On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:28:28 -0700, Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to
reply wrote:

[...]
Timeline on this: I got the puppy. I looked on the Web for information
on housebreaking, evaluated what I read as far as logic and apparent
credibility of the site, and followed it. It didn't work the way they
said it would. So now I am going back to the drawing board and trying
to get interactive help.

Look, Melinda, I know you're frustrated here. But housebreaking is
actually a pretty simple endeavor, if you'll keep just one thought in
mind.

"*I* just can't let my puppy make mistakes in the house."

Got that? You can't let her make mistakes in the house. Period. Not
one more mistake! Essentially. each mistake that *you* allow her to
make, takes it all back to Square One.

Every single time she "goes" from now on must be outside, not inside.
Eventually she'll become *classically conditioned* to "going" outside
and not inside. Just the sights, sounds, and smells of being outside
will become associated with "going" outside (just like Pavlov's dog
would automatically drool whenever it would hear the bell ring).

You already know about crates and tethers, and those two tools can get
you where you want to go, but *you* have to stop looking for a silver
bullet, because they're isn't one. It all comes down to how
determined, how creative, how quick, and how observant *you* are.

This isn't about your puppy. It's about *you.*

*You* can't let her make even one more mistake.

No matter what you have to do to prevent it.

Period.

No excuses!

Good luck!

--
Handsome Jack Morrison

George Soros: The man behind the "reality-based" community.
http://www.investors.com/editorial/e...75181103776079

If moms ran the world.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/09/dr_helen.php

A typical member of the "reality-based" community, and how he feels about 9/11.
http://tinyurl.com/yramgz

Is there a trial lawyer in the house?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=22484

Want nannyism? Want government-run health care? Read this:
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/122599.html

When your son joins the Army.
http://www.examiner.com/a-943079~Mar...he_Army .html

Islam, the Marxism of Our Time.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon2007-09-17td.html

Hmmmm. About that recent Israeli strike at Syria...
http://formerspook.blogspot.com/2007...w-details.html

Global Warming Leads to Record Ice Levels in Antarctica! Take that, Al Gore!
"It’s hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now."
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/joes-b...tal_ice_extent

Some "consensus," eh?
"Less Than Half of all Published Scientists Endorse Global Warming Theory"
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.c...c-6880767e7966

The "reality-based" community: Hopelessly Devoted to Failure.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q...ZhYjU5ZjEzNDE=

Handsome Jack Morrison wrote:

You already know about crates and tethers, and those two tools can get
you where you want to go, but *you* have to stop looking for a silver
bullet, because they're isn't one. It all comes down to how
determined, how creative, how quick, and how observant *you* are.

Don't worry. I'm not looking for a quick and easy answer. I'm looking
for something tried and true. The crating thing didn't work because she
refused to "go" outside. The tethering thing seems to be kinder than
keeping her crated and less Mom-intensive than taking her out every 15
minutes all day long. It looks like it could turn out to be pretty
effective in helping me remember about her instead of forget her when I
have a deadline I have to meet as well, which is the biggest problem.
It is also turning out to be very interesting as well. She actually
barked this afternoon trying to go to the bathroom, and she needed to go
potty, so I took her out. Maybe the people who had her before me had
had her paper trained in their bathroom. That actually would explain a
*lot*.

Your thoughts are very gratefully received, and I can handle that. I
had thought I was a failure because this one place said that using a
crate to housetrain a dog would work in 2 weeks. If it doesn't, I can
handle that. She may be stubborn, and she comes close to matching my
stubborn, but I am the alpha and I hold all the cards, so eventually she
is going to have to come around.

I just don't want to do anything wrong and cause her problems. The
little voice in me said that leaving her in a crate all day long because
she refuses to go potty wasn't working, but I think that tethering her
to me will. *chuckle* She already after two days knows which leash is
the "go for a walk leash" (the retractable one) and which leash is the
"tethered to Mom" leash and reacts accordingly. She doesn't like it, of
course, poor baby, but nothing worth accomplishing was ever easy.

--
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your
work with excellence.

In article ,
Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply
wrote:


But you haven't helped teach her how to tell you or been observant of
signs (they exist, trust me on that one) or offered adequate supervision.

With all due respect, do you think I would have come asking for more
information on the NG if I already knew it?.

I don't think you understood what I wrote. You expect her to give you a
signal, but she hasn't been living a life where she has had an
opportunity to give you a signal. I think that is changing now that
you're not keeping her in a crate all day, and tethering so she can be
better supervised, but it will take TIME.

Timeline on this: I got the puppy. I looked on the Web for information
on housebreaking, evaluated what I read as far as logic and apparent
credibility of the site, and followed it. It didn't work the way they
said it would. So now I am going back to the drawing board and trying
to get interactive help.

Don't know who "they" are, but sticking a puppy in a crate and expecting
magic doesn't cut it. The dictate of housebreaking will always be the
same - an eagle eye of supervision and a good schedule.

This sounds like an unproductive type of critical, sarcastic response.

Sorry, but dogs ARE individuals and you are "demanding" that your puppy
have the same patterns as your other dogs. That isn't productive. I
could expect Rudy to have the same capacity as Lucy, but that won't make
it true.

--
Janet Boss
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

Janet Boss spoke these words of wisdom
in :

In article ,
Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply
wrote:


But you haven't helped teach her how to tell you or been observant of
signs (they exist, trust me on that one) or offered adequate
supervision.

With all due respect, do you think I would have come asking for more
information on the NG if I already knew it?.

I don't think you understood what I wrote. You expect her to give you a
signal, but she hasn't been living a life where she has had an
opportunity to give you a signal. I think that is changing now that
you're not keeping her in a crate all day, and tethering so she can be
better supervised, but it will take TIME.

Timeline on this: I got the puppy. I looked on the Web for
information on housebreaking, evaluated what I read as far as logic and
apparent credibility of the site, and followed it. It didn't work the
way they said it would. So now I am going back to the drawing board
and trying to get interactive help.

Don't know who "they" are, but sticking a puppy in a crate and expecting
magic doesn't cut it. The dictate of housebreaking will always be the
same - an eagle eye of supervision and a good schedule.

This sounds like an unproductive type of critical, sarcastic response.

Sorry, but dogs ARE individuals and you are "demanding" that your puppy
have the same patterns as your other dogs. That isn't productive. I
could expect Rudy to have the same capacity as Lucy, but that won't make
it true.


Melinda, before you get defensive, PLEASE read what Janet just wrote. The
housebreaking of your puppy depends on it.

I quite responding to you, when you jumped all over me when i said it was
not reasonable for your puppy to be like your other dogs. Every dog has a
different metabolism and capacity. Yes, you can ask a dog to try to
evacuate on queue (which usually works quite well with urine, but poop..
not so much)

You claim "I am a teachable person (as opposed to the type of person who
says,
"Don't confuse me with the facts -- my mind is made up."),

Yet is seems your mind is made up.

Do your puppy a favor, quit blaming the puppy, blame your disabilities and
your unreasonable schedule, give the puppy a break, and please reread what
Janet said.

Janet Boss wrote:

I don't think you understood what I wrote. You expect her to give you a
signal,

I think it was you who misunderstood me. I never said that I expected
her to do it right now. I said that it was my goal, as in where I hoped
to end up.

opportunity to give you a signal. I think that is changing now that
you're not keeping her in a crate all day, and tethering so she can be
better supervised, but it will take TIME.


The housebreaking instructions I read on the web said that crating was
the way to housebreak a dog and you would be successful within 2 weeks,
that what you do is take them out in the morning and give them 5
minutes, if they don't go bring them back in and put them back in their
crate for (depending on who you read) something between 5 minutes and
one hour, and then take them back out again, then when she "goes"
outside, she is allowed an hour or two of outside-of-the-crate time
before getting crated again. The websites said this worked on all dogs,
and it was from someplace I would have expected to be reputable, and
although I can't remember what it was any more, the places I would
consider to be reputable would be a vet, a rescue group, etc.

Like I said, though, it was obvious that this was not working, and it
was killing me to be going out to get her to potty every 15 minutes for
hours on end, so I came here asking for help with why this method wasn't
working.

I don't mind if it takes time. I can be slow to pick up on new things
myself sometimes.

Timeline on this: I got the puppy. I looked on the Web for information
on housebreaking, evaluated what I read as far as logic and apparent
credibility of the site, and followed it. It didn't work the way they
said it would. So now I am going back to the drawing board and trying
to get interactive help.

Don't know who "they" are, but sticking a puppy in a crate and expecting
magic doesn't cut it.


There are lots of pages on house training dogs out there that say that
crating is the answer, because a dog will never soil its own den. I
didn't see *anything* out there that talked about tethering a dog to you
to watch them, or I would have already tried it and be on my way to
succeeding without having to come here and ask for help.

The dictate of housebreaking will always be the
same - an eagle eye of supervision and a good schedule.

Too bad you didn't say that to start with instead of telling me all the
things you thought I was doing wrong. We could have avoided a lot of mess.

This sounds like an unproductive type of critical, sarcastic response.

Sorry, but dogs ARE individuals and you are "demanding" that your puppy
have the same patterns as your other dogs. That isn't productive. I
could expect Rudy to have the same capacity as Lucy, but that won't make
it true.

I never, EVER said that I demanded anything. You certainly must have
mis-read what I wrote if you thought that that I was demanding anything.
I said that was my goal. A goal is a goal. It doesn't mean that you
end up there. But if you have no goal, how will you know that you have
succeeded? And if a goal doesn't work, then you change it.

I still stick to my premise, though, that for the long run, it is
reasonable to expect her either to wait until the next regular general
potty break *OR* to let me know she needs to go out. If she could do
that now, she would be going out as often as she needs to and the
problem would have already been solved.

--
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your
work with excellence.

In article ,
Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply wrote:
There are lots of pages on house training dogs out there that say that
crating is the answer, because a dog will never soil its own den.

Well, this can be one way to teach a dog to soil its own den
(and live in the filth).

I
didn't see *anything* out there that talked about tethering a dog to you
to watch them, or I would have already tried it and be on my way to
succeeding without having to come here and ask for help.

I'm a little surprised by that because tethering is so
common. I like it because it necessitates interactions
between you and the dog that you don't get with crating.
The dog learns to look to you to go out and that tends to
grow into asking you to go out. Also, you can see what the
dog is doing and learn to recognize signs that the dog needs
to go out.

I've had good experiences with both crating and tethering.
In fact, I had one dog who was given away by her previous
owner because they said she couldn't be house-trained, and
crating did the trick in a couple of days. But in general I
prefer tethering.

I still stick to my premise, though, that for the long run, it is
reasonable to expect her either to wait until the next regular general
potty break *OR* to let me know she needs to go out.

If the dog is messing in the house I'd start with the
premise that she doesn't know anything. Start from scratch.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply spoke
these words of wisdom in :


I still stick to my premise, though, that for the long run, it is
reasonable to expect her either to wait until the next regular general
potty break *OR* to let me know she needs to go out. If she could do
that now, she would be going out as often as she needs to and the
problem would have already been solved.


It is reasonable in the LONG run, but some breeds historically take MUCH
longer than others. Since you have allowed this to continue for so long,
it's also going to take much longer.

Tethering and crate training, as well as keeping an eagle eye are critical
(AKA MANAGEMENT)

Some breeds are simply very difficult. Often to the point, it's mentioned
even in the breed description.


Some breeds are easy. My current dog was the most difficult of his breed
to housebreak that I ever encountered. By the time he was a latter part
of 6 weeks old, he was finally housetrained. And I worked HARD at it.

And yes, commitment and the time it takes to housebreak a puppy is
exhausting. It's not for the impatient. It's the reason people often opt
for older dogs. Because it's hard, involving weeks of sleepless nights,
and eagle eyes.

You have a considerable amount of self investment in the housebreaking
process of any breeds. And in some breeds that personal investment is much
greater than others.


The harder you work at focusing and investing that effort, the sooner the
payoff. Housebreaking a dog is NOT a painless and effortless endeavor.


Good luck!

Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply wrote:

The housebreaking instructions I read on the web said ...


I haven't read this whole thread so I may be jumping in with something
that's been said before. If so, suffer through a repetition. If not,
this might help.


Dogs get in the habit of pottying in one place, and their sense of smell
tells them where the usual spot is. If your dog has made a mistake in
the house or even in the crate, clean with Nature's Miracle. Do this
even if the mistake was weeks ago. Clean every carpet and floor in your
house with it. Do whatever else you can to make the place you don't
want the dog to go look and smell new and different. With one
hard-to-housetrain dog we met on this group, I suggested painter's
dropcloths to signal to the dog that the hallway where she was in the
habit of going wasn't the hallway anymore.


For the outside, normally you would pick up poop immediately, but in
this case, if you do get a success, leave it on your own property to
establish the habit. (You still have to pick up from your neighbors'.)
Your dog should be allowed to snuffle around a bit for the exact spot
he wants to poop outside, and if that means snuffling some previous
poop, let that be O.K. for the short while you're establishing the habit.


I am not advocating leaving poop around! I'm saying it should be O.K.,
OUTSIDE, in the approved potty place, for a short time, while you're
working on housetraining.


--Lia

diddy wrote:

I quite responding to you, when you jumped all over me when i said it was
not reasonable for your puppy to be like your other dogs. Every dog has a
different metabolism and capacity. Yes, you can ask a dog to try to
evacuate on queue (which usually works quite well with urine, but poop..
not so much)

*puzzled look* Okay, somewhere somebody is not reading what I say with
the same attitude I am writing it in. Honestly, please believe me that
I am not jumping on anybody. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, I
am not. I am just trying to reconcile the new information I am being
given here with what I read on sites that I would consider reputable all
over the web -- breeders sites, vet sites, rescue group sites, etc.
What you are saying is stuff I have never, ever heard before (and yes, I
am going to call my vet on Monday morning and ask them about feeding my
dog three times a day, but when I was in there last they asked about
feeding and I told them she was being fed twice a day and they said
nothing about needing to feed her more often than that).

So all of what you are saying is rather foreign to my comprehension, and
for me that leaves me to re-evaluate everything that contradicts what
you are telling to try to figure out what to do with it -- that's just
me and the way my brain works. Sort of like if you are putting
something together and you get to the last piece and it doesn't fit, you
can't just jam the piece in, you have to take it all back apart and
start over, and that means that you have to go back through pieces you
used and say, "Where does this go?" Maybe that piece was from another
puzzle and thrown in the box by mistake. Questioning where the piece
goes does not mean that you don't want to put the puzzle together
correctly.

You claim "I am a teachable person (as opposed to the type of person who
says,
"Don't confuse me with the facts -- my mind is made up."),

Yet is seems your mind is made up.

No, it's not made up. Seriously, if it was, I would not have bothered
to come to ask for help. I realize that a popular theory these days is
that nobody really wants advice, they just want to hear what they want
to hear, but that is not me. I genuinely appreciate people who are
willing to show me my blind spots. The nice guy who gave the simple
answer that if crating didn't work, tethering was the answer and that if
it took longer than two weeks, it still fell within the range of normal
answered the question I asked without trying to tell me a whole bunch of
other stuff he thought I was doing wrong.

But when I come here and ask about housebreaking and am told I don't let
her out often enough, I let her out too much, she gets too much play
time, she doesn't get enough play time, I don't feed her enough, yadda
yadda yadda, I keep trying to figure out where to put all this
extraneous information rather than go down rabbit trails, and it reminds
me of the Aesop's fable about the old man, the boy, and the donkey who
listened to and followed everybody's advice and ended up with their
donkey drowning. So naturally because it makes me feel that way I am
going to back up a bit and say, "Whoa, Nellie! You're telling me 57
different things, and I can't take it all at once!"

And given that Usenet is not necessarily as credible as a web site put
out by a reputable entity and given that many Usenet groups are prone to
infighting, I hope you understand if I don't automatically swallow
everything I am told without question but try to make sense of it first.


Do your puppy a favor, quit blaming the puppy, blame your disabilities and
your unreasonable schedule, give the puppy a break, and please reread what
Janet said.

I'm not blaming her for anything. I'm just looking for a alternative
housebreaking method to the one that was not working. She's just a
young dog, one who is eager to please, and I know she isn't doing this
deliberately. I just needed the right key to unlock things.

You folks would do people like me a great service if you could put your
tethering method of housebreaking out there somewhere for people to find
it when they are doing internet research.


--
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your
work with excellence.

Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply spoke
these words of wisdom in :


And given that Usenet is not necessarily as credible as a web site put
out by a reputable entity and given that many Usenet groups are prone to
infighting, I hope you understand if I don't automatically swallow
everything I am told without question but try to make sense of it first.



Anyone can put up a website.

Anyone can answer on usenet.

Either can be credible.. or not so much..


Tethering is simply tying the puppy to your belt as an umbilical cord, so
you have a connection . This keeps the puppy from wandering off into some
secluded private places to do it's deeds. Nothing mystical or mysterious
about it, it simply allows you to watch the puppy more closely. The
tethering does not do the housebreaking, and is not a substition for
eyeballing the dog.

You STILL have to watch the dog. Nothing magical about the tethering..
YOU still have to do the work.

You folks would do people like me a great service if you could put your
tethering method of housebreaking out there somewhere for people to find
it when they are doing internet research.



The absolute BEST book I've ever seen written on housebreaking puppies is
http://www.amazon.com/Evans-Guide-Ho.../dp/0876055420

It's comprehensive and covers every single pitfall of housebreaking your
dog and approaches it from every angle. If you look at Amazon, you will
see used books available for one cent PLUS S&H.

Worth every penny.

If you follow that book to the letter, you WILL have a housebroken puppy.

If you put your own interpretation on it, your results may vary.


I'm not sure if they cover tethering in it or not. But certainly any dog
free time outside the crate, would be tethered in my house. All times a
dog is loose, it MUST be watched. ALWAYS. NO exceptions.

That's the pains of housebreaking a dog. When it's done, you will be
exhausted, sleep deprived and proud that you accomplished it. Very Very
proud. Housebreaking a puppy is not painless on your part and is an
achievement.



And there are breeds (especially smaller ones) that make this process
challenging.

The Evans Guide to Housebreaking Puppies covers feeding schedules,
exercise schedules and medical issues as well.