Tag Archives: training

All puppy all the time…

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I’m beginning to feel like I’m turning into an all-puppy-all-the-time blogger and I suppose that’s been true lately. Keeping up with Maggie hasn’t left all that much time for anything else. Free time essentially becomes an opportunity for a nap and I try to indulge in that as often as possible. In keeping with the theme, I’ve been told by my new puppy guru that I’ve been approaching the entire housebreaking too much like a dumb human and not enough like a smart dog. So at her advice, it’s back to the drawing board with special high intensity crate training, no more roaming the kitchen during the day, and way more treats for doing her thing outside. As far as the poo eating, I’m promised it’s just a phase and sweet Jebus, I hope that’s true! The plan now is for me and Winston to wear her out so if you’ll excuse me, I’d better get back to my second job…

If anyone is interested, Maggie is has a pretty good grip on “sit” as long as there is a treat involved and started working on “down” tonight. I’m taking my comforts in the small victories at the moment.

Eww… Ewwww… EWWWWWW…

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There are some things that you’re never really prepared to handle. It never really occurred to me that dogs eat poo, but based on a quick Google search of the topic, it’s very apparent that they do. I’m sure that’s a behavior that can be adjusted with some serious training. If Maggie were just eating off the ground, it would be bad enough but she has taken to following poor Winston around like he was a warm, furry, four legged soft serve machine. And yes, that’s exactly the mental image I was trying to get across. I’ve been disturbed by it all day so you might as well be too!

When you least expect it…

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With Winston pushing a healthy 11 months this week, I had forgotten that occasionally puppy parenthood throws you a bone when you least expect it. I got home this afternoon to find only two small puddles and not a pile of poo to be seen in the entire house. Maggie is 9 weeks old now and I know this is only one small triumph in the greater battle, but when you spend all day anticipating the worst, occasionally you’re pleasantly surprised by the best. And that’s why it pays to be a pessimist. 😉

Escape artist…

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When I got Winston, I was able to basically leave him in a pen in the kitchen secure in the knowledge that he wasn’t able to get out. This arrangement worked until he was about five months old and the random peeing on the floor had stopped. After that, the baby gates at the kitchen doors were good enough to keep him contained whenever it was necessary. Silly me, I assumed that the same general procedures would work for Maggie too. Yeah, assumptions apparently will get you in trouble.

Maggie stayed in the pen for a grand total of 36 hours before she discovered that she could climb over it. Of course I didn’t discover this until I noticed that she was sitting with Winston in the middle of the kitchen floor. No problem, I thought, I’ll just have to start leaving her in the wire kennel when I’m out of the room. Having come up with my new plan of attack, I left her in the kennel when I went to get a shower this morning. Apparently, Winston figured out how to spring his little sister from the outside because once again, she was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor when I came back.

So now she’s in the big plastic travel kennel and neither of them seem to have figured out how to break the code on that one yet, but it seems as if it’s only a matter of time before the escape artist strikes again.

Teamwork sucks…

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OK, team, for the record tomorrow is a federal holiday. That means that the sooner we get our shit together this afternoon, the sooner we can begin enjoying an extra day off this week. This is a pass-fail course, so no one is grading you on how many cute pictures you can put into a briefing. I hate to break it to you, but no one cares. You’re not being graded on this assignment and they guy who does your yearly evaluation will never know that you had 12 slides instead of 10. I grow weary of trying to nudge the discussion from “what sound lobsters make when they’re boiled” to something slightly more productive. I appreciate that you want to be a hard charger and do great things… but this is a mandatory training course, not your actual job. We all have enough garbage to deal with back at the office, so why are you trying to make life harder than it needs to be when we’re on TDY? Sorry, but there’s just no good reason that we should have been working at 4:00 today when they cut us loose to build a briefing at 10:30. You, my dear teammates, are asshats.

Puppy paranoia…

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So, at a few days shy of 5 months old, Winston is at that pesky age where he’s gotten fairly consistent at not peeing on the floor in the kitchen, but not quite as reliable anywhere else in the house. One of the delicate balancing acts I’ve had to learn is that between trying to have quality time with the pup, but still actually getting things done when I can’t keep him in direct line of site. I still don’t feel like I’ve struck much of a balance on that note. So, I either feel guilty of keeping the little fuzzy bastard in his exercise pen in the kitchen or feel guilty because I’m not getting something done around the house… like keeping up with blogging or actually cleaning the bathrooms.

I guess I’m always a bit concerned that I’m just not doing it right… Of course I know I’m probably just suffering from a serious case of paranoia. At the end of the day he’s getting quality food and lots of attention, first class medical care, and doesn’t belong to Mike Vick… so I guess I’ll just have to count on the resilient ability of dogs to adapt to their circumstances.

Booooooring…

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So, for the rest of the week I’m trapped in the most boring class ever. I so don’t care how many “cool” tables I can pull out of the database “using these simple commands.” If anyone wants to sneak in and pull the fire alarm tomorrow or Friday let me know.

Pee…

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A full day at work and there was no pee on the floor when I got home this afternoon. I know it’s impossible to identify a trend with only one data point, but God, I hope this is the beginning of one. It’s amazing the things you get excited about when you’ve got a puppy in the house. The small victories feel like major milestones.

Commands they don’t teach…

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So, we’re doing pretty well with the basic commands like sit and down and even making a little progress on the all important stay. I’ve been doing my research and can’t come up with a way to teach the one command that I really need. With the puppy biting and chewing on anything that comes in proximity to his mouth the one command I really want to be use is “stop being an asshole.”

That’s right. I said it. I want the single all purpose command that stops everything cold. No luck in finding it yet, but you can damned well believe that I’ll keep working on it… Especially when my hand becomes a wonderfully human-flavored interactive chew toy.