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

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.

Actually, I did. In my first response to you.

My apologies. I went and hunted up the thread on Google Groups. I
didn't remember your first response. What I did remember was your
telling me not to let her have so much play time outside combined with
that you didn't think I was willing to spend enough time to train her
properly, that you didn't think a goal of pottying every four hours plus
whenever she needed to go out besides that was a reasonable goal
combined with saying that she needed to go out more often than every
four hours, etc. It all seemed very contradictory and was very
confusing, and it seemed that no matter what I said, you found something
else wrong that, if you had seen the big picture instead of looking at
little things, you could have seen was not really accurate.

--
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 :

Janet Boss wrote:

Actually, I did. In my first response to you. I get it though. You
don't want to take your dog out frequently or pay attention.

That is absoluely not true, and if you had read everything I have
written, you would know that.

I thought I had read everything you had written and the overall impression
I got was that you have disabilities and a time schedule that makes
housebreaking the dog inconvenient and you don't like it, and would
prefer to blame the dog.

That's EXACTLY what I have surmised from your postings. I came to this
conclusion totally independently from Janet. So apparently what you write
is sending a different message from what you intend to write.

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

That makes sense. Just curious, do you put Haltis in the same category?

diddy wrote:

They are a management only tool and teach the dog nothing. If a Dog is
running forward with mass behind, it can hit the head collar doing
damage to the cervical vertebrae, and they are so blooming hard to fit
right. So many short nosed dogs can wriggle right out of them, and then
you have a loose dog.



yep

In article ,
Rocky wrote:

After these early series of outings, she's OK for a more
reasonable schedule.

And of course, that is under your totally watchful eye.

--
Janet Boss
www.bestfriendsdogobedience.com

diddy none wrote in :

I thought I had read everything you had written and the overall
impression I got was that you have disabilities and a time schedule
that makes housebreaking the dog inconvenient and you don't like it,
and would prefer to blame the dog.

That's EXACTLY what I have surmised from your postings. I came to this
conclusion totally independently from Janet. So apparently what you
write is sending a different message from what you intend to write.


Consider this a "me too" post.

I've been getting exactly that impression. Which is a huge reason why I
didn't bother.


Tara

diddy wrote:

I thought I had read everything you had written and the overall impression
I got was that you have disabilities and a time schedule that makes
housebreaking the dog inconvenient and you don't like it, and would
prefer to blame the dog.

That's EXACTLY what I have surmised from your postings. I came to this
conclusion totally independently from Janet. So apparently what you write
is sending a different message from what you intend to write.

Oh, dear. I am really sorry about that. Let me see if I can straighten
things out.

I work out of my home full-time. I don't punch a clock, but I do have
to get a certain amount of work done and have daily deadlines to meet,
so I *do* have to work. But I am at home working in a small house, and
Mimi basically stays in the same room with me and the other dogs and the
two cats while I am working, so she's around.

I don't especially "have disabilities" per se, but I have a little bit
of arthritis in my back and my knees that periodically gives me trouble,
and for the last two weeks, my back was having real problems. It's
getting better at this point. When my back and knees are fine, we can
go on half-mile walks. When they aren't, we have to go on quarter-mile
walks and at a slower pace.

I have always gotten older dogs and not had any real housebreaking
problems with them that didn't sort out quickly. This is the first
puppy I have gotten, and I have not had to housebreak a dog before, so
I'm sort of new at this.

I don't think it's inconvenient to have to housebreak her, but if going
for a full-scale walk is the only time she will go potty outside the
house but it takes multiple walks every morning for her to go potty to
the point that I am spending the entire morning taking her for walks
every 5-15 minutes waiting for her to go (like that one web site said to
do) instead of working, yeah, *that* is inconvenient. But that would
probably be inconvenient for anybody whose life didn't revolve around
their dog.

I am generally a fairly laid-back person, and the tethering thing with
watching for her to show signs of having to go and then taking her out
when she does seems to be working reasonably well and fits my style
better than the "let them out for five minutes first thing in the
morning and give them five minutes, and if they don't go, stick them
right back in the crate and wait (anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour
depending on which web site it was) and then take them out for another 5
minutes, and repeat until they finally go, then they can have an hour or
two of free time in the house until you stick them back in their crate
again for a while" advice that seems to proliferate all over the web
when you Google for "housebreaking a dog" does. But I cannot punch a
clock and put a dog on a rigid Phileas-Fogg-type schedule that doesn't
vary even a minute in either direction. It just doesn't work for me. I
also do best with uncomplicated things. As far as difficult in the
sense of taking a lot of will power, persistence, whatever, I have no
problem with that.

In perspective here as far as not wanting to be inconvenienced by things
that are difficult, I have one son who has cognitive thinking problems
and other miscellaneous problems, and I am used to having had to break
everythign down for him into small steps and working with him as long as
it took to help him succeed, and I have no problem doing that with a dog
also, which is really sort of the same situation -- she needs to learn
what I would like from her and I need to learn what she is capable of,
and we both might need to compromise on what we would ideally want in
the end, but I see no reason that we won't eventually end up reaching a
mutually-acceptable solution.

Mimi is the third dog in this household. We have a 7-year-old border
collie (Jopper, from a title of a Dutch children's book that his Dutch
foster parent gave him while he was in rescue, and we liked why she
named him that and kept the name) that is actually my 19-year-old son's
dog and who she is best buds with. We also have a corgi-terrier mix
(Winnie, short for Winnie the Pooch) who is 14, has an inoperable tumor
and is on comfort care only at this point with probably a few months to
maybe a year at the most left to go, and who has always been a couch
potato apart except for practicing her motto of "Enjoy life -- play
fetch more often." They are reasonably well behaved dogs that we take
the time to care for and to make sure they have a happy life. I got
Mimi because after getting the terminal diagnosis on Winnie, I was
feeling like I was sitting around waiting for her to die, and it was
killing me, so since I knew that I wanted another dog after she was
gone, and since my friend who does small dog rescue took in Mimi and we
sort of fell in love with each other, even though I wasn't looking for a
puppy, I decided to see if the rescue group would let me have her, and
they did. I am planning to do canine freestyle with her, and I know
that obedience training and especially canine freestyle is a life-long
commitment to training, and I'm okay with that.

Hopefully that's a more accurate picture.

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

diddy none spoke these words of wisdom in
:

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

Janet Boss wrote:

Actually, I did. In my first response to you. I get it though. You
don't want to take your dog out frequently or pay attention.

That is absoluely not true, and if you had read everything I have
written, you would know that.

I thought I had read everything you had written and the overall
impression
I got was that you have disabilities and a time schedule that makes
housebreaking the dog inconvenient and you don't like it, and would
prefer to blame the dog.

That's EXACTLY what I have surmised from your postings. I came to this
conclusion totally independently from Janet. So apparently what you
write
is sending a different message from what you intend to write.

Thank you. The act of housebreaking a dog is a labor of love. Some dogs
naturally housebreak themselves, and these natural housebreakers are
usually larger breed dogs in my experience. Smaller breeds (also my
experience) seem to be dramatically more of a struggle.


The crate training you describe has always worked for me, and is good
advice, but I also tether as well. I could have written the crate
training advice in those exact terms. But i also find tethering useful.
Again, if that doesn't work, something will, and alter tactics. Again, Job
Michael EvaNS book on housebreaking puppies WILL result in a housebroken
dog.

Melinda Meahan - take out TRASH to reply wrote:

I don't think it's inconvenient to have to housebreak her, but if going
for a full-scale walk is the only time she will go potty outside the
house but it takes multiple walks every morning for her to go potty to
the point that I am spending the entire morning taking her for walks
every 5-15 minutes waiting for her to go (like that one web site said to
do) instead of working, yeah, *that* is inconvenient. But that would
probably be inconvenient for anybody whose life didn't revolve around
their dog.

I am generally a fairly laid-back person, and the tethering thing with
watching for her to show signs of having to go and then taking her out
when she does seems to be working reasonably well and fits my style
better than the "let them out for five minutes first thing in the
morning and give them five minutes, and if they don't go, stick them
right back in the crate and wait (anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour
depending on which web site it was) and then take them out for another 5
minutes, and repeat until they finally go, then they can have an hour or
two of free time in the house until you stick them back in their crate
again for a while" advice that seems to proliferate all over the web
when you Google for "housebreaking a dog" does. But I cannot punch a
clock and put a dog on a rigid Phileas-Fogg-type schedule that doesn't
vary even a minute in either direction. It just doesn't work for me. I
also do best with uncomplicated things. As far as difficult in the
sense of taking a lot of will power, persistence, whatever, I have no
problem with that.


I'm not sure if you saw my earlier post about cleaning with Nature's
Miracle, but that might help. There's something else that might help
that I don't see mentioned above. That's the assigned potty place.


If the tethering idea is working, stick with it. If you decide you like
the crate and schedule idea more, try this.


Choose a spot on your property that you want your dog to use as the
potty place. When you take your dog out on schedule, go straight to the
potty place. She gets 5 minutes. Whether she goes or not, she goes
back to the crate. That's better than the full walk or even the partial
walk. With the whole walk method, your dog has all the incentive not to
potty on the walk because it means she gets more walks.


Also, Matt mentioned a book on housetraining. Check it out. I haven't
seen it myself, but Matt's suggestions are always excellent.


--Lia

Julia Altshuler said in
rec.pets.dogs.behavior:

Also, Matt mentioned a book on housetraining.

When I postd that, I was out of town, but now I have the booklet
in front of me. Reacquainting myself with it, it looks like it
covers all of Melinda's concerns - all in 41 pages.

Again, it's part of a collection of booklets but can be
purchased separately (though with shipping, one might as well
buy all nine). Ian Dunbar and Gwen Bohnenkamp.

--
--Matt. Rocky's a Dog.