Okay. First. This is absolutely the best puppy in the entire world.
Here. See for yourself:
He came off the plane and arrived at the school at just before 3 PM. We wandered around outside a bit, but there were kids everywhere and it was VERY distracting, and the leash was still inside, so I was using a rope, and the collar wasn't quite sized right, yet, and he'd never had a collar or a leash, so /that/ was distracting, so I gave up trying to get him to potty right off, and we came inside so I could fix the things that were wrong and take him out the back door - which is where I want him to potty, anyway.
But while I was resizing the collar he went to check out the nice big crate, and I was really happy, except. Except what he did was immediately go to the crate with the really nice bedding and step inside and piddle.
Well. Crate training is going to be more interesting than I anticipated.
So I picked him up - which was a little tricky from inside the kennel - and carried him out the back door and down the steps and put him down. He was /very/ confused by all this, but trickled a bit more when we got there. I praised him and told him what a good boy he was... and then realized that I'd left the treats inside. So.
Stairs. We've had a few attempts at the stairs. My stairs are HORRIBLE. (Okay, they're great if you want to have good traction, and you want the snow to not build up as much, but they're not kind to bare feet/paws.) And I think the puppy is not familiar with stairs of any sort. When we first got to the stairs, he looked at me like I was insane, and was having absolutely none of it when I suggested that he go up them. I didn't even try to get him to go down the stairs the first time, but when we came back in after the trickle, I managed to coax him up halfway onto the first one.
Cody is a SMART puppy. The next time we went out, I had the treats, and used them to coax him up the steps. (I tried coaxing down, but that was still too much.) Once he figured out he could get onto the first one all the way, he was okay going the rest of the way up, and has managed without more than verbal encouragement twice more. He's still slow and careful doing it, but he does it.
We did a little work on 'sit', in between the trickle trip, and another attempt to get him to go potty out the back door. It was VERY successful. (The 'sit' training, not the pottying.)
It's going to take him a while to get /how/ to pay attention to me. He likes to pay attention to my feet (which is important, since he's very good at being underneath them), but that doesn't help him figure out that I'm asking him to do something. I think that's more about being exhausted, though, because what he really wanted to do was fall asleep on my feet (which he finally did just before I got the camera and took the picture above). Earlier, when he wasn't as tired, he did much better. When he was looking at me (my hands/face, rather than feet), he was able to do sit correctly, and immediately, 5 times after just two introductions. Later, I had to use a treat right by his nose to get his attention, and then he was only barely able to focus long enough to sit.
Also. I need to do something about the location of the training for sit. I either need a mat of some sort for the kitchen (which I should probably get so he doesn't have his feet slide out from under him when he's eating, anyway), or I need to do more of the training on a carpeted surface. He didn't seem to /mind/ his feet sliding out from under him, but it turned every sit into a down, by the time he got his treat.
Cats and Dogs -
When Cody first came in, he paid absolutely no attention to TK at all. TK was talking up a storm, but Cody didn't even seem to notice he was there. Then, all of a sudden, Cody turned and started BARKING at TK. I called his name. He stopped barking immediately, and turned to look at me. I praised him and gave him a treat. He tried barking one other time, and we did the same thing. Since then, he's been mostly back to paying TK no attention.
TK, as I suspected, was NOT HAPPY to see the puppy. He talked and talked and talked to let us know. When Cody barked, TK hissed, and they were both close enough to the gate that TK swatted at him. He didn't connect, though.
Then, while Cody and I were working, I paused to put TK's food on the other side of the gate. It's not in easy reach of the gate, but it's pretty close. TK was able to go up and eat and drink with Cody running around on the other side, and neither of them paid attention to the other.
As an aside - When I fed Cody, I did the thing where you keep reaching into the bowl and adding a little more food, to get the dog used to the idea that you can have your hand in the bowl and it doesn't mean that you're stealing their food. Cody has NO food guarding issues at all. He didn't care one iota that I was fooling around with the food in his dish.
When Cody started trying to fall asleep on my feet, I stuck around to pet him for a while. TK came and complained at me that the cat door was closed. So I opened it. And he came and wandered around the kitchen, and sniffed at the sleeping Cody (who opened his eyes and then closed them again), and sniffed at Cody's empty food dish, and the toys, and the freshly bedded kennel, and then went out, again.
So things seem pretty positive on that end.
The only worrying thing besides pottying in the kennel is that he seems to have no interest in peanut butter. That... kills a lot of my chew-toy planning.
Crate Training... We'll see what happens. Cody has been asleep for about 45 minutes, and it's an hour since he ate. We went out (but he didn't produce anything) right after he ate, and in just a couple minutes I'm going to post this and wake him up for a trip outside. We'll do that every hour until he produces something. Then we'll play a little more and try for the crate-bed for the night.
One last picture: Puppy in Puppy Jail:
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
