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Success! Waan rang her bell to let us know that she needed to go out Urgently for a poo!
First time she's done that, and success because that's what we were hoping she'd learn to do. Extremely happy.
UD has more qualified rapture, says once isn't a pattern. True, but still :)
We started teaching her how to make a noise with the bell about two months ago, I think. Bought the bell before Christmas at Michaels.
The point was that sometimes she needs to go out, and she communicates that by sitting beside the front door and either looking sad or barking. We're liable to miss the former if we're not in sight of the door, and we're liable to misinterpret the latter as "Scary people out there!!!" I wanted a better way for her to communicate "I want to go out now."
Once we'd taught her "Ring the bell" we started to associate it with going-outside: every time we're about to go out, we say "Ring the bell" and when she's done that we put her lead on and take her out. She already knew that the lead implies going out. When we pick it up and shake it, she comes running and says "We're going out now?" So I hoped that if we associated the bell with the lead, she'd associate the bell with going out, and further, that she'd make the leap of logic to ringing the bell herself when she wanted to go out.
And we didn't know if it was working. Until Friday when she rang the bell, of course right in the middle of cooking, but I dropped everything and put her lead on and my shoes on and we went out, and she went STRAIGHT to the edge of the pavement and pooed, which she never does unless it's very urgent, she prefers to noodle around a bit first and go find a suitable tree to do it under.
So I think something's working and I'm very happy and proud of her.
First time she's done that, and success because that's what we were hoping she'd learn to do. Extremely happy.
UD has more qualified rapture, says once isn't a pattern. True, but still :)
We started teaching her how to make a noise with the bell about two months ago, I think. Bought the bell before Christmas at Michaels.
The point was that sometimes she needs to go out, and she communicates that by sitting beside the front door and either looking sad or barking. We're liable to miss the former if we're not in sight of the door, and we're liable to misinterpret the latter as "Scary people out there!!!" I wanted a better way for her to communicate "I want to go out now."
Once we'd taught her "Ring the bell" we started to associate it with going-outside: every time we're about to go out, we say "Ring the bell" and when she's done that we put her lead on and take her out. She already knew that the lead implies going out. When we pick it up and shake it, she comes running and says "We're going out now?" So I hoped that if we associated the bell with the lead, she'd associate the bell with going out, and further, that she'd make the leap of logic to ringing the bell herself when she wanted to go out.
And we didn't know if it was working. Until Friday when she rang the bell, of course right in the middle of cooking, but I dropped everything and put her lead on and my shoes on and we went out, and she went STRAIGHT to the edge of the pavement and pooed, which she never does unless it's very urgent, she prefers to noodle around a bit first and go find a suitable tree to do it under.
So I think something's working and I'm very happy and proud of her.
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