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Housetraining experiment
One of my daughter's friends got a maltese puppy that they have been
having a hard time housebreaking. I was talking to the mom and she says that the puppy will go outside when taken outside and usually on pee pads if shut in the bathroom with a pee pad (though not always), but when wandering around loose, goes wherever. Pretty typical for an unwatched puppy. But the real problem came up when they recently went on a trip to Arizona. There was no grass at the house there. The dog would hold it as long as they were outside and then come in and pee in the house. She had thought it would be easier there since they would be outside in the pool so much. Valentina has a definite preference for grass when at home and going outside in their yard which has some grass, some dirt, some rock and some concrete. Her second choice is carpet. I recently had some artificial grass put in the front yard and have some scraps of it in the garage. So I cut her a piece of it and told her to try putting it in one of those dog litter pans that they have at places like Petsmart for the dog litter systems with a pee pad underneath it (it has holes in it for water to go through to the dirt underneath so it would need something underneath it) to see if Valentina would do better with something that is like grass than a pee pad in the house. (The biggest problem in the house is kids letting her out to play and not watching her for signs that she has to go. Knowing the family, training the kids won't happen before they just dump the dog, unfortunately.) So then I heard that Scooter was able to be picked up from my vet's office, but would need to take it easy for a while. He is still kind of weak, has kennel cough and infected flea bites and is recovering from being pretty dehydrated and underweight. So the recommendation of the vet was to free feed and water him but he is a little puppy with a little bladder. I decided to try out housetraining him to both outside and the grass pad in a litter box inside to get around the fact that I lack sleep already and don't want him to get or keep bad habits. I had heard that he would pee in a crate and sleep in it. Having been stuck outside covered in fleas and ticks without enough water or food, I guess living in filth as well shouldn't surprise me. So he sleeps on my bed and whenever he gets up, I plop him down on the floor to the litter pan grass area and tell him to go potty and get all excited when he does go potty. During the day, I carry him out and have him go potty on the real grass in the backyard when it isn't too hot. He has caught on really quickly. I have taken the litter box into the tv room when we are watching tv so that I can ask him periodically if he has to go potty and direct him over to it to go. No accidents since Thursday except for when he peed outside the box on accident. His feet were in but his behind was poking out so the pee landed out. I count that as a housetraining success, though, because he was trying to do the right thing. In fact, he had been roaming in the tv room and went over to the box to go potty when he had to go! He does that all the time now. When he needs to go, he goes to the grass box if inside, squats down and does his business and then gets out and goes about his business, which is usually lying around on the cool floor or on a lap. It has been over a hundred degrees outside during the day, so it has been really nice for both of us not to have to make a lot of trips out there waiting for him to get the idea and go during the day as well as saving trips up and down the stairs at night. I'll have to ask Valentina's family how she is doing. If they have excuses for not trying the grass patch, maybe Scooter's success story will convince them to give it a try. I have to be careful talking to the woman, though, since she was the one who wanted to breed Valentina to Sammie when she first got her so that she could sell Maltipoo puppies. When I told her that Sammie was not equipped for the task because I didn't want to add to the dog overpopulation problem, she told me that the pet store she bought her dog from had "warned" her not to get a dog from rescue because they fixed them all and then you couldn't make your money back on your dog. Since her daughter and mine are friends, I have to be careful what I say, but it can be trying at times. Paula |
#2
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Housetraining experiment
"Paula" wrote in message 9.11... (snip) So he sleeps on my bed and whenever he gets up, I plop him down on the floor to the litter pan grass area and tell him to go potty and get all excited when he does go potty. During the day, I carry him out and have him go potty on the real grass in the backyard when it isn't too hot. He has caught on really quickly. I have taken the litter box into the tv room when we are watching tv so that I can ask him periodically if he has to go potty and direct him over to it to go. No accidents since Thursday except for when he peed outside the box on accident. His feet were in but his behind was poking out so the pee landed out. I count that as a housetraining success, though, because he was trying to do the right thing. In fact, he had been roaming in the tv room and went over to the box to go potty when he had to go! He does that all the time now. When he needs to go, he goes to the grass box if inside, squats down and does his business and then gets out and goes about his business, which is usually lying around on the cool floor or on a lap. It has been over a hundred degrees outside during the day, so it has been really nice for both of us not to have to make a lot of trips out there waiting for him to get the idea and go during the day as well as saving trips up and down the stairs at night. (snip) That is very creative thinking. I believe you might have a money making solution to a problem that is so vexing for so many. I wonder if someone makes some sort of biodegradeable artificial turf... filly |
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Housetraining experiment
on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 02:50:11 GMT, Paula wrote:
So then I heard that Scooter was able to be picked up from my vet's office I was hoping you would go with the name Swiffer. That artificial grass idea was brilliant! We finally had a full night of sleep with Hendrix last night. I think he's starting to understand this house training business. This morning he ran to the back door. Unfortunately, I just stained the deck so I had to carry him to the front door, but he walked about 20 feet away from me, did his business and then ran back to me for lots of praise. No accidents in the house since day 2, but then again, he's never out of anyone's sight. He's also settling himself in his crate now, where at first we would only put him in when he was already asleep. Puppies are so darn smart! I hope Swiffer, er, Scooter starts feeling better soon. -- Lynne |
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Housetraining experiment
Lynne said in
rec.pets.dogs.behavior: We finally had a full night of sleep with Hendrix last night. Tonight was May's first full night, too. Though, when I woke at 3am, I thought I'd better take her out to pee. After 10 minutes of her just wanting to follow me around and then lay down, we went back to bed and she slept another 5 hours. She's 8 weeks old today! -- --Matt. Rocky's a Dog. |
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Housetraining experiment
In article ,
Rocky wrote: Lynne said in rec.pets.dogs.behavior: We finally had a full night of sleep with Hendrix last night. Tonight was May's first full night, too. If you two make it look too easy you'll be removing barriers to puppy acquisition. Emmett didn't start sleeping through the night until he was about six months old, but that was almost entirely about him wanting to go out and play in the middle of the night. -- Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis - Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community |
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Housetraining experiment
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#7
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Housetraining experiment
on Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:27:05 GMT, Rocky wrote:
Tonight was May's first full night, too. Though, when I woke at 3am, I thought I'd better take her out to pee. After 10 minutes of her just wanting to follow me around and then lay down, we went back to bed and she slept another 5 hours. She's 8 weeks old today! Aw, man... my sleep deprived brain wants to call foul! But that's really awesome. -- Lynne |
#8
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Housetraining experiment
If you two make it look too easy you'll be removing barriers
to puppy acquisition. Emmett didn't start sleeping through the night until he was about six months old, but that was almost entirely about him wanting to go out and play in the middle of the night. Heh. I'm certainly not going to assume that May's going to make it through every night based upon one incident. Rocky was 16 weeks old before he was confortable through the night. no fair, Cali is almost 2 and she still wakes up *every* night to go out potty. |
#10
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Housetraining experiment
Lynne wrote in
. 97.142: I was hoping you would go with the name Swiffer. We all laughed so hard we almost had housetraining accidents of our own when we read the Swiffer suggestion, but we just couldn't do it. He ended up being Scooter because it just fits. He's kind of a dork and he has short little legs and not much energy so he looks like he is scooting instead of walking. This is especially noticeable when he is next to Sammie, who is sporting a super short haircut so he looks like he is all legs. Scooter also doesn't sound like any of the other dogs' names so he can differentiate it easily. The girls mostly call him Sdooder. It's a combination of Scooter and Little Dude. He seems to be feeling better every day. Today he actually got up off the floor to steal Sammie's cell phone when Sammie wandered off and left it unattended. If Sammie loves it, it must be cool. Paula |
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