How to Leash Train your Dog

So I've gotten it into my head that I'm going to teach Elphie to calmly walk beside me on a leash. If you've met Elphie, you're probably laughing at me right now and telling me, "yeah, good luck with that", but I have faith. I found a couple of good videos on YouTube that describes the best way to leash train a dog. The steps seem relatively easy and it'll just take time and patience, although those are two things I'm not so sure I have.

Tip #1: Put the leash on and off the dog periodically throughout the day, in the house, when you're not going for a walk. This will teach the dog that just because the leash is on doesn't necessarily mean you're going anywhere.

Is it me, or does this sound a little mean? You get your dog all excited that they're going for a walk, pretty much the one activity that dogs live for, only to disappoint them when you don't go anywhere. Cruel and unusual punishment.

Tip #2: With your dog on the leash, go in and out of the house constantly in a row until you both get tired of the activity. This will give your dog hope that the next time he has the leash on and you go out of the door then maybe finally he'll go somewhere.

Again, doesn't this sound mean? "Let's go, Fido! Let's go for a walk! Haha! J/K, you're not going anywhere. Neener neener neener." I guess I get the point but it the whole act just sounds tedious and monotonous.

Tip #3: Once you finally get your dog out of the house for real, on his leash, start walking. The minute he starts to go in front of you, immediately switch directions and call him towards you. When he's either next to you or in back of you, reward him with a treat and the word "yes". Doing this a bunch of times will A) confuse the dog so he won't know in which direction you're actually going so he won't want to pull you anywhere and 2) will make the dog realize that he'll get rewarded if he stays next to you.

This was the tip that I tried on Friday night. I brought Elphie out to our courtyard and attempted to have her walk next to me. I got dizzy, man, because we only took two or three steps before having to switch directions. Then Elphie got smell ADD and started smelling under every gate and on every tree we encountered. I'm sure it didn't help that I didn't have treats to reward her. I should know by now that treats are key in puppy training. Mental note: bring puppy treats with you at all times.

I'll attempt to following these steps (or at least one out of the three) every day when taking her for a walk. Hopefully I won't look like an idiot to my neighbors when they see us walking back and forth down the sidewalk. Wish us luck!

Just say "No" to puppy crack

We picked up a baby gate for the downstairs bathroom this weekend. It’s not as large or extravagant as the one that we got previously and placed at the stop of the stairs, but so far it’s been doing the job :::knock on wood:::. It’s one of the cheap wooden ones made for babies 0-6 months. You know, babies who can’t stand and aren’t puppies. It’s rather short and I’m afraid that Elphie will jump over it but we’ll see how things play out. I figure if she can’t sniff too much into the bathroom she’ll lose interest. We’ll see.

Last night she was hanging out with me upstairs in our bedroom, being as crazy as normal. I’m thinking I should cut back on the amount of crack that I give her daily. (I’m kidding!) Anywho, she was running circles around the room for the 10^th time and accidentally got tangled up in a surge protector and managed to yank it out of the wall, along with both of my phones. This caused a domino effect and the wires knocked everything else from the nightstand onto the floor. I didn’t know what was happening at first until I saw Elphie running away with the surge protector and wires (because both phones had disconnected) wrapped around her collar. The poor thing was scared and I didn’t help by yelling at her, but she ran downstairs and directly into her crate, cowering the entire time.

I know I was wrong for yelling at her that much, but she scared and inconvenienced me. A few minutes later I tried to coax her out of her crate and outside for one final potty trip before bed but she wasn’t budging. Instead I gave her a pet on the head and apologized for yelling at her. She was fine this morning, though, and acted like nothing ever happened. Although she did pee quite a bit on our walk this morning. :-)

Even though she gets into everything and annoys me to no end almost every day, my puppy is a cutie pie and worth every ounce aggravation. But I still can’t wait until she’s older and has calmed down. What? A girl can have hopes, can’t she?

Walk this way

This morning Ms. Elphie and I got up early to meet my sister for a walk in the park in her neighborhood. Elphie is still hesitant about riding in cars so I spent the full 3 minute drive telling her to lay down. She didn’t and there were a few times when I had to stop suddenly or take a left turn and she fell to the floor of the backseat, but she’s a tough cookie and wasn’t harmed at all.

She had a blast on our walk. I had to remind her that this wasn’t just about her and that her mom needed the exercise, too. I’m debating about signing us up for a class where she learns to walk on a leash. She’s pulling me all over the place and I’m not educated in how to keep her beside me and I feel like I’m choking her half of the time. Or maybe this is just the puppy in her? Excited about everyone and everything she sees and sniffs? I keep telling myself that she’ll calm down once she gets older, but she’s almost a year and I see no sign of this. We were hoping the same thing once she got fixed, but within a day of her surgery she was her peppy self (although a bit more sleepy than usual). I think it may be time to pop in that training DVD that came with the Boston Terrier book I bought when we got her. Hopefully that’ll have some tips on leash training.

We spent the majority of our walk this morning on the outside of the park because the grass was rather dewy, but we did frolic a bit in the green, that is until the water soaked right through our sneakers and it felt like our toes had frostbite. I’m sure it wasn’t a walk in the park (see what I did there?) for Elphie, either, but she didn’t seem to mind as she ran circles around us. Nevertheless, my toes were rather nippy and actually stung a bit in the shower when I got home. Man, I’m such a wimp!

It’s nice to have a workout buddy other than your dog. Elphie’s great, but I start to get suspicious when she tries to trip me during our jogs. Is she trying to tell me something? Is she saying, “Mom STOP! I want to SNIFF not JOG!”? I can’t tell what she’s trying to say, because all I hear is *snort, snort, snort* all the live long day :) I have a feeling that soon enough she’ll be the one taking me for a walk!

Snorty, snorty, snorty...

This blanket seems rather lumpy.

I love snuggling on the couch, especially when I have a big puddle of snorting cuteness on my lap. Yesterday I got up from the couch but Elphie did not. So what else could I do but throw a blanket over her? She just looked so comfortable. And she loves fleece blankets!

Today isn't much of a lazy day for the puppy. The minute I let her out of her crate this morning she began running around the house, chasing the cats. At least the cats are starting to tolerate her more and in a way play with her. Boq does at least. He'll let her get up behind him and sniff him before he turns and swats at her. That's an improvement. Nessa is a little less tolerant, but I think eventually she'll come around, too.

On Saturday Elphie and I went for a walk and we did a little jogging on our trail. I used to hate to jog but I got bored just walking so I wanted to switch it up a bit. Elphie doesn't mind jogging, either, but sometimes she gets distracted sniffing everything and she'll cross in front of my feet and try to trip me. I guess it doesn't help that she doesn't know how to walk on a lead. She pretty much walks me! She's strong, too, and often defiant. If I don't get a handle on her now, she'll walk all over me!

Kitty Litter Appetizer

This is driving me crazy! Elphie will not stop eating from the litter box! We house the litter box in the bathroom/laundry room through our kitchen. We try to keep the sliding door closed the majority of the way, just enough for the cats to slip in and out, but it doesn't seem to be working, so Elphie will wander down and snack on whatever is in the box. IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY! I don't know how to stop this. I'm just afraid that she's going to get sick. Does anybody have any suggestions?

Alliteration Alley

I love our dog walker. She leaves notes that often consist of cutesy alliteration, such as, "a pee and poop for your peppy pup". Sometimes I want to leave her notes in return with my own alliteration, "Elphie is everywhere eavesdropping with her elongated ears".

Yeah, I won't quit my day job.

Happy 2011!

September 25, 2010 was my last post - that was last year! What was I thinking? I guess I just got a little too involved with trying to keep Elphie contained that I didn't have time for blogging. Shame on me :(  Turns out Elphie can't be contained so I was throwing away my blogging time for nothing! Oh, motherhood...

Elphie turned 9 months this month. We think she's done teething but that hasn't stopped her from chewing up the house. We've lost a rug, a part of Husband's sandal and a piece of my favorite chair all within Elphie's teething stage. We used to keep her in her own playpen during the day while we were at work, within range of the doggie door, but as she grew she got smarter and learned that she could climb up the gate and out into the world (the "world" being our living room). Noticing that this was our last ditch effort of keeping her in one area, we were left with the decision to let her have free roam of the house. This was not a good idea, hence the destroyed articles previously mentioned. Finally we sucked it up and chose to crate her during the day while hiring a dog walker to come during the afternoon to care for and play with her. Even though this was the most expensive option it turned out to be the best one, for both us and for Elphie. A win/win situation if you will. We don't come home to a destroyed house and Elphie has made a new friend. Sometimes our dog walker will bring her dogs on the trip so Elphie gets some puppy play time, too. 

My schedule has changed a bit now that we crate her. I get up at my usual time but now I take her for a short bathroom trip walk in the morning and one again at night. At least I'm moving more with this schedule so I guess that's good :::grumble grumble::: Eventually I'm going to get up even earlier and go for a real walk and take Elphie with me. Eventually.