Focus, Elphie, focus!

You know it's really annoying when, after a long day at work, you come home and walk the dog, and all you want is for her to go to the bathroom outside, both #1 and #2, so you can both go back inside, play and relax. But then destiny laughs in your face, because the walk you're on is during prime dog-walking time, and all of your neighbors and their dogs and their kids want to stop you and pet your puppy, because their dogs are no longer puppies, and your puppy is so small and excitable and cute, so then your puppy loses focuses on the task at hand and ends up not going to the bathroom outside, at least not going #2, and then you have to deal with her mess once she makes it inside. Or you have to take her out again shortly after your first walk, because she remembers that, "hey, I was out there for a reason wasn't I?" and then starts sniffing in circles and running to and from the door to let you know that now she's ready to do her duty...literally. Sound familiar?

Puppies are like babies - you show them something shiny, they're absolutely enthralled for 10 minutes, but then they hear a sound or see a cat and they lose focus. After her last walk of the night last night, hubby and I decided to try a little training. First off, Elphie is scared of hubby, probably because he's the disciplinarian, is stricter than I am and doesn't roll around on the floor with her during play time. But after expressing how much I want her to be our dog, hubby started to lighten up and began using high pitched voices and petting her more. She's still pretty scared of him, but I'm hoping with some perseverance she'll start to warm up to him. Anyway, last night we started doing a little training. We tried to get Elphie to sit on command. According to the book, the easiest way to teach 'sit' is to keep her on a leash and use a tasty nibblet as incentive. You get her interested in the treat and then slowly raise the treat above her nose/head and the moment her butt hits the ground you say 'SIT' and give her the treat. Then you praise her by petting her and saying, "Good sit". So hubby tried this twice and then I tried it twice. She didn't really get it. I think by that time she was tired and so over treats that she just didn't care. But the funny thing is, she just kinda sits anyway. When we put her leash on for the training exercise, she would just sit down, so hubby had to lift her hiney up in order to teach her how to sit! I guess that's good?

We're also trying to teach her how to heel on walks. When she gets really excited and starts running or jumping up and down or distracted by something, we pull on the leash and say "HEEL" a few times and wait until she calms down. She's pretty good at it, but we do have to say it a bunch of times which I'm hoping will lessen the more we stick with it. I'm hoping, too, that once we sign up for the training lessons we'll learn more effective ways of training. Right now I think she's just really young and easily distracted! But gosh! Watching her do her business outside feels like winning the lottery! You feel so accomplished and you just want to pat yourself on your back and tell yourself good job. And give yourself a treat. Which I do. Many, many treats.