We have been semi-successful in housetraining Chester. When it comes to pee, he was trained by about 5 months, even if I did tear my hair out over it the first month or so.

Poop has been a different story. He had digestive issues, on and off, for several months. We seem to have finally solved those.

Next we tried the Poochie Bells. It was the next step — he immediately seemed to know what to do with them. However, sometimes he wouldn’t ring them when he needed to go out to poop.

He would go to the back door — in fact, usually he’d poop right in front or next to the back door. So I was pretty sure he knew he needed to go there. But for some reason, he wouldn’t always ring the bell (although sometimes he would).

So now we’re on what we hope is the final phase of housetraining (and my husband’s idea): a motion activated security alert system. There’s a motion sensor by the back door, and a wireless chime that can plugged in anywhere in the house. My husband put the motion sensor in a shoebox to limit the field of view.

When anything disturbs the sensor’s beam, the chime rings. Hopefully I’ll have enough time to get there so that I can either catch him in the act, or even better, catch him before he goes.

It wasn’t inexpensive, but if it works, it’s priceless. It’s not as though we’re having accidents every day, but that’s mostly because I’ve been watching him pretty closely. I’ll let you know if it works.

Technorati Tags: housetraining, pee, Poochie Bells, poop, motion activated security alert system

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Sometimes things are so darn simple we just don’t think of them.

While Chester is mostly housetrained, he’s still not completely there. So unless we know he’s fully unloaded, we keep an eye on him. Which can definitely be a pain.

Today I was doing several loads of laundry — loading the washer, moving clothes from washer to dryer, and so forth. While Chester is almost always at my side, sometimes he does like to wander off — and since our laundry room is at the end of a narrow hallway, he doesn’t have far to wander before I can’t see him.

The solution was so simple; it finally came to me today. Have him do a down-stay while I did what I needed to do in the laundry room. And it worked like a charm, too.

I didn’t need to have treats on me, either (and I didn’t). I simply released him when he was done, had him come with me into the kitchen, and gave him his treat. I think he’s going to like this new game.

Technorati Tags: housetrained, down-stay, treats

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A turn for the boys, at last.

Yesterday I walked into the bathroom for something, and there, neatly laid out on the bathmat, was a lizard. Completely intact, and completely dead. My best guess was that the boys had brought it in, but it’s unusual for them to leave their kills on the bathmat.

Today, just as we sat down to supper, in sauntered the boys. Together. Without one chasing the other. Very suspicious. I commented on it, and then my husband noticed Gizmo had something in his mouth.

I started to get up, but decided that really wasn’t what I wanted to deal with as my dinner got cold. The boys promptly jumped the baby gate to get into the bedroom (we put it up so that the a/c can circulate, but Chester can’t).

Yup, another lizard, again laid out on the bathmat, this time sans tail. The tail was actually there, just broken off. For whatever reason, they’re not eating them. 2 kills in 2 days is a new record for them.

My best guess is that they’re bringing them into the bathroom because Chester can’t get in there to ruin their fun. Thank goodness they’re not allowed out at night!

Technorati Tags: lizard, kills, lizard

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Counter conditioning means teach a behavior that’s incompatible with the behavior you do not want. For example, if you don’t want your dog to jump up, teach it to sit for greetings. Sometimes easier said than done.

Chester has been pulling a lot lately. In fact, his behavior has just been over-all frustrating. I don’t know if it’s adolescence, if he’s just having an off-week, or if it’s pain from his bad knee.

Anyway, today on our way home, he started to pull again. I’m afraid I’m not in a real patient place myself at the moment. I had been standing still when he pulled, but oftentimes he’d just go right back to pulling the minute we stepped forward.

So I asked him to heel. And it worked. He heeled the whole way home, and he didn’t pull at all the entire time. Granted, it was extremely sloppy heeling. He wasn’t all that near to me, he rarely looked at me, and he wasn’t doing his automatic stops. But he didn’t pull, and he was at least in the vicinity of my side.

We’ll have to see how it goes over the next few days. Of course, according to my regular vet, I shouldn’t be walking him at all (he has a severe luxating patella). I’m seeing the vet that does chiropractic & acupuncture today, and we’ll see what she says.

Technorati Tags: Counter conditioning, pull

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The problem with trying to desensitize for separation anxiety is that you are not supposed to leave them alone at all during the time you’re working on desensitizing. And that’s really difficult.

I am not away from home all that often. I go grocery shopping once a week, I volunteer at a cat rescue, and I like to go out to eat once a week. Yet every time I do one of those things, it’s almost as though I have to start from square one, and it’s very frustrating. We’ve made small progress, but it’s very small.

Today I decided I would try giving Chester one of his chew toys smeared with peanut butter instead of treats for staying. The idea being that he’d be so occupied with the peanut butter he wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

At first, it backfired. It seemed to scare him — as if it was proof that I was leaving. He jumped off his bed, and didn’t want to get back on. He totally ignored the peanut butter.

After about 4 minutes, though, apparently it was too much for him. He starting licking the peanut butter. I changed clothes, and then took away the chew toy. Gave it back, then left the room for one minute — and he was still working on his chew toy when I got back. Big progress.

The problem is that if I were to try and leave him with the chew toy and go out grocery shopping, most likely the next time I gave him the chew toy again he’d freak out or ignore it or both. What I need to do is build up the time I can leave him with his chew toy without him getting anxious.

What I’m trying to do right now is do my grocery shopping on the weekend so my husband can be there with him. I hate going to the grocery store on the weekend! Which also begs the question what do you do when you forget something, as I did this weekend.

I will probably try putting Chester in doggy daycare on the day I do cat rescue, which means dropping him off, coming home, going back out, maybe stopping at the food store, picking him up . . . a long day. The things we do for our dogs. Maybe we’ll have to consider getting a dog walker for when we go out to eat. Or maybe my husband will have to go and get us something — I need a break once in a while!

I really want to try and get through this problem without drugs.

My husband doesn’t think desensitization will work. Being a typical male, he’s not very patient. If he doesn’t see progress, obviously it’s not working. His solution is to just leave him, but we’ve been doing that — along with desesitizing — for months. It hasn’t gotten us anywhere.

The real trick is to get them relaxed when you leave before you can leave them. Sort of a catch-22. And even though Chester’s separation anxiety is mild, it’s already very entrenched. Like most people, we didn’t seek help quickly enough. It’s much easier to nip a problem in the bud, rather than try to undo something that’s ingrained.

In some ways it’s even more frustrating because other than the separation anxiety, Chester is just about the perfect puppy. He’s not destructive, he’s friendly to people and dogs, he doesn’t beg, he obeys extremely well (most of the time), he’s affectionate. Okay, he barks just a little more than I’d like when startled, but we’re working on it, and it seems to be slowly improving.

Technorati Tags: desensitize, separation anxiety

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