House Breaking Is Breaking My Heart!

I have a smart little dog. This week we started working on "Down" as well as continual work on "Sit." Cesar believes in non-verbal commands, but I can't help myself from talking! So I figured I'd do both at the same time. I've incorporated my delightful hand and arm technique combined with my lovely voice commands 'O' fun (Which probably aren't fun, but it sounds more fun now doesn't it?)

So if I want this little diamond to sit, I grab her attention and motion my arm up to a 90 degree angle to my body (A little lower then a Nazi salut...that comment wasn't to be funny or anti-semetic, but just a point of reference) And she rocked it so hard!!!! So I rewarded her with treats. I make her sit for everything and anything. Anytime I want her attention, she sits, leave the house, sit, everything gets a sit.

So now I'm practicing down. I've decided for "Down" I'll have my 90 degree arm, to then motion back down while saying the magic word "Down." Cesar suggests to put the puppy on a picnic table edge. With no picnic tables around, I've placed her on my bed. I have her sit on the edge of the bed. I let her smell the treat in my hand (cut up turkey dog, as suggested by our new dog friends we made over the past week...hehehe, but I'll tell you about that clan later! They said hot dog, but I couldn't bring myself to give her something I won't even eat...even though I gave her a pig's ear later...but whatever I class that as dog food not people food.) I motioned my arm down and confused she looked at me like "What the ruff?" Appauled by her choice of mental language I had her smell the treat again and motioned my hand down! SHE ROCKED IT AGAIN!!!!!!! Because she's smart like WOAH!!!

I'd just like to point out, she understood this new skill in the half the time of Cesar's dog in the book...just sayin' my dog is great...I had nothing really to do with it...yah I did...well sorta...our combined effort really won the day.

Ok I shouldn't gloat so much because well, Olive still doesn't understand that we "lay a brick" and "rain a river" outside ONLY. We managed to have two successful days. She started to prefer privacy and poop under bushes. I was excited because for three weeks we've been really...Ok I've been really working hard on getting her outside in time. Everything was great until this morning she overslept and I had to drag her out of bed this morning for a walk. In a sleepy stupor she weed on the porch before I could close the door. She technically was outside and I was going to over look this incident, however after a large steamer and two babling brooks, she still managed to drop a duke in the bathroom 15 minutes after being home!!

OLLLLL-Ive! She feels bad I can tell.

I'm starting to freak a bit because I keep reading and hearing about these crazy robot dogs that get housebroken under three days! Our new special dog friends suggest a bell technique which I'm eager to try and will start to do today and see how that goes.

You place a bell by the door and then everytime you take your dog out you get them to paw the bell, so eventually they paw the bell everytime they wanna drop some news. So I'm buying a bell today. Maybe it'll work? Maybe she'll just ring the bell and shit herself. Only time will tell. Too bad dogs don't sleep more...she's so much better like this sometimes...