We are Jen & Pharaby, this is our story.
Part 4:
As soon as I brought my puppy home we started working on the basics. Things like sit, lay & stay were going to be really important in her future. Potty training was important too so we started working on all of these things on day one! She was 9.5 weeks old when I brought here home so she hadn’t had time to establish any bad behaviors yet and her breeder had worked with the puppies on a potty training so she understood not to just pee wherever.
I started her potty training just in a way that has always worked for me and that is to figure out when they need to go. I did this by making a log of when she went potty. If it was an accident I would document the time and place and of course I wrote down the times she went outside and if she went potty then too! I took her out about every hour and a half for the first week. This really helped give her a chance to be successful at potty training by minimizing the chances she had to have an accident. She did have accidents though, these were mainly in the evenings when she would get very hyper, play and drink a ton of water. Her little body in motion made her need to go even more so sometimes she would have an accident while I was cleaning an accident. This only happened for about 2 weeks though. She quickly knew where to go outside so she would have accidents by the door. She knew to go out to go potty at about 10 weeks old BUT she didn’t figure out to tell me until about 11 weeks old so unless I was following her she would just walk up there & pee. At about 11 weeks old she started to whine to let me know she needed to go out, that was great! The only issue now was as soon as she realized she needed to go, it was almost too late. At about 12 weeks she was able to hold it longer, tell me and us make it out the door. Her last accident (other that a upset tummy over night once) was at 14 weeks old. I think she accidentally excited peed a few times too but that stopped around 6 months old. I have had dogs my whole life and she was by far the quickest to train. She amazes me in every way possible.
I started working with her on basic skills on day one and she could sit, lay, spin and “speak say woof” within about 3 days of me having her home. She was (and still is) a little sponge and LOVES to learn! She got her Novice Trick Dog title at 13 weeks old! The tricks she showed for that title were Spin, Sit, Speak, Lay, Shake, High 5, Rollover, Figure 8, Jump through a hoop, Find it, Wave, 2+2 = 4 Barks & Fetch. She has gone on to get more and more trick titles, most recently she received her Expert Trick Dog title. We will be sharing her trick video on our youtube channel later this week, be sure to check it out!
