are the steps that I would suggest to help the transition to a crate in a positive manner.

1. Set the crate in the corner of your room with the least amount of visibility to other areas of the house. Also, a blanket can be placed over the crate to help lessen the amount of visibility. What this will help is the puppy/dog has the least amount of area to guard while they are in their “cave”.

2. Then place a stuffed bone (canned dog food with kibble inside mixed in). You could also place raw carrots, apple slices, cheese or meats stuffed into interactive toys and hollow bones.

Last week we reached the 8 week/2 month mark with Wellie. I’ve decided now to shift to monthly reports, as she’s mellowing out and finding her place in our family very well so I don’t have much to report on a weekly basis.

I’ll be back on June 1st with the 3 month report on how everyone is doing. I’m sure I’ll have lots to report on house training and hopefully we will have made lost of progress by then!

See you in 3 weeks!

Read Week 8 here |Read Week 7 here |Read Week 6 here | Read Week 5 here | Read Week 4 here |Read Week 3 here | Read Week 2 here | Read Week 1 here | Read Welcome to Wellie here.