omg am knackered

[juliet]

Latest stage in ongoing housetraining attempts with Sidney: me staying up until 3am to take her out every 45 min or so (unsuccessful: she doesn't like going to the toilet when on-lead, & if let off-lead in the square at night she gets wildly distracted & goes sniffing round the rat-holes at the bottom). At that point I was sufficiently stressed that it wasn't worth keeping going, so I slept on the sofa in the living-room instead (until handing over to P at 7am & sleeping for a couple of hrs actually in bed). The good news is, she was clean overnight. The bad news is, I am absolutely knackered & drinking coffee for the second time this week :-/

Did go climbing yesterday, though, which was top fun. Did assorted 4* bouldering problems, and then worked out the first half of a V0, which I was pleased with . (And Sidney was left alone for 3 hrs & seemed fine with this, although she did rip up a bit of abandoned cardboard once she'd finished with her Kong.)

Comments

[menthe-reglisse.livejournal.com]

Blimey, that sounds as bad as a newborn baby. Much sympathy!

[juliet]

As a rule, I am not particularly in favour of the pet-owner-as-parent thing, but with a dog this age (& doubtless still more with a real puppy), you do start to feel a bit that way! I certainly haven't slept properly since we got her (too busy listening out for her). I'll sleep on the sofa again tonight -- the theory is, that way I'll wake up if she wants out, but we don't want her to sleep in our room, so the living-room is a compromise. I am once again grateful that we got a sofa long enough to lie full out on.

Happily, it shouldn't take as long for her to get the hang of the housetraining thing as it does for a newborn baby :)

(Of course, if we'd had her from a real-actual-puppy, 11 months would be old enough that I'd expect her to be housetrained, & we probably wouldn't have had the won't-go-on-lead problem. But she wasn't properly housetrained as a puppy, & then 5 months in Battersea... She's an odd mixture of puppy/nearly-grown-up!)

[menthe-reglisse.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've never liked the analogy either. But to continue it, parenting is worse because you then have to potty-train them a couple of years later (or 4, in our case, at this rate).

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

This Sort Of Thing is why I envisage not getting a dog of my own until I retire. (Alas!)

[juliet]

Well: if you get an adult dog who's lived indoors before, this stage ought to be a lot quicker. Finlay was clean indoors in the daytime from the start, and I think overnight after a couple of days (apart from one time a little later when he had an upset stomach). The trouble with Sidney is I think she was never properly housetrained in the first place (or at least not consistently -- we do have a history for her & she was being left alone for 4-6 hrs at a time as a <6mo puppy, which is Too Long!), & then 5 months in Battersea will have got rid of any vestiges of what she did learn.

It's not really OK to have a dog & a full-time out of the house job, though. Which is why we didn't get one at all till I was part-time. And we wouldn't have gotten a dog as young as Sidney if I hadn't been made redundant (& decided not to look for another regular job).

Mind you, Sidney's not being *wildly* good for my freelance productivity atm! certainly unlikely to get much done today... [sigh]

[juliet]

ion: come round & meet the puppy :)

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

I thought you'd never ask :D

My lifestyle isn't really conducive to anything more demanding than the gerbils atm, sadly; I'm away at weekends a lot and often come home late on weekdays too. My pet-enabled friends say that once I had a dog/cat I wouldn't miss that lifestyle, but hmm.

Perhaps in the next few years I'll be in a position to welcome a cat or two into my life, though.

[juliet]

It's swings & roundabouts; it definitely does make a difference to the way you're able to conduct your life/arrange your time, but on the other hand there are v positive things about it as well! In my case in particularly, given how much I'm home *anyway* during the day, going out in the evenings is less problematic than it would be for someone with a real job (because it means leaving the dog home alone for the evening, rather than for the whole day).

Cats are easier-going, yes!

[adjectivegail]

The rule of thumb for puppy-puppies is that they can hold their bladder for as many hours as they are months old. So if you've got a four month old pup, the longest you should leave between visits outdoors are 4 hours. Is Sidney drinking a lot in the night? If she doesn't have any health problems and provided she gets enough drink during the day, you could try filling her water bowl with ice cubes - they'll melt and she'll get some fluids if thirsty, but wouldn't be able to gulp it down too fast. Also do you have an extendable lead - maybe if she was on a lead but further away from you, that could be a compromise from letter her off leash?

(Sorry if you already know all this stuff, I love talking dogs and don't have one of my own to witter on about *sadface*)

[juliet]

It's not peeing that's the problem (she doesn't drink at all during the night, I don't think, as she's upstairs sleeping; plus she'll happily pee on-lead), it's pooing. Today I tried moving her dinner forwards to lunchtime so she did go in the park this afternoon. (Am still going to sleep on sofa tonight -- I want another clean night!)

We have an extensible lead -- doesn't help, sadly :-/ In the park, she does deliberately go away from where I am (which of course also makes it harder to praise/treat her, although I did manage to twice today!)

Talking dogs is always good :)

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

I know with our puppies that even when they were too young to be clean through the night they did get to a stage where they would go on sheets of newspaper by the back door. Which made cleaning up easier. Not sure if it would be useful trying this with Sidney tho.

I seem to remember that the labs / retrievers we had were way easier to house train than the basset hound so some breeds may be easier than others.

[juliet]

Touch wood, she's had 2 clean nights now, so hopefully she'll be OK tonight as well. If not, I will try the newspaper thing. It's hard floors downstairs so easy enough to clear up, but she makes it as far as the doormat fairly often & that's harder! She really ought to be physically capable to hanging on all night, so thumbs crossed that she's got the idea now.