Bailey and Friends

Hi Susan,

that sure sounds like a wonderful puppy shower...:)

I just wanted to comment a little on the housebreaking thing. If you see Bailey pee indoors, a simple "no pee" is enough (no loud voice, just calm and decissive), you pick her up and put her in the yard. When she sits down to pee, say calmly "good pee" (or whatever word you want to use for it). When she's finished, make a fuzz about the "good pee", do a happy dance, cuddle her, give a treat....let her know she just did the most amazing thing ever ;) But use the word (pee or another one) often and every chanche you have. She will come to connect the word with the activity :)

And training her to use a bell....that has to wait till she is 100% housetrained. Right now, she doesn't seem to have a clue yet and adding ringing a bell will only confuse her more at this point. She doesn't seem to know yet (not surprising at all) that peeing is an outdoors activity. So she isn't capable yet of connecting a certain behaviour to ringing the bell. First she needs to be fully housetrained, then the bell training can start. She needs to understand wich behaviour she needs to connect to that bell... and as long as she doesn't master the behaviour (peeing outdoors) training with the bell is asking for trouble :)

If at all possible, pick her up as often as possible to carry her outside and stay there (no playing and such since that will distract her) till she pees. The less accidents you will have indoors, the more likely she will pick up fast on what is wanted of her. And then you can play all you want of course. But pups are not supposed to play and run etc for more minutes then the weeks they are old. So a pup that's 9 weeks old, should not play and run around longer then 9 minutes in a row. I know they are adorable and all the visitors will want to hold and cuddle with her, but you have to protect her somewhat :)

Give het a hug,

Saskia and Yunah :)

Hi Sas-
Thank you! I will stop the bell for now. I have been taking her out no less than every two hours. She has been good about waking me up when she needs to go out during the night. The number of accidents inside the house is really very few....but when we had one last night it hit me that I hadn't done anything to let her know that was not what we wanted. I don't want to scare her, but I do want her to get the message....and I have been praising her when she goes outside. She definitely knows "Tinkle now."
I never heard that play/weeks old idea. She wants to play for at least an hour when she gets up in the am. Then, on a general ho-hum kinda day, she'll play for an hour and then crash for an hour or so and repeat that pattern throughout the day. She has boundless energy. It is really funny because she just practically goes limp when she crashed. It's like someone turned an "off" switch. During the "shower" I did pick her up periodically to let things settle down a bit. I think it went well. She crashed right before the last two left.
Thanks for your input. All ideas are welcome!
Hug back at ya!
-Susan

THEY THREW ME OUT OF THE TRUCK!!!!!! HOW MEAN IS THAT??????:mad: I missed Bailey's party and everything. Hey, how come she gets a computer:eek:????????????????
I was just looking out the window (as I always do:)) and someone rolled down the window and threw me out. So now what am I supposed to do?And that trucker's girlfriend was a dork.

Dang Carroll, I couldn't figure out where you went, I fell asleep and when I woke up you were gone:eek: You were probably breathin' on them again. That trucker and his girlfriend were carrying on like you can't believe with all KINDS of mushy stuff, so I crawled in back cause I couldn't handle that x rated hanky panky. That girl had body parts pierced that I didn't even know existed:eek::eek:

Your not very good at hitchhiking; guess I'll have to send you bus money.:rolleyes: At least you aren't in them thar hills anymore.

Mom bought me a red sweater to match Bailey's;)

Hugs,
Addy

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN"T KNOW WHERE I WENT? I WENT RIGHT OUT THE FRIGGIN' WINDOW!!!!!!:eek::eek:eek:
I WASN'T breathing on them. That guy smelled so bad, I could hardly breathe in never mind breathe out:p

Right now I'm sitting in a ditch. Had breakfast with a raccoon family - those guys need to get a life - they spend more time washing the darn food than eating it. What's THAT all about:rolleyes:
AND HOW COME MOM GOT YOU A SWEATER LIKE BAILEY'S? WHAT AM I - CHOPPED LIVER.
OOPS! Gotta go......................

Hey Susan,

"Trapping season" is over! :D:D

I have been peeking in to see how our Bailey girl is doing and am still so excited for you and even Bob. LOL The shower is such a sweet thing for your friends to do and the first time I ever heard of such! :cool: I think it should become a standard in the doggy world! :p

Squirt was probably the easiest dog I've ever worked with to housebreak. We went out after every meal, every time she drank, immediately on waking, and every two hours in between...if that much time had passed which seldom did. I carried her out for months but then I carried her every where for months! :p Of course, there were accidents but I did as Sas said and simply said "no", picked her up and carried her out afterward. When she did her business outside, she got massive praise, lovin's, playtime, a bite of kibble, and, once she was a bit older, MILK BONES instead of kibble!! :D Oh, she looooves Milk Bones! ;) I don't think it took 3 weeks and she was going to the back door on her own. :) Such a smart girl!

She never did learn to bark or scratch or anything else, tho. She just sits at the door and stares at you...intently. If you don't pick up the wave length, then she starts to growl real low. If THAT doesn't work, she starts to groan and moan and growl - all rather loudly like, "For cryin' out LOUD! Are you DEAF or what?!?!" :p She is the Queen, after all, and expects her subject to act accordingly. LOL

When you wrote that Bailey curled up on your head like Palmer used to, I got all teary eyed. There is no doubt in my mind that he told her about that little trick to let you know he is happy you have another baby to give your love to.

Keep having fun with our Little Miss. Oh, what adventures you have ahead of you! :)

Hugs,
Leslie

PS. You think I should try to trap Carrol? She may have gone to the wild side on us...hangin' out with 'coons and gripin' about clean food???? I bet if I put a french fry in there that would work, huh? :p

Hi Leslie-that's more or less how we trained our two previous dogs. Just take them out, take them out, take them out. Palmer taught himself to scratch at the door. I can't remember what Peaches did.
Bailey can now go up the front and the back steps!!! :D:):):cool: She can't do the inside steps yet, they are a higher step, but it won't be long! I found out by surprise. I carried something up the front steps, turned around to go back down and get Bailey and there she was!!! It's like a baby's first steps!!!

She weighs in at 3 lbs today. That's a 50% gain in a week........that's cool. :) It doesn't seem like she eats a whole lot, but she must be getting enough.

Is there an age at which it is easier to try to train the puppy to walk with a leash? A neighbor-the one with the Springer Spanial who is 6? months now says she didn't attempt it until 3 mos.

Hugs,
Susan

Addy-you were told not to tell Carrol about the sweater.:mad::mad: Now look what you have done. :(:confused:
Carrol-you must have been on some kind of drug...:p.....windows haven't
"rolled down" in many moons. Bailey gets a computer because Bailey is so dang cute! You should see her work that mouse.
It's a pretty day here, but VERY windy. Addy and Carrol-don't you get whisked away by trying to fly your kites.:rolleyes:
Love,
Bailey's Mom (who doesn't have a red sweater either):(

Picture of shower cake is here..............

Hi Susan,

Leash training should start right away. But a common mistake is that people will put on the leash and go walk outside right away, that’s asking for trouble. For some reason people seem to think that dogs should be okay right away with harnesses and leashes and just need to learn how to walk without pulling the leash. But this is not the case. Dogs first need to learn what it is like to wear a harness and then they need to learn what it is like to wear a harness with a leash attached to it. Once those are familiar to the pup, you can start walking outside.

So, you start with getting the dog used to wearing a harness. You do this by putting the harness on inside the house and then go play with the pup so they get distracted from this weird thing around their body. They will usually get adjusted to the feeling pretty quickly. Once you notice the pup is comfortable wearing the harness, you add the leash. You start by clipping the leash to the harness and let the pup run free…so no holding the leash yet. You have to supervise the pup with the leash dragging along so it won’t get stuck behind something or the pup won’t chew on it. So again, the best thing is to play and distract the puppy. After a few minutes, you take the leash of. You repeat this procedure except for the fact that you leave the leash on a little longer each time. A good way to help the pup adjusting to a leash is by putting the leash on right before they get their dinner. This way the leash will be connected to something fun.

Once the pup is used to the leash and it doesn’t bother him, you move to the next step. You put on the leash and you get hold of the leash and you follow the pup around. Make sure there won’t be any pressure on the leash because this might scare the pup. So you follow the pup around instead of the pup having to follow you (what we want in the end) Do this for short periods of time and slowly increase the time the pup s on the leash, with you holding the leash. Make sure you praise the pup enormously while on the leash.

Once the pup is comfortable to be on the leash indoors, you can go into the yard. Place the pup on your left side so she’ll get used to walking on your left side and move towards the area where she always goes potty. If she doesn’t move, don’t drag…just bend your knees and lure her towards you with sweet words, happy voice, clapping your hands and if necessary a treat. Praise her lots and lots when she moves into your direction. Get up, take another step forward and try “talking” her into following you, happy voice, clapping your hands, etc. And this is how you slowly get her adjusted to walking on a leash. Once she knows how to walk on a leash, you can start going out on the street. The distraction level at the street is so much higher, therefore you want to practice and teach the pup walking on a leash before she has to deal with all these distractions. You can imagine, if she is supposed to learn wearing a harness, walking on a leash and having to deal with all the outside distractions, it’s an almost impossible task for a pup to do all that at once. So start indoors, then go to the yard and only then, when she’s fully adjusted to her harness and leash, you can start walking her on a leash in the street. Unfortunately most people skip all the previous steps and start in the street and they wonder why the pup isn’t walking properly… But once they understand that the harness is a new sensation, the leash attached is an even stranger sensation and with everything going on in a street (cars, noises, sounds, smells), they understand that learning a pup walking on a leash in the street, is not the right way.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that young dogs, whatever breed, are not supposed to walk steps or jump…till they are at least one year old. It’s too hard on their joints when you let them walk steps before they are a year old.

Good luck with the leash training!

Saskia and Yunah :)