He hasn’t fallen over...yet

They say dogs easily pick up behaviors and mannerisms from other dogs. For example, supposedly it’s easier potty train a puppy when he’s living with an older dog because the puppy will watch the other dog potty outside and try to imitate him (so if the older dog isn’t well potty trained either, then I guess you’re shit out of luck…or possibly shit in the house, whatever). 

As much as I love doggy day care, Forest is coming home with some annoying habits. During play time, they let the dogs chew on rags and old blankets. This certainly isn't helping Forest’s sock obsession, and now he goes wild every time I pull out a scarf or towel. If we board Forest for more than a few days, the puppy always comes back with potty issues. I think he sees other dogs relieving themselves inside, so he starts to think that’s ok again. We’ve gone out of our way to avoid boarding Forest now because of this issue, sometimes even driving to Iowa to drop him off with friends or family who doggy-sit Forest while we’re on vacation (which we truly appreciate, thanks guys!). But a few months ago, we noticed Forest exhibiting a new, amusing habit…

Ever since Forest was puppy, he’s always squatted when going potty. In fact, he was so small when he first came home with us, sometimes we couldn’t even tell when he went to the bathroom; tiny Forest standing up looked about the same as tiny Forest squatting (especially when we didn’t mow the grass).

 

Many times we had to pick Forest up to check if he had done his business.

We assumed Forest would always go the bathroom this way, especially after he got neutered (most male dogs squat after being neutered, like they’re ashamed to lift a leg and expose their once-manly nether regions).

But now, randomly, Forest will lift his leg to pee. The first time I saw Forest do this, I actually laughed out loud. The puppy had no clue what he was doing. He was just randomly lifting he leg during walks and out in the yard. He didn't even pee! Just stood there for a moment with that leg hefted high, sometimes glancing at us as if to ask “This is how you do it, right?” Occasionally he would raise his leg so high, he’d lose his balance and stumble around.

After a few more weeks at doggy day care, Forest finalized realized that lifting a leg was part of a process, the end goal being to squirt something out. Now Forest will raise his leg to mark a bush or fire hydrant, but sometimes he still lifts his leg for no dang reason.

He hasn’t fallen over...yet

Recovering Addicts

I swear, Nick and I never thought we’d get addicted. We were just looking for something to relieve the stress of raising a puppy, help us relax after a long day at work. So we thought we’d try it for a few weeks, no big deal right?  Twelve months and a couple thousand bucks later, we've finally realized the truth… we’re addicted to doggy day care.

It started out innocently enough. Baby Forest had a tiny bladder and had to go potty like a zillion times a day. After one week of scampering home every two hours to let him out, we gave up and took him to doggy day care (which is conveniently run by his vet). Suddenly we had our lives back. While we were at work, the doggy day care folks let him play with other dogs, took him out to potty every few hours, and lavished him with love and attention. Sure, it was more money spent on the dog instead of a bar tab, and one of us had to drop him off in the morning while the other had to pick him up after work, but we assured each other that doggy day care was only a temporary solution.

A few weeks turned into a few months and we continued to take Forest to doggy day care. Addicts can always come up with excuses for not quitting.  In the beginning, we reasoned that it would be healthy for Forest to interact with different people and animals while he was still young so he wouldn’t turn into a weird canine who couldn’t play well with others and tried to eat cats. When the weather got cold and nasty, we argued that doggy day care was a perfect way for Forest to get exercise, negating the need for an evening walk. When Spring came around, we were convinced that we just couldn’t find time in our hectic work and travel schedules for a mid-day puppy break. 

So our temporary solution has eventually transformed into the main problem. Doggy day care is not on the way to either of our offices, so we spend more time stuck in traffic. When Nick’s out of town, I’m responsible for both drop-off and pick-up duty. And although it’s reasonable priced, a year of care adds up (raising a dog has turned out to be freaking expensive).

Luckily, it was Forest himself who started us on the road to recovery. The growing puppy finally mastered his bladder, so we stopped locking Forest in his crate at night. When it was time for bed, we just shut the bedroom door and Forest slept on the floor (usually curled up on my discarded clothing).  Except for that unpleasant incident when I tried to sleep in on a Saturday, Forest behaved quite well. Next, we experimented with leaving him home alone for a few hours in the bedroom, sans crate, and we always came home to dry carpets. Then slowly, starting with just one or two days a week, we locked Forest in his crate while we were at work (finally discarding the trusty bungee cord). We felt horrible about putting him in a box all day, and soon progressed to our current practice of just shutting him in the bedroom (although we suspect that he probably spends half his day on the bed).

Someday, we’d love to give Forest free-rein of the whole house while we’re gone, but we’re not quite to that comfort level yet.  Doggy day care isn’t completely out of our system, and may always be a small part of our routine, but I have hope. Every addict does.

Recovering Addicts

Poop Scissors

I never saw a chapter about this in any of our dog training books. It would have been considerate if someone had given us a heads up about purchasing an essential doggy accessory…Poop Scissors.

As we have yet to train Forest to wipe his own butt, sometimes we have to complete this task for him. Usually there are just some ugly remnants hanging on his fur, and a quick dab with a paper towel is all that’s required. But unfortunately there are times when a paper towel just ain’t doing the job (forget cleaning up spilled milk and stovetop grease, if I ever see a commercial where a mother cleans up puppy poop with her magical Bounty towel, I’m buying that freaking product).

Yes, every now and then, Forest somehow manages to embed his puppy waste into his butt hair, and then it’s a job for the Poop Scissors. Nick and I have become so accustomed to this chore that we routinely remind each other to double-check Forest’s butt after he poops. Today I decided to start using the command “Butt Check” with Forest so he’ll stop squirming when I lift his tail for inspection.

And no, we didn’t buy an expensive pair of scissors that were specifically designed for this job. The Poop Scissors are just an ordinary pair of office scissors that now have the sole purpose of clipping turds out of Forest’s hair. I did a quick Google search and surprisingly didn’t find any certified Poop Scissors for sale. With all the stupid dog items out there, like this one, you’d think someone would have patented Poop Scissors by now. Hmmmm...

Poop Scissors

Potty Bell

I haven't posted about potty training lately because, HALLELUJAH, Forest hasn't had an accident in the house for the past couple of months (besides that incident in April). We were really struggling for awhile, but I thinking the turning point came when we bought a potty bell.

We decided to get a bell after constantly finding Forest sitting at the front door waiting to go out (and we had no clue as to how long he had been waiting) or a puppy puddle on the kitchen floor. We thought it would be helpful if Forest could somehow signal when he needed to potty, but without barking or whining. We found two different types of potty bells: one was bell attached to a piece of rope that would hang from a door knob, and the other was free-standing bell that kinda looked like what you would ring for a bellhop at a hotel. We decided to buy the latter because we thought it would get really annoying to hear a bell ring every time we opened the door (plus we figured it would confound Forest).

After we bought the bell, we had to tackle the task of training Forest to use it. Similar to his crate training, every single time we took Forest outside to potty, we would first lift his little paw and gently push it down on the bell. Theoretically, puppies are supposed to eventually learn that ringing the bell automatically gives them a free pass outside, but we found that the word “eventually” is relative. Most of the books we read and the websites we looked at said that it may take a few days to a few weeks to train your puppy to ring the bell when he needs to go out. Ummm, it took 2 freaking months to train Forest to use the potty bell. After the first month, I felt like a complete jackass. An Albert Einstein quote kept repeating in my head "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Damn straight.

I’ll admit it, I almost gave up, but the crate training experience gave me hope that someday Forest could understand what the potty bell was for. Then, one day, Forest accidently rang the bell by licking it. YAY! Doggy got a lot of treats and praise. He quickly caught on after that and was ringing the bell every time he went out.

Of course, Forest soon learned to take advantage of the bell and rang it every time he wanted to go outside, not when he needed to go outside. Hear some kids playing outside? *RING* Want to go chew on some grass? *RING* Just desire some attention from your parents who, gasp, haven’t looked at you for 30 seconds? *RING*

So Nick and I had to retrain ourselves to not let Forest out every time he rings the bell. I think we’ve finally reached a nice equilibrium. We totally ignore Forest if he’s gone potty recently and rings the bell. If Forest hasn’t gone out in awhile and rings the bell, or if he loiters around the bell and persistently rings it, then we know the puppy really needs to go potty.

Potty Bell

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Now that the snow has melted, you can clearly see the spots on our front lawn where Forest habitually relived himself during the winter months. Perhaps peeing on the driveway wasn't such a bad habit after all…

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

What happens when I try to sleep in on a Saturday

Today has not been a good day in puppy-land. Nick and I have a sound machine sitting next to the bed that plays "soothing" noises which are supposed to help us sleep (it has almost 30 different sounds; I think we've only ever used five of them, max). This morning I woke up not to "White Noise" but to the sound of a little doggy peeing on the carpet. So I jumped out of bed and started yelling "NO" and "BAD DAG" in a deep, scary, trying-to-imitate-a-pissed-off-Nick voice. Forest actually made eye contact with me but continued to do his business on the carpet! And it wasn't like a little squirt, he had a jet stream of doggy pee coming out of him, and the whole time I was yelling at him, all I could think was "Damn, that's a lot of pee." I can only assume that I slept in too late and Forest REALLY had to go, so even though the puppy knew he wasn't supposed to potty inside, he had no choice. That thought made me feel sort of bad for yelling at him, but not bad enough to stop me from locking him in his crate while I cleaned up the mess.

I'm not a morning person to begin with, so toss waking up early to clean puppy pee on that and I'm really not pleasant to be around. But as I let Forest outside to finish up (I doubted he had anything left after the mini reservoir he created in our bedroom but he proved me wrong by pooping on the lawn) and then dragged my ass around to make coffee and breakfast, I tried to keep reminding myself that Forest's a good dog and the accident this morning was kind of my fault.

About an hour later I had forgiven the puppy and decided to take him for a walk. We got about a block away from the house when he pooped on a neighbors' lawn. No problem, I used a plastic bag to clean up his mess, walked back to the house to drop off the goody-bag, and we started off again. We got almost two blocks away when Forest took another dump, although this time it was a little, um, liquidy. All right, fine, it was a tad more difficult to clean up but I wasn't going to leave puppy diarrhea on our neighbors' lawn. We walked back to the house again, and then started our walk for the third time. We got about halfway around the neighborhood when Forest stopped to go #2 for the third time in 15 minutes and the fourth time that day. And this last poop, dear God, it was terrible.

Flashback to Thursday night. Forest was playing with his rope toy when he suddenly started making gagging noises. I pried own his open his jaws, felt around his mouth with my finger, and pulled out a piece of string that had come off his toy. A few minutes later, I found him chewing on another piece. He was eating his rope toy! This was very bad.  As silly as it sounds, string is dangerous for dogs. I guess it can get wrapped around their intestine or something, making the dogs sick or even killing them. So I plucked all the loose strings from his toy and kept a close eye on him for the rest of the night. When I took Forest to doggy day-care the next day, I was relieved to know that someone would be around to watch him in case he got sick. I wondered how long it would take a piece of string to hurt a puppy or pass thru his system.

Well today I got an answer to my second query: it takes less than 48 hours for rope string to go from puppy mouth to puppy butt, and the end product is extremely disturbing. When Forest finished taking his fourth dump this morning, I saw a clump of poop just dangling from his butt. After a lot of cussing, I got closer to try to clean it up. That's when I discovered that the poop wasn't stuck to his fur, it was actually stuck to a piece of string that had not been fully dispelled from the puppy anus. After a lot more cussing, I found a stick and was able to scrape the rest of the poop and string out of his butt.

That fun activity officially killed my walking spirit and we quickly went home. Before I let him inside the house, I tried to clean Forest's backside with some paper towels and found another piece of string protruding from his a-hole! Somehow I got the brilliant idea that if I pulled the string out right away, poop wouldn't have a chance to get caught on it and we wouldn't have a dangling poop incident again. So I bent down close, making sure that I breathed thru my mouth, grabbed a hold of the string and pulled. Out popped the rope string with a mid-size turd clinging to the end of it like a grotesque lollipop. I'll admit it, I almost threw up.

So I've spent the majority of this beautiful Saturday letting Forest out every hour or so to fertilize our grass. It's starting to taper off now, so I can only hope that he'll be able to get thru the night without messing up his crate (and himself in the process) and that perhaps tomorrow, I'll wake up to my alarm clock instead of any other surprises.

What happens when I try to sleep in on a Saturday

Snow Dog

We had one blissful week without snow before Mother Nature gave us the middle finger and chucked another 4 inches at us. Nick and I are not happy; Forest is thrilled.

  Our puppy dislikes rain and water but he loves snow.

Based on his initial reaction to snow, we weren't anticipating this type of obsession. Forest was a little confused the first time he encountered snow.

I don't think he was expecting the ground to be so cold or slushy because he kept picking up his paws one at a time like "ohhh, this isn't how the ground usually feels, is this right?"

He slowly made his way into the yard…sniffing the air…licking the grass…and repeatedly looking back at us like he was expecting Nick or I to suddenly start yelling at him to get off of the weird white stuff on the ground.

On that first day he happily came back inside after a few minutes. But nowadays it's a 50/50 chance that we'll have to march into the yard and carry the puppy back into the house.

Snow makes our puppy very hyper. He'll literally bounce around the yard like a caffeinated bunny rabbit. On several different occasions I've tried to tape this spectacle but the video always comes out all shaky because I'm giggling too much.

 Zoom zoom...

We've been on vacation a lot and just overall lazy this winter so we've only shoveled snow around four times (which is like three times more often that it's been shoveled any other year). Thus our sidewalks and driveway have spent about 75% of this winter covered in ice and snow. In the past we've tried to train Forest to only go potty on the grass, but all of this snow has really confused him. I'll often find him taking a leak on the driveway or a big dump on the sidewalk. Can't yell at the poor puppy because it's not like he's going to understand "No, don't go bathroom in that snow pile, move over one foot and lay some pipe in this snow pile instead." (FYI, don't blame me, "lay some pipe" is one of Nick's numerous euphemisms to describe Forest's potty breaks).

Snow butt.

Luckily the snow is melting very quickly, so hopefully we won't encounter this wild beast again this year...

(To be fair, he really needed a haircut, there's a bush with extra snow and wild branches directly behind him and there was a snowstorm raging around us but still, yikes puppy.)

Snow Dog

Somebody missed me

Sorry for the gap in posts but Nick and I were preparing for and then enjoying a tropical vacation in the Virgin Islands. I usually get really depressed on the last day of vacation when it's time to head home and I have to leave behind the sun, beach and fabulous rum. Nick has repeatedly threatened to stop going on vacations with me because of it. But this was the first time where I was actually eager to come back to dreary KC (in comparison to the Virgin Islands) because I knew there was a fuzzy little dude waiting for me. This was the longest we've ever been away from Forest and I was positively giddy about seeing him again.

Whenever we board Forest for more than a few days, he always comes home with some potty issues (like the great Bean Bag Mishap of '09). So the idea of boarding Forest for over a week had us contemplating saran wrapping our furniture. Luckily Nick's brother and sister-in-law graciously offered to doggy-sit Forest in Iowa while we were gone. We flew home late Sunday night, got a few hours of sleep, worked all day Monday, then hopped in the car for an Iowa road trip.

Jason and Elizabeth were both attending a class that evening so they weren't home when we finally arrived in Iowa (after driving thru rain, fog and road construction, but I would have driven thru a tornado if necessary). We let ourselves in thru the garage and made our way to the upstairs bedroom where Forest was staying in his crate.

The puppy went nuts as soon as we opened the bedroom door and turned on the light. Forest whimpered with glee and the tip of his tail was whipping around like we had just dropped popcorn on the floor. It was only after I opened the crate door that I noticed he was walking in this weird crouching position with the base of his tail tucked under his butt. Then I saw little, glistening spots on his crate blanket and quickly instructed Nick to evacuate the premises.

Yep, Forest was so happy to see us that he was peeing on himself. Nick had to cradle the puppy like a baby so he would stop squirting everywhere and then carry him outside. We had expected Forest to dart into the yard and finish his business right away but nope, the puppy was so ecstatic that he just kept running back and forth between the two of us so he could lick our hands and jump on our legs. I'm surprised he didn't just let loose on the garage floor or driveway. Finally, after confirming that he could keep both of us within eye sight, he went potty on the lawn.

Dang dog, I never thought I would consider losing bladder control as a sign of love :)

Somebody missed me

Forest’s got a leak

Wow, the past month was crazy! We had three straight weekends full of Thanksgiving festivities. Our little puppy was introduced to a lot of new people and new places and, well, it sometimes overwhelmed him.

For example, we visited Nick’s family the weekend before Thanksgiving. We hopped in the car right after work and drove for about three hours to Iowa. Forest was in the backseat the whole time and overall was pretty well-behaved. We laid a blanket across the seats and put some toys back there for him. He freaked out a little when the car was stopped, like “Holy shit, what’s going on, is someone getting out, getting in, do I have to get out, what’s that over there?” but on the highway he fell right to sleep.

We stayed at Jason’s house that night (Nick’s brother) and he happened to be taking out the garbage as we pulled up to his house. As soon as Forest jumped out of the car I tried to steer him towards the yard to do his business, but no, Forest wanted to go say hi and get a belly rub from Jason. The puppy ran up to our host and jumped on him a little before settling down at his feet with his tail going a mile a minute. We all thought it was really cute until I noticed the growing puddle. “Uh Jason, the dog’s peeing on you.” Yep, little Forest was so excited that he pissed all over Jason’s white Pumas.

Unfortunately this is not like a one-time thing. Sometimes Forest gets so worked up that he can’t help but let a little go. We call those his “happy squirts”. We were actually lucky that only one shoe was victimized this time. When Forest was a few months old, I was waiting in line at doggy day care to pick him up and bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen in awhile. I was so excited to introduce her to our new little furball that as soon as they brought Forest out I picked him up and started gushing over what a sweet doggy he was and how cute he was, bla bla bla. Suddenly my arm felt a little wet, and me in my innocence thought that Forest had licked me or maybe even drooled. But no, as I lifted him a little higher I saw that Forest had just piddled on me, the floor and the doggy carrier at my feet. Not the best first impression he could have made, but I guess I should be happy he didn’t puke or poop on me (no, he was going to save those for later, damn dog). Now when I pick Forest up at doggy day care, I have a strict policy of going straight out the door, no chit chat. Live and learn I guess.

Forest’s got a leak

Regressed Puppy

Sorry I haven’t written in awhile, I’ll make up for it with a thorough posting :) It’s been a tad crazy in the Forest household lately; Nick and I have had hectic work schedules, illness and end of summer weddings and festivities. Then on top of all that, we’ve been very preoccupied with a certain puppy problem.

For the first two months of his life, Forest was allowed to go potty anywhere he wanted. His doggy-mom tried to teach him not to go where he slept, but anywhere else was fine. Then Forest came home with us. We spent the next two months trying to teach the puppy that pooping in our bedroom was not OK and he should do all of his business outside.

We researched two methods of potty-training: negative reinforcement and positive reinforcement. I think negative reinforcement used to be the popular approach a few years back (find a puddle of dog pee? just rub the dog’s nose it in while yelling, that’ll teach him). But now the general consensus is that negative reinforcement can be just that, negative. So positive reinforcement is the preferred method (find a puddle of dog pee? don’t yell at the dog, just praise him the next time he goes outside). Even if you catch the dog in the act, positive reinforcement emphasizes not yelling at the dog, give him a stern No or your “negative” marker word and take him outside to finish up…don’t forget to praise!

We found that a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement works best for us. If we catch Forest peeing in the house, there’s going to be a hell of a lot of yelling, but then we take him outside and tell him what a good dog he is. The yelling part sounds mean, but Forest just wasn’t catching on to potty training until we started yelling when we caught him. We aren’t even that picky, if the dog wants to go potty on the driveway, have at it, as long as it isn’t inside. And no, if we find a random puddle in the house, we don’t rub his nose in it. If we’re not watching Forest and he takes that opportunity to pee, well then that’s our fault for not keeping an eye on him. He is a puppy after all.

So after two months of potty training, I think Forest was finally starting to get it, he was only having one or two accidents a week in the house. Then Nick and I spent a few days in San Diego visiting some friends. We feel bad asking anyone to puppy-sit Forest until he’s fully potty trained, so we decided to board him at the vet. We dropped Forest off Friday morning and picked him up Tuesday evening. San Diego was fabulous, but I missed the puppy. That was the longest I’d ever been away from him so I was pretty excited to get Forest home.

The excitement was short-lived. Forest was only home for like an hour before he peed inside. Luckily, I caught him in the act and got a “No no no no bad bad dog!” out before Forest stopped midstream and cowered with his tail between his legs (now I understand why nature engineered puppies to be so adorable. I was surrounded by dog pee but felt absolutely horrible about yelling at him for it).

After 5 days at the boarders, Forest had regressed back to I’ll-go-potty-anywhere-I-want-to puppy. We couldn’t blame the boarders, they’re not responsible for potty-training all the dogs they watch. But I can’t believe how quickly Forest slipped back to bad habits. He peed inside again a few hours after I caught him that first time. The next night, I look over and he’s taking a big dump in the middle of the kitchen. And a day later we were playing in the bedroom and found little wet spots streaked across the carpet, which we determined were caused by Forest running and pissing at the same time.

Friday and Saturday passed without accidents so we started feeling a little more confident, like maybe Forest was remembering that peeing in the house = bad puppy. But Sunday night did not go well. No, it did not go well at all. Forest was hanging out with Nick in our basement. We have two huge bean bags made of pleather-like material in the basement. I love them, they’re super comfy and can fit 2-3 people on them. Forest also loves them and will often drag his toys on top of them to play.

Nick said that at one point, the puppy was standing on a bean bag and watching TV (which just sounds so cute) when he suddenly jumped off and came over to sit on Nick’s foot. Nick said the puppy felt a little wet and looked guilty. Sure enough, Forest had piddled all over one of the bean bags. Nick said he had never given much thought to the design of a bean bag before, but unfortunately the crevices and dips in the bean bag makes this sort of accident look like lakes and streams of puppy piss (which I never got to see, the sweet boy had cleaned it all up before he told me about it).

After almost two weeks of cleaning up mess after mess, we got Forest sort of retrained. Then we had to board the puppy again to attend the wedding of Nick’s brother. Sure enough, Forest was piddling all over the place when we got him home.

So we’ve gone back to checking on the puppy every few minutes, fun times! Experts say dogs have no concept of “revenge,” but I’ll say, it certainly looks like Forest is punishing us for boarding him (that’ll teach us).

Regressed Puppy

Nighttime Doodie

A wonderful, amazing thing has happened. After almost two weeks of waking up two, or even three times a night to let Forest out, the little poop machine only had to do his business once Wednesday night. Trust me, this is a big deal.

Little dogs come with teeny tiny bladders. Last week Nick was preparing for his half triathlon and needed to sleep, and this week he was out of town on business. So I became Queen of Nighttime Potty Duty. Royal responsibilities included: being in constant possession of a plastic bag, standing on the lawn in my jammys in the middle of the night, and not sleeping for more than 3 consecutive hours. I didn’t know how long Forest could control his bladder, so during the first week I set an alarm to go off a couple times a night. But I’m a really light sleeper and woke up every time the puppy whimpered or started gnawing on the crate, so I stopped setting alarms. Most of the time Nick slept thru it all (the alarm, the subsequent cussing, Forest clawing at the crate door in excitement, going outside, coming in, gently shoving Forest back into the crate and more cussing as I adjusted the time on the next alarm) and didn’t even know I had gotten up.

The second week, I was sleep deprived but knew what to expect. Sleep for a few hours, let the puppy out, repeat. So when I woke up Wednesday night, checked the clock and saw that I had slept for over 3 hours without so much as a yelp from the crate, I panicked. The dog had to be dead, or sick, or I had finally slept thru his whining and he was now using a freshly laid turd as a pillow. But he was ok, better than ok, he was sleeping.

I was sure Wednesday night was a fluke, but Thursday night was the same way. I woke up several times to make sure Forest was ok and still in his crate (that’s another story) but most of the time he was fine and I could go back to sleep.

Now that Nick’s home, we can share potty duty, but I don’t have high expectations of getting more sleep. I’ll still wake up when it’s Nick’s turn to let Forest out, and my paranoid nature will probably rouse me from slumber a few times a night to check on the puppy. *Yawn* long live the Queen.

Nighttime Doodie