Two weeks ago, I adopted a french bulldog mix who’s about 10 months old. He’s definitely a sweetie and while I’ve had a couple accidents on the floor a couple times, that’s definitely more my fault as I’ve never had a dog before and am starting to learn the signs (and watch the clock, 15 minutes after drinking water and it’s time to take him out).
He’s quickly learned two commands. “Sit” is the first one and his weakness is definitely turkey meat. He’ll do anything for turkey meat. The next one is “focus” which is me telling him to hurry up and go potty as it’s winter in Minnesota and neither of us want to be out there. (He used to trick me into thinking he didn’t have to go potty by just shivering outside for two minutes and staring at me, then immediately relieve himself on the floor when we got back in).
As for the leash, I’m not sure about how to get him leash trained. He is pretty much afraid of it. I put the leash on and he’d rather cower in fear which makes me wonder what the previous owner had done to him. I’ve been starting slow with trying to walk around the living room (the only carpeting room, he almost refuses to go on the hard wood floor). And had a little success. I’ve also carried him half way around the house and walked him back home with no problem (he won’t walk there, but is ok walking back). Still, it’s been only two weeks and I don’t expect overnight success.
Right now, he’s also in a crate while I’m at work. I go home and we play fetch over my lunch hour but I feel bad that he’s stuck in there for four hours at a time. Unfortunately, he is possibly not completely housebroken and has an affinity to chewing on wires. (I’ve been puppy proofing as I go and finding new things to prevent him from chewing on that could be dangerous). So how long to go before I can leave him out of the crate?
So tell me about your dog training. How’d it go? What’d you teach? Funny commands? Neat ideas/tricks? (Trying the bells to be rung when he needs to go outside)