Friday, March 19, 2010

Training Day

Frustration abounds for various reasons. The most immediate reason is house-training Esme. Honestly, if she were a Ridgeback, she'd be 90% reliable by now. As it is I'd say she is barely 50% reliable. I know she knows she is not supposed to 'go' in the house because she looks guilty if I catch her and finds places to go in secret.

I have to crate her or put her outside when I can't watch her every second. She seems to need to pee at least every hour during the day but last night went a full 9 hours (yes, I got 9 hours sleep - jealous?) without messing in her crate. In fact, in the last 3 weeks she has peed in her crate only once and was likely because she couldn't hold it for the 10 seconds in the morning between putting on my slippers and letting her outside.

So far today I have caught her *three* times, twice pooping and once peeing (although for one poop she took herself to the back door, pooping on the way, but that is, at least, progress). I have been awake for about an hour and a half and she has spent at least a half hour of that outside. I cannot even being to explain how frustrating it is to have her outside and then when she comes in she pees within a minute.

There are some who'd say leave her out until she pees outside. Well, how long is that? All day? You can't make a dog pee or poop, you just have to wait. You are supposed to stand outside with them and offer praise when they do pee but it doesn't seem to make much difference to her. Saying "Good pee! Good pee!" is all well and good but it actually doesn't seem to sink in why she is getting praised ... that or she doesn't care.

The other thing that I find very frustrating is that she doesn't empty her bladder all at once and also doesn't does poop all at once. She saves it to spread around. So you can be all happy that she pees outside, let her in and 30 seconds later she pees again.

So the only option left to me is to absolutely catch her every time she 'goes' in the house and scare the dickens out of her. She needs to learn that peeing and pooping inside is not allowed and therefor learns to hold it until she is outside. There she does not get into trouble for doing her business.

She is smart, very smart, and this hiccup is more frustrating with that knowledge. I am not proud - if anyone has suggestions how to house-train a smart dog please send your suggestions becasue I am tapped. When I got Esme some friends who also own Pulis said they found theirs to be harder to house train than other breeds and I laughed it off with the memory of how easy it was to train the Ridgebacks. Who's laughing now?

The difference is Ridgebacks *care* that there is poop and pee in the house. She does not. It's not funny, it's not cute, it's not an anecdotal "Puli thing'. I have gone through more paper towel house training this dog than any Ridgeback I have raised - that is not a distinction to which any dog should want to aspire.

1 comment:

Kathryn said...

Okay, it will sound weird. Rory was ringing the bell to out within about four days of when we got him home. Granted, I think watching Seth do it was really what got him, but it's an easy enough thing to train. My thinking is that she doesn't have any way of telling you that she needs to go out. Get a bell. Hang it on the door. Teach her to nose it (touch and treat). Teach her when she noses it she gets a treat and she gets to go out. Then cut out the treat until after you are outside and she's gone pee. The real key as you say is that she knows she's not supposed to do it in the house. She's bright and as soon as she figures out how to get OUT of the house, she'll be ringing that bell like mad! I did this with all my ridgebacks, and it's not like they are particularly brilliant dogs. Well, okay, maybe in their own way.