renos2us

Update - She's is doing MUCH better with the potty training (peeing in house). I guess I just needed to give it more time. I was consistent from day one, but it was really difficult determining when she needs to go out even though I have logged every time we've gone out or she had an accident in the house to try and figure out a schedule for her. I think my biggest problem was I work from home and don't tend to keep her crated (although she stays in my home office with me) when she's not going down for the night. I just read through some of your topics and started taking her every two hours and after or just before we'd play. It's helped and although I'm hoping she will soon get to where I'm taking her 4-6 times per day out instead of 10-15, I have hope since she's down to less than 10 at this point and hasn't peed in the house in more than 8 days. I don't have nearly as much time to read all your information as I had hoped, but I try to read something every week that I can work on it and it's helped. I told a few other folks I worked with about the program and they are looking into purchasing too based on what I've shared. I seem to have been doing many things right before having received your training even without having ever had a puppy because I had her sitting well within the first week we got her. Your info helped me teach her to lay down, roll-over and we're working very hard on stay, come, take it/leave it. She is very strong now at +40 lbs and we go next week to have her fixed. I changed to using a halter instead of collar, she was pulling so hard and I was having difficulty getting her to stop (concerned too about her throat) I thought it would help. It has so far and after about a week, she's stopped rubbing against everything trying to take it off. Of course, I took tidbits from your training and applied common sense approach of taking it off unless we were going out, gradually moving to her wearing it all day until ready for bedtime. She still nips and bites. I do think it's done out of playfulness, but it's leaving many bruises and blood occasionally. I am concerned that she tends to play rougher with my wife. I don't know if it's because she's shorter and Abby when standing on her back paws can easily reach my wife's chest, so you can imagine where she can reach when playing. I've been working really hard and gotten her to drop her ball for me to throw it or my wife, but what I've noticed is she will drop it for my wife and as my wife attempts to get the ball, Abby will snatch at it and that's how we're getting "caught" in the bite. Or Abby will try to push the toy into us while she's chewing/biting on it resulting in her teeth getting our skin. I noticed when my wife would say, drop the ball or I won't play, she'd drop it and wait, so we started doing that - but if she's really wanting to play, she pushes the ball/bone into us and nips regardless of what I do. I'm just trying to trade it with toys, but kind of hard to do (trade bites for toys) when Abby is reaching up nipping and catching my wife's shirts or worse, skin between her legs. I'm struggling to break that and want to before she gets much older. One other thing - every time we're playing and I tell Abby yes, good girl and she finishes her treat, she's started humping me. I try to tell her no, push her off and walk away, but she'll even do it regardless of me facing her or not. It seems like she's doing it because she's excited about my praising her, but I don't know. This is all a huge learning experience and although my wife has applied something's to raising her kids, Abby can still be a handful. She minds for the most part very well and shows her interest to want to do good/right, but I am thinking I need to add something that will stimulate her more too and away from nipping. Thank you both Jennifer and Adrienne - your help was well received! Kim

My spouse has overwhelming anxiety/depression and after much research we decided on a Golden Retriever hoping it would notice her anxiety and help her. A female, we named Alabaster Oil - Abby for short. Where I first failed is in getting her from a pet store instead of direct from a breeder or someone who could've given me good 1-on-1 info about puppies; she was just over 3 months old - now almost 5 months. Having never had a puppy, this transition in some ways has been worse than having a baby, but in other ways has been great. She is pure-bred and very smart. How do I feel I failed now? I didn't do enough research to understand how much it would take to teach her. For example, because I got her at a pet store, she wasn't potty trained. She doesn't poop inside, but she still has at least 1 pee accident a day. There are no tell-tell signs - we've watched. She'll be laying quietly with a chew toy and then walk to another and on her way, stop and pee. I do not have thousands to spend - or I would've purchased a fully trained comfort/support dog. She learned to climb the 3 flights of stairs in a few hours (dummy me, only used common sense approach, no one told me other than she won't like stairs) since we live in apartment housing. It only took 2 weeks for us to get her to go into her crate at bedtime and not cry every 2 hours to go out and a week after that, we moved her to another room and she goes straight into it at night - no problems. So after researching and finding this program, I thought it would help me because she's started to nip at both of us particularly while she cuts teeth and jumps up while on the leash to grab and hold it while we walk outside. She pulls at the leash, growls at it and shakes like "tug of war". We stopped playing any tug games the first time she accidentally got our hands/arms. I understand the negative statements like no or scolding her can create a "any attention is better than none" - but she gets all our attention. I literally have been working with her to recognize she eats dinner at this time while we watch news and then we play for 1 full hour - which she typically tires out way before it's up, but she does negative things to get attention like nipping at us with her ball or chew bone in her mouth. She nipped at my spouse's face while they were playing and although she almost immediately licked her, it has caused my spouse to believe she may not like her. My spouse has helped her eat the last couple weeks while her teeth were falling out. Abby wouldn't eat much, if at all the last couple weeks and so my spouse would sit by her, encourage her and even hand feed her to help her and she found that Abby will calm some when her neck or tummy is rubbed so my spouse began doing that to help her while she's teething more. They have a good relationship from what I can see except when Abby gets playful or wants to play with us instead of around us. She does nip/soft bite both of us when we play with toys. I need to get the nip/biting and jumping eliminated, but I'm not sure I understand where to start. I had already taught her to sit and she does this on-command verbally inside - I've added a hand signal based on the 2 days of off/on reading of this program and have started to do that outside in an effort to try to discourage the "rip my arm off" tug on the leash. Using this program she learned the "lay down" in just a few minutes, but I noted whenever she gets excited, she doesn't respond well so I know this will take more work. Where and what should I do about the tugging the leash; jumping up (whether using collar or harness) and taking the leash into her mouth at my hand and continuing to jump or tug-of-war it outside while going to potty? Where do I start on the stop nipping/biting? I believe your program will really help me, but as a first time puppy owner it is difficult. Abby is a good dog and we both agree on that, it's just this stage has been very difficult and I don't want to have to give her up because I believe she will help my spouse - she's had some opportunities already and done well. BTW - I work from home - her crate is in my office and she stays with me almost all day in my office, but not in her crate. I don't want her to have to be a "crate" dog and feel very strongly about that, but I do understand it's necessary during training. Any advice will be well received.