Training

This afternoon I went to Kay's house so that I could play in her garden. I LOVE Kay. She's my favourite person, after Ann obviously. Sometimes Ann leaves me with Kay while she goes for a swim so that I get used to someone else looking after me. Today she said, 'Trixie, we are going to Kay's garden to do some training.'


Mmmmmmm........................ training? Kay usually just lets me play!

Apparently Ann wants me to be a 'perfect pooch' at puppy training class tomorrow night. I'm really good at sitting, staying, waiting and coming when we practise in the flat, but at puppy training class last week, the other puppies kept distracting me.


Today we practised in Kay's garden where I usually get to zoom around all the time. I had to sit and wait while Ann went to the other end of the garden and then she shouted, 'Trixie come'. I was rewarded with little bits of cheese. Yum! Kay was very impressed with me. She thinks my recall is good enough to be let off my lead as soon as I've had all my vaccinations. Ann says there is no way that is going to happen! Boohoo..................…


Oh and we haven't mentioned toilet training for about 10 days now. We only said we wouldn't mention it for a week!


Toilet training me is a nightmare. For some reason I don't seem to realise that I have to go to the toilet when I go outside. I can last about 7 hours before I need to go which is very annoying when Ann takes me out every two/three hours. I can go out and do nothing and then 5 mins later, when I'm back in the house, I just squat down and wee on the floor. When I do that Ann yells, 'NO' at me, picks me up and puts me out on the balcony or on my puppy pad, which is next to the balcony door. But sometimes I decide to toilet where Ann can't see me, ie behind the sofa so then, when she discovers what I've done, it's too late to tell me off. And yes.................... Ann has read everything she possibly can about toilet training puppies and nothing has prepared her for this. Grrrrrrrrrr...................


Apparently the infamous 'MollyCollie' took forever to toilet train but she was a very traumatised little rescue dog when Ann first got her. She was about 6/7 months old when Ann first adopted her and she was too scared to toilet in front of humans. Wish she'd started her Blip diary then because Ann can't really remember how difficult things were for the first year of her life. However, back in 2005 there didn't seem to be all these 'rules' about how much exercise puppies could have. For the first year of MollyCollie's life Ann used to walk her for at least 3 hours a day just so that when she was so desperate she'd have to toilet in front of her. Then Ann could give her loads of praise and some tasty treats.


I'm almost 4 months old now so I'm sure I can be getting more than 15-20mins of exercise a day. I bet 4 month old farm collies get loads more exercise than I do? To be honest I probably get at least an hours exercise a day. I usually walk around the block 2-3 times a day and I always do some sort of activity. Ie, playing in people's gardens, walking/going out in my stroller etc. etc.


Anyway, my very lovely owner, Ann, is trying not to 'stress' about me. A lot of the stuff she's read, says that on average it takes 4-6 months to toilet train a puppy....................... Seriously???? I'm a very intelligent little collie. So why can't Ann toilet train me now?????????????????????


PS – Once Ann's sussed out this toilet training lark, she's thinking about writing a book and calling it. - 'Toilet training; when a puppy won't go'. Lol! Lol! Lol!