new cairn tomorrow

[kayharley]

We always told Brody to "hurry up" and then said "good boy" when he did his business. If you have a fence you can let them loose to play for a few minutes as a reward. That way they learn that outside is first and foremost for business.

The funniest (or most annoying?) thing about the dogs is when they had potty training accidents; they always peed on the rugs and not the hardwood floors. It was as if they knew they shouldn't pee on the floor! Still to this day, if we have an accident it will be on the carpet.

That is SO true...

I put an ex-pen outside so Remy knows it's a business trip and not a social environment especially at 3:00 in the morning!

And why do the carpets feel better to eliminate on than the vinyl or wood flooring?

[pkcrossley]

And why do the carpets feel better to eliminate on than the vinyl or wood flooring?

my dog very nicely chooses linoleum or tile instead of carpetting. BUT i might have an idea why some prefer carpet. when my dog is able to, if he has to go while i am out, he pulls dirty towels out of the clothes hamper (sometimes it is closed or out of reach), then evidently squats over them and does his thing. not really a terrible idea, since he knows i'm likely to use old rags (that may look like towels to him) to clean it up afterward. somehow, he has the thought that going on a towel (or something absorbent) is better than going on the bare floor. so, if you consider that your rug may look like a huge towel to your cairn...

i think they're just trying to help, really...

[onesojourner]

I have all wood floors in my house. for some reason he always picks an area rug. He understands what he is supposed to do when we are outside and I tell him to go pee. If he needs to go he always does it and he always gets praised. last night was a problem though. he hates the dark. 2 seconds after we came in and he wouldn't go he found a rug as soon as I let him back in. He is a smart dog, we taught him to sit in less than 24 hours. I don't know what the hold up is. he gets scolded in side and praised outside. something just hasn't clicked yet. ha has not even attempted to go to a door if he needs to go out.

[onesojourner]

ok here is a short little video of Dex during his first week with us.

[pkcrossley]

what a good boy!

next week he'll know how to ignore the commands.

he shows again: cairn terriers are born, not made

[onesojourner]

eh. we are consistantly having him sit and lay down 3 times a day in five minute sessions. He met his first kitten this week at the inlaws. at first they were not sure about each other now they play and play and play. they wrestle and just keep on going. The cat is not using claws and he will just pop Dex until Dex runs at him a tackles him. its a blast to watch. He also met my parents 100 pound lab rusty and the kittens they have. at first he was totally petrified of rusty and he would just roll over when rusty got any where near him. he would just cower or roll on to his back aka I give, I give... then he figured out rusty was a nice guy and just wanted to lick rusty's face and play with him. rusty let him do it for a long time then barked at him once and kind of lunged at dex and dex took off scared. the licking stopped then. I think the pecking order is figured out now. then the cats would try to get dex and rusty would run over there and scare the cats off to protect Dex. these kittens are not as nice as the cat at the inlaws. I would say rusty and dex are going to be good friends.

[onesojourner]

Oh and so far Dex has ridden in 7 different cars and he has been to 5 different houses and yesterday he went to the lake and got his first introduction to the water. At first he was not real sure about it but I think he was starting to warm up to it by the end of the day. He is a good swimmer.

[bradl]

Fun video!

[Lili]

Wow! Nine weeks, one with you, and he already sits and lays on your command??!! I can't wait to get our Cairn!!

Very nice video.

[kayharley]

And I love the music!

You are doing a fantastic job.

I think I'll post a video of Remy in which I tell him to come and he runs the other way... Where I say "Drop it" and he swallows it!

[onesojourner]

he really is not bad about chewing stuff up or getting into stuff (yet) but house training is not going well. it feels like we have made no progress so far. Its very frustrating knowing that he can learn to sit in less than 24 hours. today was bad. he would come right in from outside and pee. I need to vent a little.

[Kirby's Mom]

Be patient on potty training. My Cairn was not reliably trained until 7 months, and did not indicate that she needed to go out until around 6 months. It's like a little kid-they just don't get it until they get it. When Kirby first came home, we thought we were doing well if we only had one accident a day.

[Tracy A.]

he really is not bad about chewing stuff up or getting into stuff (yet) but house training is not going well. it feels like we have made no progress so far. Its very frustrating knowing that he can learn to sit in less than 24 hours. today was bad. he would come right in from outside and pee. I need to vent a little.

Have a cocktail! and lower your expectations and limit access in the house.

It took me months to teach the boys what 'potty' means..

I started to treat them everytime the peed' outside and said 'good potty' and I made a big deal out of it too.....

Infact everytime I take them out I still say "Good Potty Out". At around 5-6 months of age I could nag one of them into peeing outside for me.... so I knew that 'potty' had sunk in.

[onesojourner]

well I know he knows what "go pee" means. as soon as I start saying that provided he isn't overly detracted he will do his business. I think I have caught him in the act of going on the house just about every time and he gets scolded. when he goes outside I am always there and he gets praised. something just isn't clicking. I will try adding treats to that. its going to be a long 3 months if I don't see any improvement until he is 6 months.

[bradl]

Taking the operant conditioning approach lets me be a lot more forgiving (and a lot less frustrated) than I used to be - I tend to think of house training as a habit, not knowledge. This has the added benefit of leaving room for the inevitable backsliding later. It's not like they 'forget' - they simply fall out of the habit briefly for one reason or another.

[onesojourner]

thats interesting. I guess I might have to keep him in the kitchen more often if he isn't going to catch on to this stuff.

[Tracy A.]

Keep in mind that he is just a baby, with the attention span of a baby. Cairn's mature much slower than other dogs breds. He will 'eventually' be house trained. My dog only started to signal that they needed to go out around 7 months and 1.5 years old. Mettwurst at 7 months would sit infont of the door... Brattwurst at 1.5 years old would stair at you. It was only when we understood each others signals that accidents in the house diminished and they beame fully house trained. Your just in the very first stages of the process. I didn't really expect much from my boys until they were around 5-6 months old and could hold it over night. Little puppies = little bladders. If I could catch one in the act, I say 'NO' in a firm but kind tone, and would put the tail down and rush them outside- then praise...

Now of course my German Shepherd 'Waylon' was house trained at 4 months old, then again he weighed 40 pounds at that time too.

[LilyGrace25]

What a great video. Dex looks like a real sweetie pie! Hang in there with the housetraining, he is still a baby.

One fun tip I have...use a laser pointer to wear him out before bedtime. Lily and Grace will chase that light all over the house they LOVE it!

Welcome to the forum! Lynn, Lily & Grace

[onesojourner]

I think I am going to look into getting a bell maybe that will help.

[onesojourner]

AHHH has has been inside for all of about 10 minutes the past hour and a half and he has peed 0 times outside and 2 times inside... AHHHHHH

[pkcrossley]

i'm not sure terriers can be trained in the same was as, say, pavlov's dogs. i've had dogs who would burst their bladders before going indoors, and they could also accept other commands as unnegotiable. they internalize the habit or the training, and they afterwards have a very powerful inhibition against ever going against it. i don't think terriers can be trained like that. they have been created to make their own plans, their own decisions, do their work, and get recognized for it. my dog learned commands very quickly, then began to ignore them whenever he weighed in his own mind the pros and cons of following them or not. that requires escalation, so that i can convince him that the calculation should prove that the pros of obeying outweigh the cons. same thing with house training.

all things being equal my dog is happy to wait for his walk. but if he becomes uncomfortable because he has a bowel irritation or i am late getting home or he has drunk too much or whatever he thinks of his own plan. no sitting around suffering for him. i am thankful that my dog has picked up the idea that going on the rug is not good (it is not just an absorbent material to be used for that). when he can get into the clothes hamper he has pulled out dirty towels and gone on them. if he can't do that, he chooses tile or linoleum. but he clearly has not internalized house training as irresistible conditioning or unnegotiable rules. if he feels he has been put on the spot and he has to make a decision, he will. it will probably be to relieve himself rather than suffer. he really does not see why he should do otherwise.

i know there are dogs that can be absolutely conditioned, and i know there are some terriers who in normal circumstances can give the impression of having been conditioned. i'm not sure it can really be done with terriers, though. if they feel a decision has to be made, they will make it.

[bradl]

Maybe a different analogy would work for those who want to really nail things down: perhaps house training is more of a probability function than a step function.

I.e., not this:

[pkcrossley]

yes! or --it is a quantum issue rather than a newtonion one.

i do think terriers can be persuaded to favor one solution consistently (like, going out to do the business). i just think they have an ability, that was once of great economic value to us, to reserve the final judgment to themselves. it's of no economic value anymore, but it is why i love them. they do the right thing because they weigh the alternatives and then decide to do the right thing. or not. but it is not because they have been mindlessly conditioned like some... poodle...

[bradl]

Someone once described it (I'm paraphrasing)... some dogs are laborers while Cairns are more like General Contractors. They may take the job, but they'll do it on their own terms.

[pkcrossley]

that's very good. i do think that is true, probably of all terriers. but cairns do seem to be the quintessential terriers.