While I wanted a puppy that would sit and snuggle with me in my chair and be my little warm companion, I also wanted a spunky puppy that had a fun personality. I got more spunk than snuggle with Oscar.
This past week, several times a day, he’s hopped up in my chair and spent a few minutes with me. The first thing he does is clear the tables on both sides of my chair, then he roots around to see if there’s anything in the space between the seat and the arms of the chair, then he knocks off my phone, my scissors, the tablet and then he sits down on the foot of my chair for 2 or 3 minutes. Is it worth it? Yes . . because hopefully next week, he’ll sit 4 or 5 minutes and at some point, he’ll spend lots of time sitting with me.
These are the moments that remind me why I put up with his craziness . . the chewing, the shredding, the escaping.
I wish I could remember when it happened but he is so trained to go outside to go to the bathroom. It seems like at about 4 or 5 months, I was thinking . . what have I gotten us into? I can take ruining furniture, shredding the carpet, the constant attention needed to keep him out of trouble, but I cannot take using the bathroom in the house . . not on the floor, not on puppy pads . . that’s something I cannot deal with. It seems like we went from “I’m not sure I can live with this” to “Oscar hasn’t had an accident in months!” There’s a wooden doggie gate at the entrance to the stairs (in the basement where we all mostly stay) that keeps him from going upstairs (most of the time) and he rattles the spindles on that gate when he needs to go out. I tried the bell when he was younger and that didn’t work. I think I’m going to try the bell again. I’m not trained so well to the gate rattling. Sometimes I’ll yell at him to stop because he also rattles the gate when Vince is upstairs and Oscar wants to go up and see him. After I yell at him to stop, I remember .. oh, he probably has to go out. I’m going to put the bell where the only reason he should be ringing it is to go out and we’ll see how that goes.
The bell will work better because if we’re somewhere else, even in a hotel, I can put the bell up, show him where it is and he’ll know to ring it to go out.
Sibyl says
Hope the bell works better for you than it does for us. First my Irish setter was afraid of it. Took about 6 weeks for her not to be afraid of it. Now she rattles it just to go out to play, not just to do her business. And when she rattles it—it is like lets make as much noise as I can make. But at least she tells us when she wants out. She is the first dog we have had that uses it. Sometimes I have to remember oh she wants out–not just making noise. Oscar is still such a pretty pup. He will calm down—eventually.
grandmachicken says
We did the bell here at our house for a few months. Until it got to the point where they would ring it just to go outside to play so we were constantly getting up and down to let them out. Now we’ve installed a doggie door so they come and go as they please. It’s much nicer.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
That’s what happened when we had the bell. We have to go through two doors, and also the garage where there’s way too much for Oscar to get into so we’ll never have a doggy door, plus I’m not sure Oscar would ever come back inside. Too many critters to chase and right now, leaves to catch.
Julie says
We used the bell with our Cav and it worked like a charm. He rang it only to go to the bathroom. It was so cute.