Weekly Round-up: June 13th

Welcome back to the weekly round-up!
This past week has been rather hectic, but we’ve made it through, thanks to lots of dog towels and a couple loads of laundry.

Foster first, Trixie is doing well, with only 9 days left on her activity limitation, we’re both counting down the days!
She’s still quite skiddish when I use a loud voice, but she’s getting better about voice recall as she learns from experience that i’m safe, and not going to hurt her.

Two issues from this past week feel worth talking about to me, and they’re both summed up as: House-broken dogs going potty in the house.
We’ve got one dog here that is known to poop inside when the weather outside is bad. This dog won’t pee inside, but will poop inside, which is rather odd to me, but it’s well known. For this dog, anytime we have bad weather, I keep a sharp eye on them to make sure they’re pottying outside. This means I need to follow them out in the morning and make they poop outside, as well as ensure they go out after they eat. If i’m not able to supervise the dog, then the dog goes in their crate until I can supervise again.
As with all house-training, when I catch them in the act of pooping inside, they get a sharp reprimand, a punishment, and then taken outside if they’re not finished. I like to follow that up with some ‘treat trips’ outside ASAP so they get a reminder of how good pooping outside can be.
Another trick I use is having a ‘potty box’ for them. You can put a potty box anywhere, but I have one on the covered front porch so they can go outside, but not get rained on. It does take the dog some time to get used to it, but it’s very valuable when the weather sucks.

The other issue from this past week is about time. No matter how well house-broken a dog is, they have a time limit, just like we do. When the tank is full, and there’s more coming down the line, something has to GO!
A couple of dogs here were left in their room around 8 pm, still early for bedtime for them, and their person didn’t come home that night, so when I looked in on them in the morning, there was quite a mess. Three of the four dogs are house broken and usually do well, while the fourth one has been dealing with submissive peeing for a few months now. Still, none of them had access to go outside, and if they did make any noise, it wasn’t enough to wake me up.

It’s important to make sure your dogs have access to go outside and go potty, both within their time limit (8 hours or so) and around their normal schedule. I know some people say their dogs don’t have a schedule because they don’t get fed at the same time everyday, but dogs are very much in tune with their routine, and learn quickly through repetition; that’s why good training involves doing the same thing again and again and again!

Okay, wrapping up, make sure to care for your dogs needs, give them access to appropriate facilities, make sure the ground temperature is safe for them to walk on, and remember that training matters, so train your dog!

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