My original post today was going to be about how great Jake has been doing with potty training, and how he’s started to go down the stairs by himself (which is awesome because he’s already ten pounds, and carrying him while handling a 60 pound dog on another leash in the other hand is REALLY hard) and he’s started to jump into the car by himself…
Not anymore.
I bring my dogs to work because I don’t want Jake at home by himself for 8 hours, and naturally Bear gets to come too because I can’t leave HIM by himself while the other dog gets to go with me.
So…today, I was driving to work. I had the windows down and the music up. I kept an eye on the dogs in the rearview mirror. Jake used to sit up front with me so I could keep a better eye on him until he got used to being in the car (which he now is), so now he sits in the back with the other dog. He likes to get down on the floor and try to eat whatever might have fallen down there, which is annoying because I’m constantly having to reach back behind me and try to “swat” him back up onto the seat.
Well today, I noticed that Jake climbed up the back seat into the back window (I have a Honda Civic). I didn’t think too much of it, just figured he was curious about what was up there, and yelled at him to get down, which he immediately did, to sit down by the other dog, who was sitting on the opposite side of the car from where Jake had been.
I didn’t realize why he did that until about ten minutes ago.
I got to work, got the dogs out of the car, and took them into the office (around 8:45).
About ten minutes ago (10:30) I had to go get something out of my car. I opened the car door and was accosted by the WORST smell. It’s 90 degrees at 10am here in Texas, so whatever it was had been baking for about two hours already. I thought maybe I’d left some food in a bag or something and it had gotten hot and started to smell up the car.
Nope.
The reason Jake had crawled up the seat and over to the other side was because he had pooped in the car. On the seat. And he didn’t want to step in it so he climbed up and over the seat to get to the other side.
I couldn’t do anything but stare in exasperation for a few minutes at the four or five Jake-sized droppings that were stinking up my car. I had walked him (and he had pooped) not fifteen minutes before we got in the car.
I can only assume since it technically wasn’t “inside” a building, he came to the puppy-like conclusion that this was not a “no” space to poop in.
Bear has never eliminated in the car. I hate using the bathroom on planes or buses, so why would a dog want to do so in a car that’s going over bumps and constantly stopping at traffic lights?
Jake is definitely developing the characteristic Corgi brattiness.
So now, I have to go to the pet store and buy a harness for him to sit in while he’s in the car, which is going to damage my ear drums because I know he’s going to hate it. And when he hates something, he screams and cries and howls.
Bear was sitting across the car as close to the window as he could get because Jake had pooped in the car. I only wish I could teach Bear that when Jake does something like that, he has my permission to correct him. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Jake has not pooped in the house for probably a week now. If he really needs to go and I’m not seeing the normal signs, he will at least wait until I go out on the patio with the other dog or something and immediately go out there, which I always praise him for (even though technically it’s not grass) because I’d rather he go on the patio than go in the house.
So why did he suddenly decide to go in the car? It’s only a ten minute ride to the office from my place, it’s not like he was in the car for 30-45 minutes.
My only guess (and I know this is a little unreasonable, because most dogs don’t do things out of spite, but I’m beginning to wonder about this one), is that earlier in the morning, when I took the dogs for their walk, I interrupted some of Jake’s “fun.”
When Jake, being a corgi, sees anything on the ground that might even slightly resemble something edible, he snaps it up and tries to chew and swallow it before I see him. Being (most of the time) a fairly attentive mama, I always catch him, grab him by the scruff of his neck, and make him spit it out (sometimes this means sticking my fingers all the way down his throat to retrieve the latest acorn or rock or other miscellaneous object he’s picked up off the ground).
But this morning, Jake seemed to be absolutely determined to eat something he wasn’t supposed to. So on the twenty foot walk to the car, I had to stop and pull something out of his mouth three times. Then, I wouldn’t let him jump up into the front seat (a place he likes because it puts him in front of the other dog–dominance issues, obviously), and let the other dog get in first before I’d let Jake jump into the backseat. I do this intentionally, I’m constantly having to establish the pecking order in our house with Jake, and until he gets it and lays off the constant pushing for dominance, it will remain that way.
So, my conclusion is, that in the ten minute ride from house to office, Jake decided I wasn’t letting him do anything fun that he wanted to do, and decided to poop in the car as “vengeance.”
Is that a little unreasonable? Probably. I’m sure the actual reason is that he didn’t finish going potty the first time, but was distracted by the other dog or wanted to go back upstairs for a toy or something like that, and then realized while being in the car that he still needed to poop.
I think I’m just frustrated because it seems like every time we start to make some progress, Jake does something like this that totally sets us back. I know he’s still a baby (14 weeks today!) so he’s still learning, but I also know how smart he is and sometimes I think he plays dumb just because he knows he can get away with it. 😉
In other news, I’ve started making Jake wait outside the door (patio, front door, office door) until I invite him to come inside. Maybe that’s a little much, but I want to establish very early on that these places are MY places, and he’s only allowed to be there because I say so lol. He’s starting to understand it, and most of the time will sit down until I open the door (especially if it’s only the two of us) but when the big dog and Andy get to go in first, sometimes he throws a puppy fit and cries or tries to throw himself against his leash or wriggle out of his collar because HE wants to go in first! I always hold his leash up and away from the door so he can’t forcefully enter the house, but I’m really hoping he starts to understand this before he gets so big that if he threw his weight against the leash it might hurt my arm. Ah, puppies.
I knew what I was getting into when I got this latest addition to our family, but man I hope this phase passes quickly! Because I definitely think he’s in the puppy version of the “terrible twos.”
UPDATE: I am confirming my suspicion that Jake has reached the terrible twos, because he seems to be determined to test my patience today. He, unfortunately, had his first run-in with “aggressive mama,” not meaning that I beat him into submission (obviously, lol), but that I took a much more firm hand with him than I have been for the past few weeks. He thankfully has learned that every time he gets in trouble he is not, in fact, being murdered so he doesn’t scream like a whiny baby, but I had him in a successfully submissive belly-up position by the time he was done getting in trouble. I will explain a little: I mentioned earlier that I’ve been training him to wait outside the front door until I invite him to come inside, well he was absolutely DETERMINED to get in before I did, and the other dog did.
I was not having it today.
I let the other dog in first, as per usual, and made Jake wait till I got in. He whined, he pulled backwards on his leash, trying to get away from it, he tried to walk backwards into the house, you name it, he tried it.
I threw my purse on the floor inside, got down right in his face (I mean full on eye contact obviously aggressive posture), and said “SIT. WAIT.”
As soon as I was back upright, he was trying to fight his way inside again. I finally grabbed him by the collar, forced him onto his hindquarters and got right in his face until his ears went back and he looked away.
Just so you animal lovers out there don’t think I’m being too harsh, here’s something to think about. When a dog gets into another dog’s territory without permission, that dog will act with the same reaction I did: aggression. Jake cannot under any circumstances think it is okay to just march into my territory without permission, that’s not the canine way. By establishing from the very entrance of the house that he is entering MY territory, and that he is allowed there only because I said so, we might avoid some of the worse aspects of dominance issues, as pertaining to the house, anyway.
Also, I figured out how to rig his leash to the seatbelt in the car so it acts like a harness, but he has to sit in the same spot in the car. He can’t jump off the seat and accidentally hang himself, he has just enough length to sit quietly or lie down in that spot. I was very proud lol.
Puppies, Politics, and Paperbacks 