MONDAY MEMORIES-POTTY TRAINING BRUT

Brut at 6 weeks

Brut was a real pisser of a puppy. Literally. He was like a mini faucet that was always running or leaking and couldn’t be turned off. He never gave me any clue that he had to go. There wasn’t any sniffing or circling, he’d just be walking, then stop and GO! And it wasn’t every two or three hours like in the books. It was EVERY hour. You could almost set your watch by it. Which you would think would make it easier, but God forbid I start watching a show or cooking dinner or do anything because next thing you know that boy was squatting. I could pretty much forget about doing anything but watch the clock and get him outside. I practically had to mark down the last time he went out cause after twenty-four hours of this, my head was scrambled with numbers of time. If that wasn’t enough, twenty minutes of play he was creating a puddle and I‘d have to start the count down all over again. It was maddening. Gratefully he only pooped in the house once when we first brought him home. A sharp “no” and a clap of the hands and for some reason he never did it again. I have never understood the mystery of that except I suspect it might have had something to do with his breeder. I can‘t imagine the mess or my sanity if he was doing both bodily functions at the same rate in the house. Lord have mercy!

Who me?

I rationed his water, which I never was comfortable with. How was I to know when he was thirsty? He didn’t drink excessively and turns out it didn’t make any difference, he was still a peeing machine, so I gave him back his water.

Silver didn’t prepare me well for Brut either. She was at the door two days after we got her and was waking me up in the middle of the night to go out. At three months old she was potty trained.

I'm just a puppy!  What does she expect?

We started crating Brut at night after he wouldn’t stay in his playpen. (yes, we actually put him in a baby's playpen). We had dark red carpeting in our bedroom and I know he had to be having accidents at night but it was always impossible to see the pee spot. So here’s how our crate training went: When he would start to cry and howl I would get up and let him out then put him back in his crate. We did this every hour on the hour for days until he finally made it for two hours and eventually three and so on. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when Brut let me sleep for five hours straight before waking me up. It was a miracle.

Somewhere between three and four months old he finally got it. It is funny now, but at the time I was heading for a straight jacket. Lol I should have known from this experience what a PITA dog Brut was going to turn out to be... 

Pain In The Ass!