Potty Trained and Some Thoughts About Crate

I'm happy to say that Ginger is potty trained now. After months of training and monitoring, she is very consistent in going to toilet to do her business no matter where she were and what she were doing. When bringing her outdoor, she understood the potty command and she is able to potty outside. I wrote about potty training in my previous post.


This is the current setup of Ginger's play pen. I still confine her nowadays whenever I'm away or unable to supervise her.

We have long ago removed the wired bottom crate you saw in the previous post. Please note that wired bottom crate is bad for dog, they might get hurt with their feet/muzzle stucked between the wires. We are using a plastic crate which we will find her retired into it during the day for a nap.


Ginger chilling inside her plastic crate.

I can't say enough good things using a crate for your dog. Many scorned at the thought of confining a dog in a crate, thinking that it's a cruel thing to do.

Dogs are by nature a den creatures, crate if properly introduced is a den - a safe haven for your dog. It's a quiet place where your dog can retreat into for a quiet time or rest. It's not a jail or toilet!

Ginger will run and hide in her crate whenever she feel threatened or uncomfortable when encountering a strange noise or object. :)

When your dog is trained to use the crate, you will find your dog more easily handled: in the car, at the vets, when travelling, etc.

Ginger will automatically go into her crate and wait for us to lock up the crate when she knew it is bed time. We will then move her crate into our bedroom where she gets to sleep in the same room with us. Next day morning, we will move the crate back into the playpen and remove the door.



We moved the pee tray into a corner of the toilet and the gates are moved to block the toilet bowl (Ginger used to lick the toilet bowl's water, yuck!), so we humans have our toilet back. We doing this by shifting the pee tray to the left side inch by inch over weeks and expanding the gates slowly.

Toy Poodle Tricks

Ginger's hair is messy after running around under rain in my mum's garden.

Feeding Ritual

My daily feeding ritual for my dog - Ginger.
1st : Establish eyes contact. Your dog stay focused on you, not the food bowl.
2nd: Communicate with your dog using soothing eyes. I usually think about how much I love her being calm and submissive and I'm going to share the food to her as long as she remains calm.
3rd: Ask her to go into crate and wait for me to put down the bowl. I have her sit patiently until I give her the release command which is "OK".

This is a great way to mentally challenge the dog by teaching her that a calm and ­submissive state of mind means getting the food.

Having your dogs mind in a calm and open state before he/she receives their food strengthens your relationship and your leadership. Not only that, but performing this ritual every time your dog eats, virtually eliminates the risk of food aggression developing.

3 Month Plus

Ginger will turn 4 month old after 2 weeks.


She still has the same cutie face ever since I set my eyes on her in the pet shop.




Looked so fluffy after I combed her.

Shower Time

Ginger will look so skinny whenever she bathes. My hubby wouldn't even recognize her. "Is she our dog?" He will ask.



Ginger figuring a way out of the bath tub.



This award winning puppy look will increase the chance of someone come rescuing her for 20%.

Indigestion Update

Yesterday after I fed her the medicine, I waited 30 minutes to give her dinner (just 4 piece of kibbles), I saw her eaten them all up. Then I slowly feed her more kibbles every few minutes. Fed her 1 spoonful of kibbles (half of her usual portion) within an hour. No vomit and no bowel movement though.

This morning, I woke up to a very hungry puppy. I fed her 2 spoonful of kibbles. Boy, she looked so hungry. Again, no bowel movement. Decided to cut off her lunch. Scared her body won't accept more food coz she hasn't poop.

Afternoon - around 4pm, she looked very hungry. She just won't stay still when I brush her, she was going for the treat on the floor. Normally she will wait till I brushed her then only eat it on my command. I fed her 1 spoonful of kibbles. Again, she hasn't poop, I'm getting worried.

7pm - I let her out to play ball. After running here and there for 5 minutes. She went to toilet and poo. What a relief ! The stool is solid and thus healthy.

I'm suspecting the doctor's medicine making her constipation. Coz need to wait so long only she poop.

Tonight I will feed her dinner and see how it goes.

Indigestion

Ginger poop 4 times yesterday, (2 times after lunch within 2 hours). I saw her making soft whining sound and keep lying down and drink water only. After 20 minutes, I saw her poo again with toothpaste like stool.

I brought her to vet, doctor just gave 2 medicine and said no problem, probably just overfed. After I came home, she just keep drinking water and after 30 minutes, she vomited all the kibbles I fed her during morning and lunch. No yellowish stuffs just plenty of salivas and kibbles.

I just gave her medicine. Should I continue to feed her dinner tonight? She is on the diet of fish and potato and we have been feeding her this food for a month. Recently, I've been feeding her a lot of treats last 2 days like 15 of tiny rounded biscuits (Xiao Bu Dian) and 3-6 vegetarian rings per day, is it too much? Did I overfed her?

Just recalled that the night before I gave her a milk bone, could it be the culprit?

Resource Guarding

I gave Ginger a chewable milky bone, I think she like the taste to the extend she went sheepish and sneaked away with it. Then, her body went tense (tail up, stiff body) when I approached her, she growled at me.

Crap, even though she is just 3 month old, the growl startled me, LOL. I was very annoyed and asked her to drop it which she refused, and I chased her and picked her up by grabbing her back neck, just like picking up a cat and took away the bone by force.

Feeling kinda weary, I went to google on dog's resource guarding topic and found out that what I did is wrong. By taking away the bone by force when she was guarding it will only reinforce her guarding habit. Ref : Read the best answer in My dog growled at me normal or bad behavior?

I went to take a few treats which she highly valued (blueberry treats) and flung it in front of her nose then say the command "Drop It", there, it happened. She drop the bone and came to get my treat, I praise her highly and give her back the bone. I repeat this exercise a few times and I noticed she went relaxed while chewing on the bone. I'm going to practice the food exchange more often from now onwards.

Very important point for dog owners, do not punish your dog if it growls. Growling is a warning, if you punish your dog, it won't growl anymore but jump right to biting. You don't want a dog who bites unpredictably.

Good article to recondition your dog if it shown resource guarding behavior :
Resource Guarding

Ginger wants to get on bed

This video was taken last weekend when we lodged in Sekinchan.

Dog Treats

To train Ginger, we have to use lots of dog treats. After trying several treats, we are settled with 2 choices of dog treats now.



Xiao Bu Dian Biscuit (Blueberry)

This is a Taiwanese made dog biscuits, I have tried it myself, it is crunchy and has a very aromatic Blueberry after taste. No wonder my dog will go nuts when seeing this. Since it smells great, it's good as a lure treat. The ingredients consist of milk, potato flour, all vegetarian ingredient.





Vegetarian Super Ring

This is a homemade treat made by my friend, who runs the blog - Pawsome Treat House.
I love the fact that it is solid food with no fillers and all vegetarian ingredients consist of sweet potatoes, organic carrot and white sesame seed. I can see my dog digest her food easily and she poo more consistent now, about 2 hours after meal with solid stools. This treat gives her all the healthy fiber she needs. Since the treat is chewy, she spend more time in eating this instead of just wolfing everything down. I also like the fact that it will not leave bits and pieces on the floor.



My dog gets her treat.

Play Fetch

Toy Poodle Puppy Meeting Other Dogs

Just for fun! My dog meeting other dogs for the first time. The lady in yellow shirt who is commenting is Rubini-a certified dog trainer. Jack is the mini poodle. The little apricot puppy who bounced like bunny is my dog - Ginger. The mini schnauzer is Pepper, belongs to my friend. Jack has never been socialized and shown aggression to other dogs. The trainer was very impressed because Jack seems to take a liking to my dog and is playing with her. My dog is a sport, she is enjoying herself even though she is the smallest of all 3 dogs!

How I potty train my puppy Ginger

When we first got Ginger, we decided to crate training her : only let her out to potty every 30 minutes. However, a problem has arisen. This little bugger would just hold her bladder for as long as 6 hours. She wouldn't pee/poo if we brought her out to the toilet where we put some pee pads. She would however just pee anywhere in living room when we let her out to roam a bit. There's no established pattern of where she would pee, we just wiped it off with an ammonia free cleaner. This went on for a few days, we got so frustrated.

On the 2nd week, we suddenly had an idea. We went to bought some play pens and set up a confined area in a corridor beside the toilet. The area is big enough to put her crate in and there's a decent area for her to run around and playing her toys. Again, we placed a few pee pads inside the toilet. We noticed she would go into the toilet to do her business, but the spots are inconsistent, sometimes she would just pee outside the pee pads. We would praise her and reward her with a treat if she pee/poo on the pee pad.

A few days later, the pee tray I ordered arrived. I put a pee pad(sprayed with Puppy Trainer) inside the pee tray and put it inside toilet. Ginger immediately went to investigate it and proceeded to pee on it. (JACKPOT!) No more puppy biting and stepping over the pee pads.

Then we noticed she wouldn't just pee on the pee tray all the time, but on the toilet floor. To fine tune the potty training, we went to buy more play pens and limit the toilet to a smaller area.



We confined the toilet area so she has fewer room for mistakes now. Just wipe it clean when she pee/poo outside the tray.


This is the play pen we set up, we feed her in the crate and placed her water bottle inside(so she will not sees it as a toilet area) and she will just sleep/play outside the crate.

Since the toilet area is more visible to us now, if we catch her going into toilet, we will just chant "pee pee" or "poo poo" when she do her business on the pee tray then praise and reward her with a treat when she finished.

After a week, we let her out to roam and led her from kitchen to the play pen so that she will learn the route and we noticed she will run into the toilet to do her business now. Yes, she will do it on the pee tray now.

Several tips for new owners in potty training :
1) Slowly start with a smaller area then expand it gradually, don't let your puppy roam all over the house until she is potty trained.
2) If your puppy peed at the wrong spot, it's your fault, don't blame your puppy. Just clean it up and start over.
3) Praise and reward your puppy when she potty at the right spot.
4) Be patient and don't give up.
5) Get a pee tray as it saves you a lot of trouble, no more puppy stepping on poo and pee or messing with the paper. Just pick up the poo and wipe it off with a damp paper. It's more economical also, just need to change the pee pad every 2-3 days and you can wash the tray with water once a week.

Tools you will need : Ammonia free cleaner, a puppy trainer spray, Pee Tray & Pee Pads.

Stay

Thanks to the power of blueberry, she learned Sit-Stay & Down-Stay within minutes.

Allergy?

Recently, I developed a habit of biting my paws and scratching my muzzle.



My human will look so concerned whenever I do that, she will inspect my paws and body but she couldn't find anything.




This is what she found on my belly, tiny red spots and what was that big brown clot?

I have been overhearing the humans discussing what to do with me. Bring me to vet? Oh no, don't you let the vet poke a stick into my butt again.

Hmm... want to cut down my food? Is that the reason why I don't see the humans feed me peanut butter and chickens now? Luckily I still have the blueberry treats to go with. They are feeding me a full diet of Sweet Potato and Fish now.

Hopefully they will find out what is causing the itchiness on my body. It really gets on my nerves, grr...

On Leash Walking

One of my favorite things to do now is go for a walk. Every evening, my human will bring me to walk in a nearby neighborhood. I am delighted whenever they bring out the leash for me to put on.





After the walk, I get to sit on the human's lap.



Any more treats? I'm still waiting.



This is my human's favorite pic of me. I'm cute right?

10 Weeks Old

See, my human said I take great pictures when I'm well behaved.



This is "Down" position and they expect me to hold for 15 sec before I get a treat. They never get tired to ask me to do this repeatedly. I don't care as long as I get to eat.



I know the "not looking at camera" is an "in" thing now.

Toy Poodle Puppy Learning Tricks

This is a vid showing me a session with my owner, I have to do a few tricks to get the treats on her hand.

First Vaccination

7 days later, my owner brought me to vet to get my vaccination. I could tell she is very pleased as I was so co-operative in the vet clinic. However, I felt so drowsy when I got home that day, I just couldn't keep my eyes open.



She covered me with a blanket to keep me warm, which I sneaked out when she wasn't looking.



I prefer cold hard floor to sleep on. Now would you just let me get back to sleep?

Owner's note : Puppy will exhibit pain or yelling in agony if you pick it up after vaccination. The jab will cause muscle pain, making your puppy feeling unwell. It might lose appetite and just lie down whole day due to the drowsiness caused by the jab. Just let it rest and it will up and running in no time.

My First Toy

My first toy is a ball. I love it so much I just want to chew it all night long.

First Bath

Bah, I just hate shower.

Hi My Name is Ginger

I'm 2 month old when I arrived at my humans home. This is the crate where they want me to sleep in and a water bottle to drink with.



I was then fed with yummy kibbles. Can you see a fleece bed? My human bought it in U.S just before she got me.




Unfortunately since I'm a chewer, my human has taken away the fleece bed and I'm settled with a blanket for the time being.



I know it's hard to take a good picture of me since I can't help myself keep on moving, don't give up!