Jan 29 2009
Please make this dog stop driving me nuts!
I’m sure a few of you out there are saying this on a daily basis. Especially if you have just gotten your first puppy. I was lucky in a small way when I received my first dog she wasn’t a pup, however, she was almost 7 years old and pretty set in her ways. For the past 2 years I have been working on toilet training her ( newspaper training) and I was told that it was impossible to teach and “old dog new tricks.” Well I am happy to say that she did learn to go outside and I learned that she can last from 4 to 6 hours. I had to watch her routine and learn from it. I started the training process by using a medium sized dog cage for when we went out for the day and for all night. I would do it for a week with only newspaper and her water in the cage. In the morning we would let her out and run around the house during the times we were at home which is alway by supper time. When she came out of the cage we would feed her and give her a treat if there were no accidents inside of it. Actually when we first got her, I was taking her outside almost every 2 hours. Then it moved up to 3 hours and every month we would add more time to it. I studied when she had her bowel movements, usually first thing in the morning and late at night before bed. There was the odd exception during the day and it’s usually after she eats something, even a snack. I find that every dog is different so what my dog will do, is totally opposite of another. We have a female miniature poodle that came from 5 homes and was constantly dropped off at the SPCA because of her behaviour problems. She was clingy, whined day and night and had seperation anxiety. I was at my wits end of what to do with the dog. So I started reading those “how to ” books and it really helped. We learned that we would buy a baby gate and put her in the kitchen with some newspaper on the floor. We had to put her in there for 10 minutes before leaving. When she whined, instead of yelling at her and saying “be quiet, i’ll be back soon.” We learned to give her a small piece of lunch meat and then ignore her before we walked out the door. We learned to do a routine of closing all the doors in the house and putting the radio on before leaving. She knew when that happened that we would be gone for the day. We bought her a big polar bear toy and that kept her occupied for the day and we would at times give her a rawhide bone to chew.
The problem was the constant whining and crying all day. We thought she was okay, until our neighbours complained that they could hear her. We ended up moving out of that creaky old house (she would respond to every single noise with a bark) and move to a small and compact compartment. We invested in a rabbit. The rabbit lives in a cage all day and our dog found it rather amusing. She doesn’t whine anymore unless we put her in the cage. We only have her in a cage if we have to be gone for longer then six hours. She doesnt make a mess in the cage anymore and we give her a treat as soon as we get home. We will add a few little tidbits of salad or meat in with her dog food. Then take her out for a walk as soon as we get home. She gets her exercise three times a day. I still don’t know how to cure the whining and seperation anxiety. But i think i’ve found a way to find out how to deal with this behaviour problem. I spotted this tv show called the “dog whisperer” with Cesar Millan. It’s an amazing show and he’s got a fantastic website. He’s on the National Geographic Channel usually around 7 or 730 pm. Some of his shows are for half an hour and others for an hour. You can find out the information at http://www.cesarmillaninc.com/
