So, it has been quite a while since I potty trained a puppy from start to finish...and I think it was about time! You really only learn by first hand experience, and while I tell people "take her potty every time you think she needs to go potty", and "it just takes time for her to decide to hold it", it was time for me to take some of my own medicine! 

What I have learned is:

There are four stages to potty training a young puppy:

1. I will not hold it, so make sure I am outside when I need to go potty. 
2. I would rather go potty outside than inside, but if I have to go and am currently inside, I will find the best place and go there. 
3. I would rather go outside than inside, and will try to tell you in very subtle ways to let me outside- if you notice and let me out right away, this behavior will grow stronger. If you do  not notice my subtle signs, I will stop trying and just go ahead and go inside in the best spot I can find. (This is when you set them up for success). 
   
4. I would rather go outside than inside, and will hold it until I feel like going outside to potty. When I need to go, I will tell you be best way I can, and hold it as long as I can (depending on bladder control, this may or may not be very long).  

1. I will not hold it, so make sure I am outside when I need to go potty. You will need to pick her up immediately and take her outside:
   
1. Right after she eats or drinks
2. Right after she wakes up.
   
3. Every so often when she is awake for a while. This time varies from puppy to puppy. (Some puppies will need to go potty every 30 minutes when they are awake, and EVERY time they get up, no matter how short of a time they were laying down).
2. I would rather go potty outside than inside, but if I have to go and am currently inside, I will find the best place and go there. When you know she needs to go, take her outside. Also, watch for sniffing and frantic walking/spinning, then immediately pick her up and take her outside to potty. You still need to pick her up from the crate when she first gets let out, or she is likely to go on the floor before you get her out the door. 
3. I would rather go outside than inside, and will try to tell you in very subtle ways to let me outside- if you notice and let me out right away, this behavior will grow stronger. If you do not notice my subtle signs, I will stop trying and just go ahead and go inside in the best spot I can find.  You can now start to teach her to go outside to go potty:
1. When you get home and let her out of the crate, have her follow you out the door to the yard before you say hi to her and let her go potty.
   
2. After she eats, watch VERY closely, and wait for her to walk toward the door, then say "outside?" and immediately take her outside to go potty, then reward when she does. Next time wait a little longer, until she gets a little closer to the door, etc. If she does go potty indoors while you are waiting for her to walk towards the door, just say "ah ah!" and pick her up -mid pee- and take her outside right away to finish going potty out there. Reward. 
4. I would rather go outside than inside, and will hold it until I feel like gong outside to go potty. When I need to go, I will tell you the best way I can, and hold it as long as I can (depending on bladder control, this may or may not be very long). The signals for I need to go potty will start out pretty vague, and progressively get stronger and stronger with time. This is the highest level of potty training a young puppy can achieve. Congrats!

As of three days ago, Venga is in the beginnings of stage four, and it has taken her three weeks to get there.

I love to watch my dogs as they interact, so that I can get a better idea of "dog language". One thing I always do with my aggressive foster dogs, is take a step back, and make sure I am very careful when I give affection. I do not do it around the other dogs, and I watch for dominance signs the whole time. I never really thought about why I did this, until I had a student whose dog was having extreme aggression and dominance, and I knew that she was very very affectionate with the dog. The next day I was watching Riley and Rocco interact, and I saw something very interesting...

First I should start by saying that by this time, Riley had pretty much accepted Rocco as above him on the hierarchy of power in the household (aka more dominant), and so he had stopped trying to put his head over Rocco's back, he stopped trying to body block Rocco from the water, door etc. 

So I was watching Rocco play with Sarah on the floor, he was rolling around, his ears were back (submissive, non threatening ears) and he was trying to talk Sarah into playing with him. Riley came over to see what was going on, and Rocco turned to ask Riley to play too, and Riley immediately went in to dominant mode (his ears went straight up and forward, he head held high) and stretched his head/neck above Rocco in a show of dominance. I took Riley away before a fight broke out, but not before I learned a valuable lesson in doggie language. 

When we get all lovey-dovey with our dominant dogs, they see it as a moment of weakness, and an opportunity to assert themselves as the leader. This is why when you have a very dominant dog, you need to take a step back from all of the over the top affection until they learn and accept their position as a follower in the household. A good rule of thumb is 5 seconds of affection, and only on your terms. You should also make sure your dog does not get on the same level as you; i.e. on the bed with you, on the couch with you, you are the floor with him, etc.  

 

Food aggression training has been going very well with Rocco. We started with just hand feeding him, then moved to hand feeding him over an empty food bowl, then to dropping the food into the bowl, then to switching between bowl feeding and hand feeding, then to picking up the bowl when he lifts his head to pour more food into it. It is good to start feeding time pausing between handfuls, or between puting more food in the bowl, so that is just about begging you to pick up his bowl, or reach toward him with your hand.

I was just watching greys anatomy, and something one of the doctors said really struck a chord in me. She said that making mistakes is how we all learn, we just have to accept that and hope for the best. This is so true, I have such a problem forgiving myself for not being perfect. I have to realize that making mistakes is what is going to make me a better dog trainer. If I never mess up, or if I mess up and there are no real consequences, than how am I going to learn to not make that mistake again? I think one thing that makes it hard is that I hold 4 little lives in my hands, I am supposed to keep them safe. If I mess up and one of them gets hurt, that is on me, and there is nothing I can do about it. So, I have to ask myself if it is worth the risk. Without the risk, I will not grow very much as a trainer, because I would not be learning FIRST HAND. But if I do take the risk, I know that I will learn exponentially from it, but I endanger everyone in my house. So I have a very sweet, loving, smoosh-face dog who is VERY emotionally unstable, and did I mention HUGE? I keep telling myself that he does not act anywhere near as aggressively as Dakota did when we first got him, but then again, Kota was only 20lbs, and it was easy to not get hurt, or at least not badly hurt, by him.

This morning I went to pick up our new foster Rocco. He is a 230lb Bullmastiff. When I picked him up, I knew that he was food aggressive and was becoming dog aggressive. When I did an evaluation at the shelter I found out that he was eager to please, and had a very calm, stable personality. I thought that his issues were probably from lack of leadership and direction, and that he had a good prognosis of overcoming these issues with patience and the right approach. So I brought him home. We have not had any real episodes so far, just a few "incorrect behaviors". He did BEAUTIFULLY for his bath, I think he actually enjoyed it! We had our first meal, which he ate out of my hand after respectfully waiting while I was "eating" it first.  We all settled down for a little while and he went and laid down next to Pepper on the dog bed by the woodstove. He was completely asleep when pepper shifted her weight and I guess touched Rocco, because he jumped up and barked really loudly! I verbally corrected that behavior, then he lifted his lips at her when she wiggled, and I corrected that, then he fell back asleep. An half our later or so pepper shifted again and he jumped awake, but then just got up and moved away to lay back down...GOOD BOY!!!  He also tried counter surfing and found out that is a no-no. Since they met, there has been a bit of a show-down between Rocco and Riley. I really had to watch them that nothing erupted from their power struggle. They would both lie down for me, so it was not a fight for "top dog", it was a fight for second in line. So anyway, I just had to keep an eye on them and correct them if it started to get pushy. Well, we just had a breakthrough; Rocco was laying down and Riley walked over to him and sniffed him all over. Rocco just laid there and turned his belly up a little bit. Then they got up and started playing with a toy together! It was so cute! So, needless to say things are looking pretty good here at the Miller household!

 

So, lately I have been running into trouble with wanting to follow my code of ethics when it comes to picking the family for my latest foster dog. In my code of ethics, I list that it is not my job to "pick" the perfect owners for my foster dogs...that is God's job. It is my job to care for and teach these dogs to the best of my ability, and then advertise for new owners and portray the clearest possible picture of the dog's good and bad behavior and personality traits. Then the first family who says "yes we want him" and comes and pick him up, gets him. I have found that I CANNOT start playing that game of "picking" the family, because then it puts the responsibility of being able to read past what people tell me, and judge them for what kind of people they really are. I must try to see into the future to anticipate what problems they are most likely to face with the dog, and whether they will chose to work through those problems, or if they will just give up on the him. And then, if something does happen and they do give up on the dog, all of the responsibility for it not working out falls on my shoulders....which is not very fun, and totally avoidable. If I remember what my job is, and let go of the rest, everyone is happier. 

 

The new, although temporary, member of the pack will be arriving in just a few hours... her name is Pepper. Pepper is actually my parents' dog, but she will be coming to "Mandy Camp" for around 7 weeks. Pepper is a Puppy Mill rescued American Cocker Spaniel momma, and is now around 10yrs old. She is deaf, and is going blind, and has had very little training. While my parents love her, they, like many owners, have figured out how to work around their dog's issues, rather than face them head on and work through them. One of these such issues is her separation anxiety. The will be one of the very first things we address when she arrives. She will no longer be left outside when left alone...the weather here will not allow it, and neither will I. I will also start deaf/blind dog training with her. I think I am going to start with clap as correction (from the research I have found she should be able to feel the vibration of the air), and tapping the floor for beat-training. I have not heard of this style of deaf/blind dog training being used before, so we will see!  If any of you have advice for me on training deaf/blind dogs I would love to hear from you! 

So, while Riley is doing VERY well on is "green anti-cancer diet", unfortunately my clothes, furniture, rugs, floor, etc. are not. I do not know if it is the kelp, spirulina, or chlorella, or maybe is is all three, but something that is GREEN has or at least has tried to stain just about everything in my home that can be stained. Since I have gone back to feeding riley outside again (on the porch) and I am religeous about cleaning off his face as soon as he is done, it has gotten much better, though I am still finding new green stains here and there.

I am so happy to report to you all that Riley is doing SO WELL!!!!!  If I had a dollar for every person who came up to me and said "Wow! He looks so good!". They cannot believe it if they find out that he is fighting cancer. Also, I cannot tell you how many dirty looks I have gotten when we go to the dog park and I make him take breaks every 5 minutes or so. When people ask me why I would make my dog stop playing when he is so obviously having a good time, and I tell them that he has hip dysplasia and spondelosis which is a painful degenerative disease in the spine, they just look at me like I am crazy. I guess they think that I have just made it up? They are not the ones who have to watch their dog pay for that overly zelouse play-date at the park for days.  But, on a positive note, it is so wonderful to hear the dogs playing in the yard now. At home, Riley knows just how hard he can play, and for how long, with no discomfort to him (as far as I can tell). When I think back to this past spring when Riley's hip dysplasia and spondylosis got so bad and he would not play at all, all he wanted to do was lay in his crate or follow me around, I am just astounded at the difference his diet/herb supplements have made. I even saw a difference in his energy/ willingness to play, when I took him off all of his supplements when he got so sick from the Raw Food Diet. But as soon as I started back up with the supplements again, he started to improve once more.He is such a happy dog now, and Sarah is SO glad to have her play mate back!   I just love to lay in my hammock and listen to them running around me wrestling and playing ever so vocally! You would never guess that he is, or was, "sick". =)   

June 17, 2009

Unfortunately there is no way to know if your dog's immune system/spleen can handle the raw food diet, until you try it. Well, we tried it and now know that that is NOT the diet for Riley. He got so sick that he was vomiting all day and night and had to be hospitalized for 4 days on an IV. We took many X-rays and blood tests, trying to make sure there was not something major causing the problem, all to no avail. But, all that matters is that he did get better, and he is now quite alive and doing very well on his new COOKED diet. After all of this happened I found a holistic vet who was very knowledgeable about the raw food diet and the natural approach to combating cancer.  She told me how to cook his food so that he still gets many of the benefits of a raw diet, but it is much easier on his system than actually getting it raw. We also got some Chinese herbs to help his spleen and to make his blood move faster. I saw such a difference once I put him back on all of his supplements and added these two new ones, as well as started his new regime of cooking his food, I was floored. He is so happy now, with so much energy is is awesome!  While i HATE that Riley had to get so sick, one good thing that came out of it was that I finally decided to swallow the cost and find a holistic vet. I am SO GLAD I DID!!!