Taking photos of puppies is not easy.
I have the perfect pose but before my brain can send the signal to my finger it's gone.
Bonnie was hiding from me, under a bench:
Guapa was trying to eat the camera lens:
We've made some progress this week. If I hold a treat an inch from the nose and quickly lower it to the ground I can get them both 'down'.
I can even get Guapa to do it with an empty hand.
Now if I can only get them to do it with just the command…..
Bonnie is the first of the pups to get a nickname.
Well, two, actually. She earned the name 'Trouble' within days of coming to live with us.
The other is 'mon petit oiseau' (my little bird). She puffs out her neck like a pigeon (and looks quite silly). I have no idea why she does it or if it's meant to be playful or demanding.
Guapa, I think will earn the moniker 'Hoover'. She inhales her kibble, and, as soon as that's gone, she's under the fig trees, hoovering any fallen fruit.
I believe I will be fighting a lifelong battle to keep her svelte figure.
She does have a gorgeous, curly coat though….
Our next big challenge is to get them to listen to my commands when they don't want to…. Like when they would rather be chasing a bunny.
It's pretty easy to get them to 'come' when they're inside the fence and know I have a treat in my pocket (no, they don't always get one.)
Oh…. and to quit peeing on the rugs.
I normally have rugs on the floor – you know, by the door, so one can wipe one's feet. For the first week or two I put pads on the rugs as a house-training maneuver. Then the weather got nice and we simply left the door open.
But they still peed on the rugs.
So I picked them up (the rugs, not the puppies).
Problem solved.
Now summer is waning, the weather is turning, it's damp in the mornings…. I put a rug down.
The puppies have not peed in the house, not even at night, since early July.
Not once.
They promptly peed on the rug….
The door was open, they could have taken 2 more steps and been outside.
How can they not remember to 'sit' when I work on it every single day but remember that 4 months ago it was okay to pee on the rug?
Now what do I do? Put the rug down and wait for one of them to transgress – then beat the living crap out of 'em gently correct them.
The winter rains are coming…. I need my rugs!
I love the doggie stories. Nan
I’m afraid you taught them too well to use the rugs as a toilet… never, ever allow pups to pee in the house, no matter how small they are or how bad the weather… you ‘just’ have to take them out zillions of times to let them pee outside, like the second they wake up from a mini nap, the second they stop playing and lots more times in between, during the night as well. It’s just so much harder to un-teach them bad habits… And of course, litte accidents will happen, but as long as you don’t reward those and will reward the correct behaviour, they won’t be a problem.
And I’m speaking from experience, having a puppy in the house right now and my husband having been a trainer of dog-trainers for years… He’s actually offered to try and help you out a bit with the puppies. Just let me know if you’re interested, and I’ll send you our telephone number so you can have a chat.
You need to catch them in the act and be furious so they get A. a fright and B.the message is driven home . So put rug down and lurk !!!!
Get a new rug – the old one says, “Peeing is okay” to their noses. Even if you have washed it several times, dogs’ noses are so sensitive that they still can tell.
Nan, thanks… ;-))
Richelle, I didn’t teach them at all to use rugs…. I was training them with papers, which only took a few weeks and they rarely resorted to using them. It seems like it’s almost more of a territory marking than anything else. Amazingly, they haven’t had an ‘accident’ since the beginning of July. We’ll keep working at it. Thanks for the offer…. I may take you up on that.
manningroad, that’s the plan! I pick the rugs up when I leave the room.
Zoomie, unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. The rugs are in good shape, I can’t get similar here and they were peed on by the old dogs…. We’ll get it worked out.