Pads, bells....no, Break through... yes!

In the ever going struggle to house break Rosie, we have tried a number of things.  At first we used the 'piddle pads'.  You know, the ones that look amazing like the pads they use in the hospital. We had one near her food bowl, one in front of the fridge, one next to the front door, one right as we walked into the living room.......  She would hit and miss those areas on a regular bases and we were playing hop scotch to try to avoid stepping on them.  She finally abandoned them all together and so did we. Gladly. 

Then we tried to watch her every move.  Now this is not only time consuming, but impossible. With our busy lives, our human attention spans we are not geared for this.  We would all of a sudden look at each other and ask, 'Where's Rosie?'.  Well, of course, by then it was to late.  We would have a puddle and/or little tootsie roll somewhere in the house. 

Several weeks ago we decided to try the bell ringing technique. I found some bells that I usually hang at Christmas and Jerry hung them near the floor at the front door.  The idea is to ring the bell every time you take her out.  Theoretically, she is suppose to ring the bell when she needs to go out.  So far, not working, but we still ring the bell when we take her out, (just in case:).

A couple of weeks ago we noticed that Rosie was having far less....mmm....accidents in the house.  We have been taking her out a little more and she always tinkles and, many times, poos.  Our latest break through though, is Rosie herself.  She will whine or bark and continues, not even distracted by throwing a toy, until we either take her out or ignore her. If we ignore her, she gets down and goes elsewhere in the house to do her job. Well, the bell in these dim-witted humans finally went off!  She is telling us she need to go out, she doesn't want to use the piddle pads, and she doesn't want to ring the bells, she just needs to go out.

Jerry said that all this time we were trying our ways to train her and all we really needed to do was try her way. (There is a sermon in there somewhere).

Well we still have the occasional accident. Hopefully we won't have any back sliding.  I am considering getting the carpet cleaned, would that be considered false hope?????

Too soon, huh?

I love my Rosie, spots on the carpet (hopefully, not for long) and all.