So we continue to struggle with potty training, mostly due to our own laziness and the hubby's variable schedule which makes getting the pup on a schedule a challenge. Another thing that contributes to our laziness and thus, our difficulties getting Rogue potty trained is the dog door.
Keeping everyone busy the past week has been hard since a heavy rain turned our back yard into an ice rink and we don't want any torn ACLs. So there's been a lot of ball and toy chasing in the house. Rogue isn't really fetching because Steel always gets to the toy first so she just waits for him to head back and then gnaws on him until it's time to throw the toy again. He's a very patient older brother.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Why blame the dog door? Because it's lazy . We just assume that because the puppy goes potty outside and because she can easily go in and out the dog door that she will potty train herself. Well, she doesn't. In fact, she'll go out there and romp her little heart out with Steel and Ruby and come running back in and pee on the floor. Why? Because she was having fun outside and didn't think about going potty until she came in and then, well she hasn't really been rewarded for pottying outside nor has she been punished for pottying inside so hey, anyplace convenient will do.
Bad dog parents. Bad, bad bad. No cookie. The dog door makes it easier for us to be lazy and trust me, after one or the other of us has been at work all day, the last thing we want to do is stop whatever we happen to be doing to relax and let the puppy out. So, potty issues continue to plague us at home.
Interestingly, when we're elsewhere, if Rogue has to potty, she will go and stand next to whatever door we came in and look at us to let her out. Any place, any door. That's generalization and that means she's a pretty clever girl which makes us even more lazy asses for the fact that we haven't gotten her potty trained at home.
Interestingly, when I asked my husband to pose for me holding a sign that said, "I'm a dog trainer and haven't house trained my puppy and she's already 3 months old" he refused. Can't imagine why.
Thankfully, I know how to improvise.
I can train my dog to jump over my arm but I can't potty train my puppy.
And thankfully, my husband has a good sense of humor.
So, even more frustrating is the fact that when I am in the kitchen, Rogue will stand by the door and look up at me when she wants to go out. So she does at least have an idea of what we want so what's the disconnect (besides the lazy dog door)?
Well, Rogue is deaf which means that she doesn't know how to communicate with someone she can't see. She doesn't know what sound is. She knows what it feels like to bark, and whine and make those adorable crooning noises but she has no idea what it sounds like or that it can be heard outside her range of vision. Now, she has some concept of that because her crate is completely covered at night and she still knows that if she barks and whines, we will come and get her out.
What does this mean? Well, it means expecting to teach her to bark to be let out will require us to teach her to bark on command and then get her to do it before we let her out. Did I mention we're a little lazy? Yeah, so the husband bought bells for the door.
I have no idea how much he paid for this but I could have made it for $2 with stuff from a craft store.
Now some of you may be wondering why bells. After all, the dog is deaf, how does she hear the bells? She doesn't have to. All she has to know is that if she paws at them, we will come and let her out. Easy peasy. We used bells with Steel after we had the same problem for the same reason (dog door and lazy asses) We stopped using it after Steel started using them as a summon human spell.
Stay tuned to see how this works.
Rogue continues to grow and has more than doubled her size since we got her. She continues to fear nothing and love people. People love her too but I wish they'd stop petting her when she jumps up on them because now we have a jumping puppy problem. (grrrrrr)
Honest, she's just as cute with all four paws on the floor.
So, I leave you with two pictures of the evil little imp taken 6 weeks apart. Wow!
Look at that itty bitty puppy She's getting so big!!
Teh end
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