Sunday Afternoon Report!

We have almost owned Elsie for two weeks! And she is a super dog. Super in energy, smartness, and just being Elsie.

CRATE TRAINING!

She is getting very crate trained and will enter her own crate (she does not mind at all sharing it with Skia. Skia does.) Yesterday was very busy and she had to spend part of the day in it. Skia and her were both lying in it (not really locked in) and I tried to get a pictures but I was not able to and Skia got tired of it. She did not howl at all really.

This morning, we had to go to meeting, so she was locked in there another 3-4 hours. She had not made a single mess (YAY!), or at least I did not find one, and she was very calm. Of course she was thrilled to see us all. But we cannot be super excited with her when we let her out.... It can cause negative affects on crate training.

She is doing so well! Which is a huge relief from hours on end of barking! YAY! I was also pleased that she slept from 9 PM (with a potty break at 10:30 PM) to 6:30 in the morning. She is soo good!

WALKING!

Walking... and walking. WE talked to a friend today that owns a poodle, and has some dog knowledge. We know we have an extra hyper dog and we also know that she needs long walks. The friend's way of saying that was: "Walk a Border Collie one mile one day, and it will want to walk 2 miles the next day." It was something along those lines and yes, Elsie has energy.

At only eight or nine weeks old, Elsie walks 1 to 3 miles a day (besides playing a bunch as well). OH! You can already imagine how many miles she will be walking (maybe) in the future!

Today I walked/ran her up and down one of our lanes. She whines a little (she has a tendency to whine when she does not want to do something), so to help make her walk I carry kibble and a couple of extra dogs. (Seriously, Poimein and Skia both enjoy and should have the exercise). She also graduated from a piece of twine for a leash to a leather leash (only when the big dogs don't need them).

Me and my sister have made a habit to walk about 5/8th a mile every day with the three dogs and Elsie has always done well on these little trips.

That is her walking update!

FEEDING!

We also changed our feeding times for Elsie.

5-6 AM (First feeding).

1 PM (Second feeding).

8 PM (Third feeding).

Our schedule of 5, 11, 5, and 8 was not working very well (ending up in a dog that needed coaxing to eat) so we will see (maybe) if this will work!

~Western Belle

Teaching to Walk/Re-Crate Training

Awww... After a perfect night on Thursday night, I cant say Friday night was great. Elsie barked. And she practically barked about 3 and 1/2 hours this morning. So we are back to step one.

CRATE TIME IS FUN TIME. Not a punishment.

Mom and I both looked up stuff on crate training. We finally decided to introduce her to the kennel as a fun place she goes for safety, protection, peace etc. We take a treat or kibble, toss it into the kennel, and coax Elsie into the kennel. Every few tries, we close the kennel door, and feed Elsie kibble through the kennel door. But only for about five seconds. Then the door pops open and out comes Elsie. Here are the steps we take to this "nice time is crate time".

1. Have LOTS of kibble and treats. DO NOT give big treats just little bits to coax and please your puppy.
2. Toss the kibble into and clean and nice kennel. Coax your puppy to get towards the crate. DO NOT put her in. She needs to get in on her own free will.
3. As soon as she takes steps in and gets in praise her. Call her a good girl and dont say a bland "Good Girl....". Say an enthusiastic "GOOOD GIRL!!!!!"
4. Ignore her when she gets out. Dont punish her. Just do not praise her for exiting the kennel.
5. After a few tries, close the kennel door for 2-5 seconds or longer. Praise her, give her a treat, and let her out.

Another thing we have been working on is walking her. Elsie has lots of energy when she should be sleeping and when she wakes up... so we need to get as much energy out in the day time as possible. Which means when she wakes up, play and play and play. And take her for long (for a puppy) walks. I use a piece of twine to walk Elsie. It is not a very heavy leash and works very well.

Today I walked her most of the way down a lane, part of the way up a circle, and back up most of the lane. Plus we walked up part of my Grandmother's property. She gets very muddy and dirty. Remember to put that on your check list if you buy a white dog.

Well, now she is awake. Play time!

~Western Belle