Stuff 'n things

[wordinista]

Dear Everyone On My F-List:

I have been a very bad Bunneh.  I've been reading LJ (though not as obsessively these days), but I've hardly been replying to anyone.  I just want to let y'all know that it's mostly related to being sick, but also trying to keep an eye on Darwin AND keep on top of my normal daily responsibilities.  (This week I'm going to try and teach him that he does not have to have his nose directly up my butt 24/7, and the world will NOT end if I leave the room without him.)

I just realized that I haven't been commenting much, if at all, and it's been totally unintentional.  I've also been doing precisely jack for writing. 

I'm ALSO seriously reconsidering crate training Darwin overnight.  I need to get some sleep, and more than two hours at a time.  (Gotta say, I have newfound respect for new parents.)  He's not sleeping through the night, and he SHOULD be -- but I'm letting him out every 2 or 3 hours.  (He's slowly getting better -- one night he slept five hours straight.)  The first night we tried keeping him in his crate, he started howling and wouldn't stop.  I just hope I haven't created a bad habit in him.  *sigh*  I'm just so tired.  It's already one in the afternoon, and I don't know where the day has gone -- not because I've been super busy and productive, but because after takinghim out, feeding him, and playing with him (which ran from 6:30-8:00), we both collapsed for a nap that lasted THREE HOURS.  I hate napping.  Despise it.  It sucks up my day.

Any dog-owners on my f-list who can give some housebreaking advice here?  (Having him sleep on the bed and then rushing him outside whenever he woke up was Tora-kun's tactic, and it seems to be working not well at all -- aside from the fact that there've been no potty accidents in bed, knock wood.  Everyone I know has been recommending keeping the dog in its crate overnight until its fully housebroken, and I got such static from Tora-kun on that, it almost wasn't worth doing.  And then there was the endless howling, which sealed the deal.)

I just want a full night's sleep -- six to eight hours, consecutively.

Comments

[hecallaghan.livejournal.com]

Heartbreaking as it is, you're going to have to try and live with the howling for a few nights. Which will be worse than it was, because he's learned that if he howls, you'll let him out.

I understand Tora-Kun's objections cos locking the little guy up like that seems pretty cold on the face of it, but the thing about dogs is that they're not people and can't be reasoned with. They're pack predators and they understand toughlove. You wouldn't let your human baby sleep in the bed with you, no matter how much it cried, because you'd understand that it would be happier and you'd be happier with it in its own space, and the same if true of teh Cuteness.

You will have a few sleepless nights, but before long it will be second nature to go into his box and he'd prefer not to sleep anywhere else, because it's *his*. And anyway, you want him to sleep in the box and you're in charge. Dogs are happier when someone is in charge and they have boundaries, a lot like kids in many ways.

If this sounds harsh, then you could always consider how my Dad trained all of our dogs, which was by Force of Personality. We had a terrible time with Morag, my first own real dog. Her housebreaking went on for about two months, because we could never catch her in time and my Mum wasn't hugely intimidating when we did. At night she wasn't boxed but went into the yard, where she was pretty safe and could go wherever she wanted, so holding it in till morning wasn't an issue. We were in California at the time, so she was hardly going to catch cold, plus there were no alligators or snakes.

Then one day at dinner she did it in front of my Dad on the kitchen floor, and it was like watching a tornado burst into the room. Into the puddle went her nose (which is considered cruel nowadays but was standard practice back then), as her poor bottom ascended into the air as he picked her up and heaved her out the door, claws all a-scuttle on the lino. It wasn't particularly violent, but it looked like it was, probably because my Dad was so angry.

And that did the trick. Never again.

Force of personality does amazing things for dogs, which are hierarchical by nature. Apparently the alpha female wolf in a pack stops the other females from going into heat by means of glaring at them. Sometimes, when I'm bored, I consider that little factoid and it always makes me smile. You'll find that Darwin becomes a lot happier when he's housebroken because he's got someone higher up the totem pole than him. I know it goes against many of my (and doubtless your) cherished human ideals about liberty and individualism and all that, but dogs love that totalitarian shit. They're like anti-cats.

God, I love dogs. They rock. They are the Samwise Gamgees of the Animal Kingdom.

[w0rdinista.livejournal.com]

Well, here's the thing. I've been trying to crate-train him during the DAY, since George was so opposed to putting him in his crate overnight. So he knows he won't be let out if he howls. The hard part is to keep him from viewing the crate as a punishment. During the day, what I tried to do was praise him and reward him whenever he did settle down in his crate and play with his toys. I'm going to keep doing that during the day and crating him at night, I think. He needs to learn.

The housebreaking really isn't going as badly as it COULD be. In two weeks, I can count the number of accidents he's had on one hand.

*thinks, counts*

Okay, maybe two hands -- but just BARELY.

He's actually doing REALLY well, all things considered. And the accidents he HAS had has been a result of my not noticing that he was sniffing around intently. We are, however, coming to a point where he does go to the door and either sniff at it or paw at it. So, there's progress there. The problem was getting him to sleep through the night without potty-breaks -- hence the crate redux.

What it all boils down to is that I want Darwin to be a good dog -- the kind that people don't mind having around. The kind you can take places. And he's got the raw potential to be the best dog in the world, I swear. He just needs to learn.

Samwise Gamgees of the Animal Kingdom -- my god, I love that.