Our dog has gone through the standard phases or house training. And by standard I mean the phase where you think your new puppy is amazing and knows to go outside intuitively followed by the, "wait a minute, maybe she doesn't because we're having accidents" followed further by the, "going outside seems to be foreplay to coming in and going on the carpet" and then eventually, after what seems like a protracted period, actually going outside consistently, leaving the now well-stained carpets alone in favor of grass.
We've plateaued at the final phase for long enough that I called our carpet cleaner, letting him know it was time, that we were ready for his deepest cleaning skills to be applied to, well, everywhere. He said there was no greater gift any of his clients could give him than getting a dog. Especially small dogs, he said.
I can't address the small dog comment as our mid-sized dog seems to be well and truly housetrained. Or so I hope. I can't confirm for sure that she doesn't sneak off to a corner of the house and relieve herself when we disregard her repeated ringing of the bell.
I haven't given her full reign of the house yet when we're out though. This is largely due to a stuffed animal and LEGO issue more so than anything else. That or anything the dog might decide is a chew toy that is, in fact, not. Stuffed animals misused in this way would horrify my daughter, as each one has a special place in her heart (even though they seem to be left on the floor regularly). The LEGO or other small, hard or expensive item such as a game controller is more a concern of mine. I don't want the dog choking and I don't want to lose costly hardware.
So we keep her in the bedroom when no one is home. This works well because it's where her crate is. Her bones, toys and a water bowl are also available as is her favorite air-conditioning vent (soon to become a much-despised heating vent).
When I had the carpets cleaned I decided to put her wire metal crate up, collapsing it and putting it in the garage. I pulled out the pad and put it on the carpet in the exact same place as it had been in the crate, only the crate was no longer surrounding it.
I figured the dog would continue to lie on the pad multiple times a day and during part of the night (when she wasn't lying on top of the air-conditioning vent). But not so. She wouldn't go near it. She looked at it, almost sadly, for a day or two. She almost got on it once and then wandered off and found a spot on the cool tile floor in the bathroom.
Did she want the protection of the wireframe of the crate? Could it be that it made her feel safe in some way? After two days I brought it back into the room and she immediately went into it and lay down. She grew up in it over the past ten months. It must represent safety and security to her in some way. I suppose it will remain in our room now that I know it has meaning to her even though we don't shut her in it anymore.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter goes to visit Mimi and Gramps tomorrow for four days. She put on her watch today and rode her bike for probably three hours across several long sessions throughout the day. She called Mimi to talk about the trip, biking and talking plans with her at the same time.
The Big Boy Update: My daughter and I talked in hushed voices in her bed tonight about what she wanted to take on the trip tomorrow (books, stuffed animals, games) while her brother read a comic book aloud neither she nor I paid a bit of attention to. He didn't realize we were whispering, which I suppose was a good thing because the book was very exciting to him even though it wasn't to us.
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