A short review of early puppy training. Part 2

House Training and Crate Training Lusi....where exactly does Lusi sleep?


We have never had a dog that was so easy to "potty train" as Lusi, she was simply spectacularly good at wanting to be clean. Now part of this may be a breed "thing" but I am quite certain that a good deal of credit goes to her breeder, Carola Adams. Her puppy pen at Dutch Kennels was meticulously clean and so I believe that this made the whole issue of potty training so much easier. Lusi was simply not used to having her surroundings soiled.


The second reason why Lusi was easy to potty train was that we followed Carola's advice about taking her outside on the grass after every meal and after she woke up. Sure enough, about fifteen minutes after Lusi had finished her meal (which was always served with an equal amount of water), Lusi needed "to go". Likewise after sleeping. Bingo! Lusi was potty trained!

There were a few wet spots...we weren't completely perfect but most of those mistakes were human error and not Lusi error! And there were the few "I need to go out in the middle of the night" requests when Lusi was first home and still just a tiny puppy.

Lusi asleep with Loki

So where exactly does Lusi sleep?


That first night on our return journey with Lusi as a puppy she slept peacefully through the night in the motel room in her crate with the crate door open.


After we were home I put her crate by our bed and sang her to sleep! She quickly learned to scrabble at the crate door and whine. Sometimes the singing worked and sometimes it didn't.

My big mistake was not using the crate during the daytime..even if only for short sessions.


I gave up on using the crate even at night as soon as Lusi slept through. Then she slept in the bed with us. As she grew bigger we would be pushing each other in an effort to get more of the bed until finally she decided that there wasn't enough space for us both to be comfortable and she migrated downstairs to sleep on the sofa!

It wasn't until we started our puppy agility classes when Lusi was just five months old that I had to start more consistent training with Lusi to get her to stay in her crate. I put her big comfy dog bed in the crate and started to insist that she go inside before I put her food bowl down. Now she goes in automatically if she thinks it is mealtime.


We have at least one really good crate routine now....Lusi goes into the crate and sits with the door open. She watches me prepare the food for all the chihuahuas. She has to wait until they each get their bowls.Then I put her bowl down and I release her with, "Break!"  and she comes to her bowl. 
*Note to self..it's all about the small routines!

Loki has moved into Lusi's crate!

Since I put Lusi's bed inside her crate, having decided that she must spend more short periods of time during the day in it, the Chihuahuas have decided it is super comfortable! Loki especially, keeps trying to move in!

Remy has opted for the penthouse suite of Lusi's crate!

A short review of early puppy training. Part 1

 This is a short review of the early puppy training we have done since Lusi came to live with "THE MEASURES FAMILY." Of course it goes without saying the incredible job Carola Adams and her family at Dutch Kennels did in raising Star's litter of ten puppies, (seven boys and three girls).

Lusi's litter mates at 1 week old

When we arrived to collect Lusi at 8 weeks old, she was ready to explore her new world, beautifully socialized with children and quite accustomed to strangers patting and cuddling her. The 1500km journey from New Brunswick to Ontario went well with Lusi showing little if any anxiousness or stress. 

"Lusi" at 4 weeks old.

Once home, Lusi settled in with Remy, our chihuahua by her side as her constant companion and the other two chihuahuas showing varying degrees of welcome, depending on the situation.

Remy and the "step-over" dog gates!

Getting ready for a puppy: Size does count, sooner or later!
Looking back I can see that I was quite fortunate in having Remy, our chihuahua, join our family early in the New Year of 2011. It had been a long time since we had had a puppy in the house and the decision to take him to puppy classes provided a great grounding in "positive" training methods. It also meant that we had had to puppy proof the house, reconsider "house rules" and go through the process of "house-training" all within the same year as we acquired Lusi. So it was that we were better prepared for a larger breed of dog like Lusi than we might otherwise have been and our puppy training knowledge was more current!


But of course there were some major differences, notably size, that although as an 8 week old puppy these were not immediately obvious, they had certainly become notable by the time Lusi was a few months old.


If you were to ask me what was the single most surprising thing about Lusi I would have to answer, "It was how quickly she grew!" I was sort of prepared for her to grow quickly but I had mis-calculated just how quickly she would become a sizeable dog! Fortunately we had replaced some of those step over dog gates that had worked so well with the chihuahuas, with taller ones, either metal or plastic-mesh retractable ones. I can distinctly remember going through all the online information about dog gates trying to figure out which ones would be the best kind for each location.

Lusi at 7 months old and  
the "jump-over" dog gate!

We opted for a plastic retractable gate in the hallway. It proved to be efficient only in the way it blocked the access for humans...the little dogs learnt how to squeeze under it and Lusi learnt how to jump over it from a standstill.


Fortunately we are always home with our dogs or they are travelling with us, so we were not faced with a serious issue of "containment." Our primary objective was to prevent the dogs from having a complete run of the house and instead to coral them where we spend most of our time anyway.


Gradually Lusi learnt to respect the retractable dog gate and yesterday she waited patiently for us to finish our Christmas festivities without scaling it to join us for "Turkey dinner".

AN INTRO TO EDUCATING LUSI THE DALMATIAN

This blog is devoted to Lusi's training. It is a way of helping me see our progress.

Lusi is already six months old and the days seem to fly by in a haze of tail wagging, ears flapping and legs everywhere. I have learned as much about myself in watching Lusi as about Lusi herself. I watch and observe: I notice how similar all the dogs I have shared my life with over the years have been, despite the difference in breeds! 


I realize that the art of "becoming" a dog clearly depends as much on the handler, owner or companion as it does on the breed.