She's Staying

It would seem that our addition to the family has become permanent, we still don't have a name for her yet, nothing has popped up that seemed right for her, so for now we have been calling her dog or puppy. I have been trying very hard to not call her "baby girl", that is the name of my dad's dog, I used to call Pekoe baby girl, made it interesting when my dad and his dog came to visit, so I'll have to come up with another "pet name" for my new baby.

Our challenge for now is potty training, the poor thing spent so many months in a small kennel/cage with another dog, they stayed in this cage for most of the day, and probably overnight too, the previous owner worked and had to keep them caged up, that caused them to overcome the natural tendency to not potty in the place where they sleep. This dog will pee on the bed we have for her, then go right back and lay in it, that isn't even counting her peeing on anything that is laying on the floor, my dirty clothes, rugs, the socks I just took off, anything that is on the floor seems to be fair game to her. We have gone through 3 loads of towels because of having to mop up after her. We have been taking her outside 2-3 times an hour and really REALLY praising her when she "goes" outside.

Today I caught her in the process of peeing on the floor, I tapped her backside with my fingers just hard enough push/move her a bit, not hard enough to hurt her, just enough to surprise her and disrupt what she was doing right then, and said "NO", she stopped and I immediately took her outside, she finished out there, looking sheepishly at me, I praised her so much for "going" outside. It's getting better, but we still have a long way to go. I have started removing free access to water in the evening, that makes it easier to keep her from peeing on the floor overnight when we are in bed asleep.

We are also practicing a few commands, mainly "come here", that one is so important out here, I need her to stop whatever she is doing and come directly to me when I call her, and she needs to come close enough that I touch her, no use in her staying just out of reach, I need to be able to put my hands on her. The other command is "in the house", anytime we are outside, and it's time to go inside, I say "in the house" and that means just what it is, the idea is to get her going in the right direction when it's time to go inside.

She is a smart dog, and I think she is catching on pretty quickly. Now to figure out a name...

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Wretha,

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