Adventures in House Training

As I've mentioned before, Tucker is impossible to house train when compared to Bella. As of yesterday we've had him for 5 weeks. He is still relieving himself in the house. Bella was potty trained in 3 weeks and only pooped in the house twice. Needless to say I'm frustrated!

This morning I awoke to poop in the kitchen (at least it was on the linoleum this time!) and pee on one of my rugs in the kitchen. Really frustrating!!! Not to mention that I somehow misplaced the enzyme cleaner. How that happens I'm not exactly sure! I'm thinking it's in a different cupboard. Kinda like last night when I went to get the oil out to make brownies I found the open jar of jelly sitting next to the peanut butter. I'm special. I think maybe early onset of Alzheimer's it does run in my family on both sides, so I'm doomed!

My new idea is to try the bell method. This method originates back to the Pavlov days where he trained dogs to salivate at the ring of a bell. So what I will be doing is buying some jingle bells and attaching them to the door knob. Each time we go outside we ring the bell. Eventually he's supposed to ring the bell when he wants to go out. I'm hoping this eliminates the problems we've been having.

My thought (or hope) is that Tucker doesn't know how to communicate with us he needs to go out. At night I suspect he is standing in the kitchen waiting and no one is noticing him (cause we're sleeping obviously!) so he just goes. Bella would ALWAYS come in the bedroom and whine. This would wake me and we'd go out and all was good. Perhaps she learned this from the nights she was in the crate and Tucker hasn't learned because he spent 2 nights in the crate and that's it.

If all else fails, Tucker will be sleeping in the crate at night as well and I will just feel guilty that he's in there all day and all night. My fingers are crossed!