When Cricket came here she was already pretty savy with the idea of not going potty in the house. I can not imagine she would have EVER went potty in her xpen or her crate and as long as I was paying attention we had almost no accidents. I think her success was because I let her out a LOT, about every hour, a few min. after she was playing, as soon as she woke up from her nap, a few min. after she ate, when she had a funny look in her eye and pretty much any time I thought about it, LOL. I was really fanatical about making sure I went out with her each time she went potty and gave her a reward and said "go pee" or "go potty" as she was getting ready to go, so she pretty much will go on command and knows she should go out and get her business done. I also have adjusted so we do not play outside until the business is done, then we spend a little while playing before we come in most times. Anyway, so I am patting myself on the back, LOL, but it has really gone so easy with Cricket.
On Christmas day Cricket gave me a very NICE gift. She started using the bells on the door to tell me she has to go out. Up until now she really did not seem to have a way to tell us that she had to go out, sometimes she would vaguely walk in the area of the door, but she really had no clear signals and not sure she really understood potty in the house bad, although with the treats she seemed more clear on the concept that potty outside is GOOD. So it was interesting to see her run to the door and set off the bells. I have had three dogs now that just learned to do that-call people to let them out with the bells, and one dog (Liz) that never did. I stuck the bells on the door when I either was potty training Breeze, or maybe when I was potty training Liz-but I do not think I had them for her??? Breeze learned to use them pretty quickly, Cherry learned to use them in the first couple of days probably because she was an adult and now Cricket.
This is one of those things that I never really taught, just from the time these dogs came to the house when the door was open you hear the bells, so guess that is enough association that they put it all together and figure if they make noise with the bells that will give someone the idea to come and open the door. I think that is just too cool.
I was originally going to buy some of the bells they sell to hang on the door but I made this by just braiding some fleece, actually I think it originally was a toy I made. I have a tennis ball on one leg of the toy, and then I took some bells and stuck them on a round clip thingie for holding papers, and threaded that in the braiding, I stuck on some Christmas bells I got on a clearance, and just tied in a bunch of bells. The door is a slider, so I just sort of fashioned something to hook the toy onto the door. Anyway, little brilliant Cricket has been going to the door a lot for the past few days and seems pretty reliable letting us know she has to go out, so we have been able to relax the vigil a little more, LOL. I can hear the bells through the whole house because our house is small-a benefit to a small home-YIPPIE.
STALKER CRICKET-hummm, you would think she is a border collie! I am not sure what she was stalking because all the dogs are behind her?
The picture of Cricket with the prick ears is a total misrepresentation because her ears sit sort of half up in the front but very floppy, I think there is no chance she will have prick ears, LOL, but in that picture she looked up at me and that made her ears fall into a prick position, LOL.
Little Cricket also had another suprise for me the last few days....LOOSE TEETH!!! Poor baby has some very loose teeth, time is marching on!
COOL NEW THING I FIGURED OUT-I figured out how to download the videos from youtube and then convert them so they go on Itunes so I can put them on my Ipod. I downloaded a few sequences from Agilitynerd, and figure when I go to the yard to work on them tonight I can work on the sequence, but if I get stuck or want to try other ways to handle things, I have a little video tutorial right at my finger tips, how cool is that? It always takes me awhile to figure out the technology I have available, LOL.