It’s only 10:00am and I’m already in a crappy mood. My lovely morning started out with waking up feeling like I needed to throw up. Ignore, ignore, ignore. I rush to get dressed, get Alyssa up and make sure she gets dressed (appropriately; what is it with kids wanting to wear summer clothes when it’s cold and winter clothes when it’s hot?) and brushes her teeth, and then while she’s eating cereal I ice and decorate the cupcakes I baked last night. She needed them for preschool this morning. I’m tired and feeling crappy, so I spazz out with the icing and colored sugar, and what should take me ten minutes takes closer to twenty.
Then it’s 9:00am, and I’m anxiously waiting for my mom to show up like she promised she would last night. I had asked her to please please pretty pretty please come and sit at the house with Ryan (who usually sleeps until 9:30am or 10) while I ran Alyssa, her bicycle and helmet (today is Bicycle Day…?) and her two dozen cupcakes up the road to preschool.
9:05am, the time when we NEED to leave. I call her house, she answers. I’m furious, but I cut myself off after one curse and hang up. I rush Alyssa out to the car, make sure her bike is in the trunk (thank you Daniel!!!), place the cupcakes in the front passenger seat, and then run back in to grab Ryan. I have to wake him up, which I hate doing since he has issues falling asleep, and I run him out to the car in his PJs, and off we go.
We get to the school, and I place the cupcakes on the roof of the car, then run around to let Alyssa out. I take out her bike and tell her to WALK PLEASE JUST WALK IT DOWN to the bike area, and in the 0.3 seconds it takes me to open Ryan’s door and reach for the buckles of his car seat, Alyssa goes SAILING down the hill ON the bike, and wipes out at the bottom.
So I leave Ryan screaming in the car as I fly down the hill after her to make sure she’s okay. She’s crying, her helmet is askew, her one shoe flew off, her jeans are muddied and her left knee is scraped and will most likely have a bruise, but she’s pretty much okay. I fix her up, kiss her boo-boo, make sure she’s okay, pick up her bike, and then the two of us run back up the hill to get her screaming brother and the abandoned cupcakes.
Then I get my workout of the day while I’m lugging my 40 lb. son on one hip (thank god for wide hips, because he is wide and HEAVY) and balancing cupcakes against the other. We walk past the playground and Ryan goes apeshit over not being able to play, and his bucking and thrashing almost causes me to 1) drop him and 2) drop the cupcakes.
But we make it inside, I hand off the cupcakes to the teacher, kiss Alyssa goodbye, thank the nice parent who hands me the car keys that I dropped while Ryan was going apeshit, and then lug Ryan back up the hill and into the car.
Then I catch my breath, drive back home, lug Ryan inside… and restrain myself from going fucking nuclear on Leah, who went and pissed and shit in Alyssa’s bedroom at some point during the nine minutes that I was gone. This is the ONE issue I’ve been having with her for months now. It doesn’t matter how much time I spend with her, or that she’s just gone to the bathroom before we go out. She’ll work at squeezing out SOMETHING, and it’s always on Alyssa’s carpet, and it’s always after I have gone out. I could be gone for five minutes or five hours, doesn’t matter. I KNOW it’s spite, and it makes me fucking furious. She has an electronic collar, but if she runs across the “border” really fast, she won’t get zapped. I’m seriously thinking of purchasing the “stubborn dog” one, which should probably shock her into unconsciousness in 0.2 seconds. Right now? That sounds like a fantastic idea.
Since I know she’ll do the whole run-across-the-border thing, I usually crate her. But I was so wrapped up with Alyssa and preschool and those fucking cupcakes and Ryan, I just ran out with him and forgot all about it.
FWIW, I didn’t go fucking nuclear on Leah. But I did drag her ass into the bedroom and put her face right next to her lovely little present and yelled at her for being a bad girl, and then I put her in her crate and covered it completely with a dark blanket. Dear god I wanted to throttle her. She KNOWS better. She IS house broken except for this little issue. I KNOW it’s spite, which is why I do NOT feel bad for showing her what she did (do I get brownie points for not putting her face INTO it like I wanted to?) and yelling at her, and then confining her to her crate.
Oh, and I STILL feel like vomiting. The sickening sweet smell of the cupcake icing, hauling Ryan around and then cleaning up dog piss and shit hasn’t helped things. *whimper*
Note to self: get the stubborn dog shock collar system.
Another note to self: crate Leah every singe fucking time you leave the house, even if you step outside to get something from the car.
And another note to self: just because your mother was reliable on two previous occasions doesn’t mean she’ll go right back to being unreliable. Take this as a lesson learned.
*end rant*
And with that… I was going to blog about my notebook FINALLY being on the FedEx truck for delivery, but then halfway through this blog entry it ARRIVED YAY! :D
Rubbing your dog’s nose into their business and confining them to a crate is NOT the way to go about things. You may have been angry at the time, but did your dog really deserve that? Yelling at Leah will not help things either. She does not understand. You can discipline a pet without having to resort to such extreme measures.
@Sarah: You’re welcome to disagree, but after months of this behavior, despite rewarding good behavior and initially ignoring the bad (cleaning up the mess, using enzyme/odor removing cleaning products and sprays), I am at my wit’s end.
Also, I would like to clarify that I did not put her nose into her “business”. Next to, but not into. Close enough that she got the idea, but not so close that she would wind up wearing it.
Dogs have no concept of spite. It is not spite. When animals do something they are trained to know is bad, they do it because they need something. Attention, for example.
Shutting Leah in a crate is not the right way to go about it.
Crating her is fine, but I might know why she does it in Alyssa’s room. When Bill and I got our dogs recently, we did a lot of research beforehand because we didn’t know if they were housebroken or not. What we found out through reading is that you have the first .02 seconds to scold the dog for what they did. You have to actually catch them in the act of pooping or peeing somewhere they aren’t supposed to. After that time, when you show them the mess, they don’t understand why it’s bad. They think the mess is bad, so that is why they turn to “hiding it” in other rooms of the house. They only know the mess itself upsets you, not the actual act of pooping or peeing on the carpet, so they try to hide the mess from you to keep you from being upset with them. It works that way with all undesirable behaviors, and since reading that we have had a breakthrough with the little dog on not jumping the upstairs gate separating the dogs from the cats. The hardest part of it all was catching her in the act itself of course.
That really sucks though that your Mom bailed on you like that :(.
Sounds like Leah has seperation anxiety. It’s a miserable condition for both dog and owner, but CAN be overcome. One of my GSDs had a severe case when I got him, and we worked it out. Took a few months, but he completely recovered. Check out http://www.canines.com/library/sepanxiety.shtml for a little more info.
My trainer told me years ago that rubbing their nose in or around their ‘accident’ can make them ashamed to go AT ALL, compounding the problem. She said unless you catch them in the act, they don’t associate the punishment with the deed. There’s just so much info out there, it’s hard to know what’s right. I guess you just have to try different things as see what works best for your particular situation.
Good luck getting to the bottomof herproblem, and solving it!
@Kristina: Call it spite, call it needing attention. Either way, she’s doing something she is not supposed to do, and she knows she is not supposed to do it. The minute I came in the door she slunk into her crate, which is what she does whenever she’s made a mess in Alyssa’s room. Trust me, we have tried a lot with her. Loads of positive reinforcement, praise, encouragement, rewards of treats when she goes outside or in the pad I keep in the kitchen when we go out, and for the first six or so months, completely ignoring the bad behavior and simply cleaning up after it.
With that said, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
A shock collar will not solve the problem. My dog did the same thing, he would ALWAYS pee somewhere in his room (we have a spare room at home, and since no one uses the computer or the room it’s in we just leave it as the dog room). Before I’d leave the house I’d let him out, and let him stay outside for a while. And then send him off to bed, as soon as I got him I’d let him out. Since he still lives at home and longer stays with me, my mother does the same. He has accidents once in a while but he’s learned to “hold it”. She must not be fully understanding what she is supposed to do, I’d check out some websites (I got a few nice tips from here http://www.perfectpaws.com/htra.html). Shocking the dog and yelling at her will do absolutely nothing but make the situation worse. I suggest consulting maybe a local pet store and see if they offer training or tips? I know some big chain pet stores do or at least could give you some advice as to why she is still doing it.
@Pepper: I appreciate your comment. I don’t mind criticism, but I find it’s more valuable and the commenter is actually sincere when constructive criticism and suggestions are offered, rather than just looking for things to pick at. I’m definitely going to check out that link and look into GSD. It could definitely be a problem. It seems odd, though, because I work from home, and so I am at home a lot. On most days I am home, and if I’m out, my husband is home, with or without the kids. I’d say maybe once or twice a week Leah is left completely alone, and then it’s for no more than 2-3 hours.
Damn, I think my comment got eaten :(.
My comment was essentially what Pepper, above said. You have to catch her in the act of pooping or peeing. Not a second later, 5 minutes, or anything. Actually pooping. Otherwise when you scold her she only associates you being upset by the mess itself and she will continue to “hide it” in the house knowing that seeing the mess upsets you. She can’t associate the act of pooping and peeing on the carpet with the mess.
@Naco: I just want to clarify the shock collar: we don’t use it as punishment. It’s used to keep her in the kitchen and out of the living room. We don’t use it all of the time. We did at first, so that she’d have a small area to get used to, and to keep her from getting underfoot. Now we mainly use it when Ryan’s therapists are here (the one therapist is allergic to dogs and cats, and the other has dogs herself which Leah smells and goes nuts over), or when we have a lot of people over, and when we go out. But since she’s doing this in Alyssa’s room, we’ve been crating her just about every single time we go out. I’m definitely going to step things up and crate her *every* time we go out.
I did take a look at the link Pepper left, as well as a few others, and I have some ideas I’m going to try out. I’m thinking GSD may very well be the culprit. We’ve had her for almost eight months, but she still cries and yips whenever I go out. Gah.
@Angela: I found your comment! I’m not sure why it went into the spam folder. Anyway, the hiding thing does make sense. Ugh, it’s just so frustrating though. But I am going to take responsibility and make sure she’s crated every single time, so she’ll have a small area to feel secure in, and so she won’t be able to feel anxious and insecure and go somewhere in the house.
Sounds like a good plan. Just thought I would share, as I hadn’t known that about dogs until I started to really research training them when we got our dogs :D!
You know, we’ve had multiple dogs, and trained them the same way. Usually during or right after the act is when the dragging them back into the room would start. Once or twice though I did drag Leo back into the room after I found it an hour or so later, and as we entered the room he dug his feet into the carpet because he knew that what he did was wrong.
After about seven or eight times of dragging him into the room and pointing his nose at what he did wrong and a stern NO and then taking it outside and placing him outside, he was fully house trained. Please, find a pet owner who has not done such things.
Eh, I decided to make this private because it seems that you have people trying to cause drama out of pet training that 98% of any pet owner does.
This makes me very pleased that I am not a dog owner, my cats have been trained by their own mother when they were little and we have had them for a year and have yet to have a poop or wee anywhere other than the litter tray (inside cats)..
Hope she gets better soon…
And sorry your morning was so crappy
But yay for your laptop!
Wowza, one face near the poo and it’s debate time. I STRONGLY believe dogs do things out of spite. My dog will get toilet paper out of the bathroom, come right up in front of you with it, and start ripping it apart while EYEING you because he knows he’s not supposed to do it. Sure it’s for attention, but it’s definitely out of spite. I swear on my life that the dog holds grudges. Clearly you didn’t freak out when you could have… Putting the dog near her mess and putting her in the crate seems reasonable to me when you’re that angry. I have heard that you should do it when you catch them in the act but if she only does it when you’re gone, what are you supposed to do? I know you’ve been doing it the positive reinforcement way for a long time.
Call in Caesar I guess.
Don’t you hate it when your day goes in the crapper before you even get out of the house?
Our dog has seperation anxiety as well. He’s only 16 pounds but learned how to DISASSEMBLE the crate we put him in. We’ve had to zip-tie all four sides of the cage and use a bungee cord to keep the crate latch closed! We found that using those rubber Kong toys, filling them with treats and putting it in with the dog in the crate can combat seperation anxiety.
From what I’ve heard rubbing her nose near her poo won’t really teach her anything, but I’m sure it made you feel better ;). And I disagree with others, putting her in the crate when you got home was a great idea. Leah of course did not learn anything from it, but it sounds like you had a really horrible, horrible morning, and it was probably better that she got out of your way. I would have probably done the same as you in this situation. Like you already said, you should just try to remember to put her in the crate before you leave — or maybe close all the bedroom doors? I’ve never had any issues with spite, so I really have no advice for what to do other than that. You may want to steam clean Alyssa’s carpet so that Leah doesn’t smell that she’s gone there before.
At least you got your new laptop!! Yay! Something positive came out of this morning :).
I hope your day ends on a better note than it started!
When we were thinking about getting a pug ourselves, I talked to a breeder who told me that pugs (and some other small breeds) are generally hard to REALLY get housebroken.
But hey, at least your new notebook came along and brightened your day somewhat.
I think you guys need to look beyond the Leah issue. She[Jenn] was having a bad morning -a really shitty hell of a morning ( if you managed to catch that ,it was a very discreet subtle hint at the chaos) when everything that could go wrong did go wrong.When you are under severe pressure and not really up to par then sometimes you do things that you normally wouldn’t do-who is perfect ?
Why is it when something that the lurkers/whiners/dramawhores don’t agree with ,it doesn’t take them long to crawl out from under their dark,pokey little holes in order to take a pop ?
gee
I don’t know why everyone focused on the dog thing! Everyone treats their animals differently. As long as you’re not abusing the dog (and it does not sound like you are), each to their own!
I’m more pissed off at your mother. How you still have patience for it…I wouldn’t, that’s for sure.
It also sounds like you need some kind of break. Like, some alone time. A spa day. I don’t know. I just feel so bad for you having your hands that full.
I don’t see anything wrong with what you did with Leah. We crate trained our dog (many trainers recommend it) and when London was using the bathroom in the house we showed him what he did and yelled at him. It worked. We also squirt him with a water bottle (instead of hitting him) when he won’t listen. That works really well also. Most time, if he won’t listen all we have to do is show him the water bottle and he stops.
Hmmm. Ok.
I also have a puppy, which im sure you know of. He is almost a year old and we have real issues with going potty. REAL issues. He also has horrible separation anxiety..so naturally if I leave him (which I rarely do) he goes absolutely ape shit and destroys everything he can.
These issues are insanely frustrating, I understand. And, it gets old to pick up poop, and clean up piss (by the way, use WHITE VINEGAR where she is using the restroom. What youre using isnt going to help much) all the time. HOWEVER…anthropomorphizing Leah, getting angry at her, and disciplining her like you did..is not going to help the issue at all, its not even going to keep the issue the same…its going to make it WORSE. While animals do feel SOME emotion that is very, very similar to the way humans feel it, you are incorrectly attributing ‘spite’ to her, which is something doggies dont feel. Its more likely that she has Separation Anxiety, as pointed out here by a few people…and that is a tough issue to treat but taking out your frustrations about your day on Leah because she did something that dogs do, and she is a dog…is not ok. At all. Getting a stubborn shock collar..is not ok. At all. Until we see little children who dont listen to their parents (which is what children do) running around in shock collars for just being children…then it will not be ok for dogs to be wearing them for simply being dogs. These are issues you honestly should have considered before you got Leah, and if these were things you could not deal with…you shouldnt have gotten her because youre already carrying a load thats a bit full.
I understand how absolutely FUCKING frustrating these types of things are. However…you gotta remember that shes a dog, a puppy…and shes going to act like one. Maybe you should start to give Leah some time away from you, since it sounds like she may be an owner addict (most dogs with SA are). Putting her in her crate while you are NOT AT THE HOUSE….is an ok thing to do but you could think about leaving something that smells like you in there with her. A shirt or…something. Make a ‘safety cue’….a word that lets her know youre gonna be RIGHT back. These work. Charlie knows if I say “be right back…be right back baby…” that I will be back in a few minutes and he wont tear up jack. It takes a few times to get it right, but it helps out a ton.
There are lots of little tricks on the net you can try…much better than getting a stubborn shock collar..wow. I would say before going to such an extreme option, that there are definitely other options you have not exhausted yet, that should most certainly be considered.
It is also easy to take out our frustrations on our dogs because they cant talk back, and because, like this situation, sometimes when we get home from a tough day…we find tinkle, or poo, and it just ticks us the fuck off..but really…control your anger, count to 10 or something and realize that unfortunately, now, if you discipline her shes not going to understand…if you put her face next to her potty accident shes just going to be afraid to potty and the situation will be a lot worse for you. There are certainly better ways to going about this and you should really look into them.
I hope that you find something that works and that poor puppy does not have to be subjected to a freaking shock collar.
Renate,
I heard the same thing about pugs, AND boston terriers..which is what I have. Its certainly proven true for him. I have him PAD trained…..allllmmmooosssttt….lol.
I’ve gotta say something – sorry. I think it’s horrible that you use a shock collar on your dog. Much less the fact that you want to get a stronger one? I’m sorry but I think it’s AWFUL. JMO.
Our trainer has also told us that unless you catch them in the act, they aren’t going to associate the mess with the act. What she told us to do (when catching in the act or sometime later) is to pick up the mess (or clean it with a rag and take the rag) and put it outside in the area you’ve designated as the potty spot, let the dog smell it there, then give them a treat. I know that seems backwards but before that, we were having a lot of accidents and now we haven’t had one in over a week and a half.
Also, when crate training, it’s a good idea to put the dog in the crate while you’re home sometimes so that he gets used to the fact that being in the crate is an okay thing. When we have a lot going on at home, we stick Kumo in there and he’s fine with it. This is something else the trainer encouraged us to do. A good time to do this would be when the folks are there to help Ryan. If you do it every time it will become routine and Leah will expect it. I think that Kumo actually looks forward to getting in the crate at night.
I know you love Leah and believe me, I AM SO FEELING THE PUPPY DRAMA right now but I just keep reminding myself that while it’s a lot or work now, in the long run we’ll have a happy well adjusted puppy and in turn, happy humans too.
I’m not going to comment on Leah and what she did, mostly because I’ve never owned a dog (but damn, she sounds frustrating!). Although, if she’s always doing *something* in Alyssa’s room, perhaps just ask Alyssa to start closing the door to her room before she leaves? At least it’ll limit where Leah can be spiteful and do her business.
I can’t believe your mom would bail on you like that (well, I sort of can, remembering back to some of your older entries). But I’m glad that Alyssa didn’t get seriously injured. Good thing you’ve taught her that having a bike helmet on is important.
Your mom really nauseates me. Leah would have never been alone and Ryan would never have needed to be woken up if she had actually followed through what she was asked to do.
It’s unfortunate, but females can be more difficult to housetrain 100%. A friend of mine has had two females who never learned to go outside, but has never had that problem with males (I’ve yet to have a male). Through some really frustrating points she told me to give it up- girls just don’t get it :p I had to make my 4.5 month old pup walk a mile and a half a day to get things ‘moving’ so I could reward her for outside potties
so tiring.
My puppy has had a lot of separation anxiety and every time she was left alone until she was over 7 months she pottied the floor. It could be 15 minutes she WOULD potty the floor. I was very angry with her sometimes, but I kept it to myself. Then one day I was sitting in bed and everyone else had left- for some reason she ran into the bedroom and I heard her take a whizz
I jerked upright and firmly told her no, in the middle of the peeing, and that was the end of it. She finally attached the action with the scolding. Before that I would sometimes sit and cry for a few minutes before cleaning and ask my boyfriend, ‘do I still love her? Are you sure?’ 
its really hard to handle that stuff after an 11 hour day dedicated to working on your feet. It’s good to consider you were having an overall crappy morning 
leah was just one part of that.
I really hope you can solve this with Leah
it (and the constant biting labs do :P) was my only problem with my sweetie. Its frustrating, it’s INFURIATING! But if you don’t catch them in it, they really don’t know you’re mad about more than that they are going potty. My boyfriend wanted to try the ‘face-in-it-but-not-in-it’ aproach with her, but at half a year they’re like 3 year olds, minus the language skills (and a bunch of others). After potty-training a couple of kids (one of whom had a lonnnnggg-term problem of going on themself) I can’t imagine punishing a puppy like that. If kids don’t get it?
Your mother sounds close to home for me! I love mine, and just today I was thinking of when I’ve been at work without having packed a lunch and having left all my money at home, I’d call her and ask her to bring me something edible and she would sigh and say she just couldn’t. She was tired. So I’d go through 9+ hour days without food (there was no way to get home, eat and back to work in time). I still love her and still find myself asking her for fathomable favors (like, since she has all of my things and I live out of state- could she send me my vital records?) And counting on her to be let down. I wonder if someday we’ll be those mothers?
I’ve got to say, Boo @ your mother for bailing on you. I don’t think I’d have your patience, especially considering all the stuff from previous entries.