My new septic system installation was completed on Saturday! Yay! So my whole day Sunday was spent grading and seeding my lawn. Hopefully that means by the end of this month I'll be able to give the dogs their outdoor play space back. Sunday was a beautiful day, so I left the backdoor open so the dogs could go in and out as they pleased. Everything was going well until around 1 or 2. I was doing a final raking of the grass seed when Rocky came running up to me. Not far behind him was Ollie. Figuring they had finally found the gap in the fence where I had a rock pile, I fixed up the fence a bit and took them around to the front door and let them back in. I went back out to my raking, and Rocky was already there waiting for me. Confused, because I knew he couldn't have gotten back out by the rock pile that quickly, I walked him (and Ollie again of course) back around to the front. This time I watched them to see where they were getting out. The little smarties had figured out they could fit through the bars in the stair handrail! Since I didn't have anything handy to block it, I had to shut the boys in the house for the rest of my work. I don't think they were particularly pleased about that. And now every time I let them out, I have to sit in front of the stairs to block them. This morning Rocky got out before I did. But I called him and he came right back. Unfortunately he couldn't jump back through the posts, so I got Ollie and Hardy in the house and then went to the front door and called Rocky around. He came running right over and back in the house. 1st thing on the to-do-list tonight: blocking the gaps in the stair handrail. I think a spare piece of plywood and some potted plants will do the trick.
Night time crate training is making significant improvements. Rocky goes in the crate on his own now and is silent. Ollie still needs a little work getting in the crate, and then he whines for about 30 minutes and then is also silent for the rest of the night. They still feel the need to bark and howl at 5am though. I don't know if they can hear my alarm go off or if their internal clocks are that precise. Either way, it's something I want to work on. I have an old citronella collar I used when I was training Hardy not to bark that I think I'll try on Ollie.
An exciting announcement: I'm 100% comfortable saying that Rocky is housebroken. I can't even remember the last time he had an accident in the house. I let the dogs out often enough that he doesn't really need to let me know when he needs to go out, but every once in awhile he will hover near the door and that's when I know he needs to go out.
I am not so comfortable saying Ollie is housebroken. While he is getting there, and he also hovers around the door when he needs to go out, this weekend we took a couple steps back. Yesterday, after I had finished all the yardwork and came back inside, Ollie looked right at me and peed on the floor. I think this was his way of punishing me for closing the door, preventing him from going outside at his leisure. (Even though it was maybe 45 minutes from when he had last been outside to when I came back inside.) I'm hoping that's all it was, and we can get back on track this week.
I didn't get any good pictures this last week. My inside pictures don't turn out very well (especially on Ollie because he's so dark), and I was so busy doing yard work that I didn't get any good outdoor pictures either. But I did take a video of Rocky playing fetch that I thought was pretty cute and shows his personality!
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