Got home late last night - had purchased puppy pen as instructed and set it up just like the photo in the book (I’m the sort of person who must follow recipes religiously - they’re experts who know more about stuff than me). Anyway I put Toby in there and fed him (for the first time - ah!). He spent 5 minutes racing round his pen (48″ x 48″) and then seemed to settle down a bit - I needed to go back to the car to get some stuff and he made it perfectly clear this was not a good idea from where he was standing. Other than that I kept an eye on him and left him to himself in his pen and he seemed perfectly okay - his first wee didn’t hit newspaper but neither did it hit my floor so that was fine for me (have wooden floors so have rubber mat in pen).
Everyone has been telling me that you don’t get to sleep on your first night (or two) and I was perfectly prepared to get my sleeping bag and kip on the sofa. The funny thing is that it was me who couldn’t sleep, he settled perfectly in his crate on his rug (complete with eau de Mum) and went to sleep. I’d like to think that it was something to do with my clever use of lighting and gradually dimming his world but I suspect it had more to do with the fact that it was late and he was tired.
After 20 minutes of tossing and turning (me that is) I went to check on him just like you’re not supposed to. I couldn’t remember if I had closed the pen properly and didn’t want an ‘after’ image to greet me in the morning. It was fine, and he was asleep… I took considerably longer to get off - morning just couldn’t come quickly enough.
I’m not an early riser so I only get up at 7 o’clock if I’m going on holiday or someone has booked a meeting and wants everyone to arrive grumpy, but this morning I bounced down the stairs to see how my little fella was doing - two poos, one on paper (result!) and one off, and lots of wee (some on paper!) and happy little chappy who was very pleased to see me - got him fed (ideally I should have fed myself first as the ‘head’ of the pack but it did appear that his need was urgent if not life-threatening and I need a couple of coffees before I need to think about eating), and took him into the garden to show him his world..
What I learned today
- Being bitten on the toe by puppy teeth hurts in a surprising and shocking way
- Wearing a white dressing gown, playing with a new puppy, in the garden is plain stupid
- Once you’ve been a ‘parent’ for about 12 hours you start to get competitive (see notes on behavioural development below)
- My doggy is the most precious thing in my world
- If you have enough food you can teach a dog anything
- My dog has a longer mouth than I have fingers which is why I can’t get him to eat a worming tablet (tried 3 times, failed 3 times, may have to try the ‘wrapped in ham’ trick
The book says you need to confine your puppy to a crate so you can control his toilet behaviour - keep him there for an hour and then take him to his toilet place - he’s bound to need a wee (and maybe more) and you can make sure there are no ‘accidents’ and you get an opportunity to re-inforce his good behaviour (pees = 1 treat, poo = 5) so he learns to go where you want him. Once you are confident he will always go outside (or wherever) then he can have the run of the house - quite how you know he won’t go on the kitchen floor when he’s never had the chance is beyond me - maybe that’s in a later chapter.
08.30 Toby doesn’t like his crate. He’s whining and making a really sad noise - I feel abusive, I ‘mayday’ Sophie and she metaphorically holds my hand.
I leave him in his crate for 15 mins, 30 mins, an hour and then take him outside to play - it’s an unbelievably delicious thing to do, playing with a puppy, I was really worried about letting him out in the garden, I guess I wasn’t sure he’d come back but since he runs between my legs most of the time that isn’t really a problem - and he’s not even trashed my herb garden yet, which is odd - surely it must smell pretty good. I’ve bought him a squeaky dougnut-shaped tennis ball and started the very long ‘this is how fetch works’ training exercise which could take several thousand attempts to perfect. That’s not to say we haven’t already had a few successes but there’s still a slight lack of consistency - sometimes he comes back without the toy, sometimes he doesn’t come back and sometimes he doesn’t notice that I’ve thrown the toy, but these are all small issues which are easily tackled through a little focus and a ton of food.
It’s really odd when a dog lets you stroke their tummy, I can’t think of anything more vulnerable - it’s kind of humbling that they trust you that much - and a shame they’re not ticklish - how cool would that be? Anyway tummy rubbing is a key bonding exercise (not that you have to reciprocate) and is hugely therapeutic, not sure I like touching the funny skin bit on the inside of their thighs - something not quite right about that.
12.00 Toby is sleeping in his crate. Nailed it. Wicked. Am sure it will get harder than this but am enjoying a brief sense of accomplishment. For the first time we have something approaching normality - this is how my life could be, and it’s the same as before but just a little better because there’s an animal beside me gently snoozing.
13.00 We’re onto the hourly schedule now - so take him outside for wee, poo, fetch, etc and realise I haven’t eaten - am bloody starving so quickly lock him back up and wolf down some food.
Decided to up the ante since the ‘fetch’ had been going so well and wondered how hard it would be to ’sit’ - the book says you get your puppy to notice that you have some food and once he’s close you lift it up slightly forcing him to sit - sounds fair enough… except the ’sitting’ position is fairly close to the ‘launching’ position and I doubt my puppy’s at all unusual in thinking that food is well worth getting airborne for. It’s also a little like teasing which is probably why he kept biting me - in his position I might well have done the same.. but after a while he did seem to click that sitting and not biting fingers led to free food, so I did this about, 100 times, and made a little progress - there were definitely times when it really did seem that he knew that if he sat down then he’d get food - causal is too strong a term but there was certainly some sort of association. I have no idea how long it’s supposed to take to get a dog to do the most basic of all ‘tricks’ but I would really like to nail it in days rather than weeks. The bloke in the book reckons they should already be doing it by now, but he’s probably wrong, this “most knowledgeable dog trainer alive”.
He’s back in his pen now, I need to get him settled as I’m going down the pub this evening for an hour or so - it’s important he gets used to me not being here as I work and this involves leaving the house from time to time. I’m sure he’ll be fine, there’s plenty of food left from today’s rations so I should be able to ‘win’ his affections before I go.
