Carol ... boy, brings back memories. My husband and I put Dakota on a schedule right from day 2. We would get up at 2am, then at 6am for potty breaks. Everybody thought we were nuts, but it worked and she was house broken in 6 weeks. After the 6am potty break, my husband would bring her inside and let her sleep on his tummy while he watched morning TV.

When she got her "puppy" moods, I would get an empty soda can and fill it with coins and shake it. She didn't like the noise and it would stop her from doing something she shouldn't be doing! After a few times, when she saw the can it was like "uh oh! -- OK -- I'll stop!!" Worked like a charm! Try it!

Karen and Dakota (RB)

Abby was a little terror when she was a puppy as well.

Haven't had a puppy since!!!

They're cute and all that but . . . . they're a handful for sure. We subsequently got Keeper at one year of age (Abby was also one at the time) and, in another life, Ruby at 1.5 years and Pete at 2.5 years.

Although puppies are difficult, all those issues, if you're consistent, seem to melt away somewhere between six and nine months. Then you have a long, fun life ahead of you.

I've mentioned it before but neither Abby & Keeper nor Pete & Ruby sleep in the same room with us. They have their own private, spacious, cool, sort of apartment for the evening, complete with leather couches!! We started that practice before we put air conditioning in, giving the dogs better comfort and, ergo, they wouldn't be up all night either. We kept it up as it worked well for the humans especially.

I can tell you, no matter how early I get up - and I'm usually up around 6 a.m. even on weekends - they're waiting for me to let them out. So, they'd be up at 5 a.m. probably if they were in our room. And they snore.

We had a cat that, without fail, would jump on me at about 4:30 a.m. every morning, waking me up . . . and he lived for 15 years!!!

Honestly, I doubt either of us would want to get another puppy. But, I'd be pretty confident it will start working out for you fairly well a few months down the road. Unfortunately, you'll have to wade through those puppy months first.

My two cents.

Good luck with it.

Below, Abby, one of the best friends I've ever had in my life, as an obnoxious, hard-to-live-with puppy.



Rick C
www.goldentales.ca

Well I'm happy to say her vet appt went well on Saturday. Her last vaccination will be tomorrow evening ! Wooo Hooo !!!! She weighs in at 29.6 lbs and she'll be 4 months old on the 26th. She slept for the very first time till 6 a.m. on Sunday evening. I woke up to the alarm and actually had a little panic set in for a second. She sleeps in a crate in our den, just a hallway away from our bedroom. Rick, my husband is of the same mindset as you, does not like to have the pups in the bedroom. Although, Haley would come in and hang out with me until the husband came to bed and then she left to go to her own bed, which was in the laundry room. That worked out terrific. Although I think Haley pretty much had us spoiled.

Our last puppy Abby was not even close to the work that Macie has been. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have even thought of doing this. But she's getting better every day. Still mouthy, but even that's getting better. The potty training on a scale from 1 - 10 is probably an 8. When we take her out she's on the leash even though our yard is fenced in. And we take her out a lot! Sometimes we just don't catch her though, however one day last week my husband said she literally picked up the leash off the end table by the slider and brought it over to him and dropped it...so he took it as a signal, took her out and she pooped! He was so excited about that. She's pretty bad with the counter surfing. Any suggestions to break her from this? We've never had to deal with it before.

So starting this weekend, we'll take her out to some places to get her acquainted with the big world. Really looking forward to that. It's been a very long two months !

Carol, for the counter surfing, don't allow her into the kitchen without a human present. Make her a little bed (even a folded towel will do) and send her to her place when in the kitchen. If you must leash her to a chair or something to train it initially, do that. She will then know that for the rest of her life, when she's in the kitchen, she should be lying down on her bed/towel/mat whatever it is. Fortunately for me, every one of my dogs just lies down in the most inconvenient spot on the kitchen floor but not a one would have or does ever dare put a paw on a counter. Guess they're all scared of me

We've never had a dog counter surf and I think the reason is they have no idea what's up there.

They never get anything really from the counter. Or the table.

Just a general lack of knowledge and never been able to put two and two together.

However, they think the closed door of the pantry contains all the treasures on earth. They try to lead us over there all the time.

You can tell Pete has some history with a kitchen table but he's getting over it.

Just never give them anything they can source back to the counter or the table. Do it once and they might not forget.

I think.

Rick C
www.goldentales.ca

None of my other pups ever did it, so I was totally taken off guard. And she's not grabbing food. We have a very strict policy, no handouts from the table. We made that mistake once with Haley and I regretted all along.

It's a piece of mail, or a sponge left too close, a dish towel, my granddaughters drawings from school. It could be anything. But I do agree with the special place for her to lay down in there because now she's trying to plop down right between the stove and sink, the worse spot she could be in.

She starts "Fun With Obedience" tonight. Looking forward to that.

Carol

She'll be the life of the part at obedience class Let us know how that went!