Two Unrelated Ted Items:
We’re transitioning Ted from spending his time while we’re not around (i.e. sleeping or at work) in the laundry room to the main living space, where his crate and food will be, ultimately. JG moved the crate up to its spot with almost no complaint from the puppy, so he brought up his food and water dishes, too. I was immediately suspicious. I walk and feed Ted in the mornings and it is enormously helpful for me to have him closed off into a small-ish space so that I can corner him when it’s time to go back into the crate. The idea of having the entire floor open to Ted for to run freely did not excite me, but I agreed to give it a try.
Yesterday, after the first morning of the Upstairs Food Experiment, the following e-mail thread went back and forth:
From: RA
To: JG
Subject: Ted’s food… needs to stay downstairs until we can let him roam around upstairs unattended. I spent FIFTEEN MINUTES chasing him down. I was so mad that I wanted to scream and throw something. In fact, I did both of those things. When I’m up against a deadline of actually getting to work on time, the last thing I need to do is play cattle herder with a dog that thinks we’re playing a game. To add insult to injury, he didn’t eat a thing.
- RA
From: JG
To: RA
Subject: RE: Ted’s foodOk we will move the food downstairs.
I love you (sorry about ted)
jg
The food and water are back down in the laundry room and the morning routine today did not include screaming or throwing of shoes.
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Now that Ted is a whopping ten pounds heavy (a real chub, I joke), JG has started training him on our invisible fence. The goal is that Ted would learn the boundaries of our yard and then we could play with him back there without the leash. For now, though, Ted has to wear a cumbersome training collar and our yard is lined with small white flags. When JG takes him out for a training session, he brings Ted up close to the flags and the collar will beep to alert Ted that he’s getting close to the border. If he crosses the line, he gets zapped by the collar, which results in pitiful yelping that I cannot stand to witness. So far, Ted has figured out that the beeping is a bad sign of things to come, but the next step is for him to stop consistently when he hears it. JG is betting that we’ll have moved on to the next stage in the training by Saturday because Ted is a doggie genius, of course. We’ll see …
Tune in to Roosday-Tuesday and Wednesday-Bensday for the other two-thirds of the doggie cuteness trifecta!
7 comments
You can do it, Ted! You can learn to stop short of that fence!
Those invisible fence collars are heartbreaking, but they work in the end. You can do it, Ted!
I’m not sure if they have different-sized collars, but Ted always looks so shackled down in his. That and the yelping make for a rough time.
Good luck Ted! We all know you are smart enough to figure it out!
So, how does the training progress, exactly? Will he eventually learn the boundaries so well that you can take away the collar and white flags and he’ll still know when to stop? I have always had fenced-in yards, so this whole invisible fence thing is new to me.
Ted won’t go without the collar, but the flags will come down gradually and eventually, he’ll know where to stop so that he won’t be shocked anymore. If nothing else, the beeping will be a warning. Good old Pavlov.
all this discipline is why I am kinda glad I don’t have a doggie. It’s stressful, I’m sure. Sometimes I wish I could control my cats better, but it’s totally impossible.
Yeah, cats are definitely more self-sufficient, which is why JG is a dog person. He wants to really have a pet, not a food dish. Plus, he thinks cats think they’re better than him. A friend of ours says that JG “is jealous of their independent spirits.”
Conveniently, I am horribly allergic to cats. Otherwise, I think I’d be a cat person.
The invisible fence training is hard! We had to do it with dogs when I was growing up and it broke my heart….but it does work! I’m so glad we have a fence here for my pups!
And…10 pounds! He is growing up so fast!
I know, tell me about it! I can’t wait for him to learn how to go down the stairs because I am not a fan of schlepping him anymore.
Yikes, the collar thing sounds traumatizing. Does it actually hurt him?
We had Max trained to a tee when he was a puppy, just with us being consistant. But when Rusty came along, everyone was busier and put off being strict (and he was such a cute wee puppy) and now? He’s impossible.
Training makes all the difference!
JG and I were talking about how dogs affect each other as pack animals. It makes us a little leery to leave Ted with families who have rowdier dogs, you know?
I stopped by via sangria lover just so you know!
We got the invisible fence for our pup and it was awful at first because he likes to run and play with the fun people on the other side of the fence. We put the fence in the ground in June and now half the time we don’t even use the collar on him. He just knows not to go near the edges of the yard or the flower beds (he is a digger). I thought that he was going to hate us forever for the collar and the shocks he got, but he always ran right to us when he got shocked looking like WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!???
Hi, Stephanie! That’s exactly how Ted looks, too! I had to stop observing the training because his expression is like, “How can you DO this to me?” I could not take it.
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