Latch-key puppy

Phew! Been really, really busy in the last week. I have lots of Danny news but just haven't had the time to blog. We just had Puppy class 3 over the weekend and it was a total, outright disaster!

No, not exaggerating ... really. I'll detail it in a seperate post but the result of the disaster is that Danny gets to spend more time with us. Why? Basically delinquent kid = neglected child. My mom's a former vice principal, so the solution came to her quite easily.

But the truth is we haven't been spending very much time with the fuzzball. On days when i come home late, I don't even get to see him at all. The main culprits are Dad, his yelping and toilet training (or rather the lack of it).

Allow me to give you the background.

Dad
When Danny first came, we turned the kitchen toilet into his room. It worked pretty well. We could let him out and chuck him back in for his "business" quite easily. The only person who wasn't happy with the arrangement was my dad.

For some reason, dad must do his own "business" in that same toilet. Nevermind that his room has an attached toilet. Nevermind that he may be snug in bed watching TV. When he needs to go, he will pop out of his room, walk down one flight of stairs and head all the way to Danny's room for a poop.

After a couple of times, he decided that Danny smelt worse than he did (yeah right!). So Danny was chucked into the basement where he sleeps between Rhoda's room and the gate to the garden.

(Lack of) Toilet Training
Toilet training calls for us to confine him in one area until he gets used to using the newspaper, and then slowly increase his space. Having too much space at one time confuses the puppy. Thus he was restricted to his basement corner unless we could supervise him.

However, Danny is fast. I'll be wondering "Is he about to..." and TA-DAAH!. Most guides on paper training will tell you that puppies will sniff the ground area and squat before they go. So not Danny.

Problem is that the living and dining areas of our house have granite flooring which absorbs any liquid that drops on it. ANY liquid.

In addition, the living room has a couple of carpets which Danny has started taking a shine to.

After having far more misses than hits, Danny has been tethered to a leash and surrounded with paper whenever he comes up. (It's also great for us cos he was a very nippy dog and the arrangement helps save our ankles.)

Doing clean up when you're rushing in the mornings isn't exactly our idea of fun. Hence we see him for only an hour at night, cos Rhoda rushes him down after dinner in case he messes up.

Yelping
Being alone in the confines of his basement corner doesn't making him very happy. He would yelp for his breakfast (begins at 6am), yelp for his dinner (starts around 7pm) and yelp when we come home. Danny's trainer told us to ignore him and only go to him when he is quiet. The reason is that if we go to him when he is noisy, he will learn that yelping works and do it more.

Problem is our friend can go on for a whole hour or more. Which means a whole hour or more of no Danny time.

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The result of all this is that we don't see Danny as often as we should. I felt really bad. And especially since his toilet training's been improving, I decided to make it up to him.

On Sunday, I wanted to watch some DVDs. Instead of watching it in the troublesome living room, I laid out newspapers here and there in the basement, placed kitchen paper on standby, put out some of his treats and brought out a couple of his favourite toys. I even put a whole dollop of peanut butter into his Kong. It took me a good 20 minutes to prepare everything before I let him out. I was still wondering if I would need to chuck him back in 10 minutes.

But everything went really great. Three out of four was on the paper (woohoo!). Danny polished off the peanut butter and munched his toys. Later, I paused the movie and we played catching until he was really tired. When I restarted the movie, he lay down right next to me and fell asleep.

He's really sweet when he's not yelping or nipping or actively destroying something. I think I'll try something else tonight. Maybe a walk in the park....