The Dog Whisperer

Oh, life is funny. Right when my kids start sleeping past 7:00 am, we get a puppy who needs attention at 5:00 am. We're making some progress with our pup though, with a little help. At least, I think we're making progress. Wes thinks the dog is mentally retarded.

One of Wes' supervisors works with labs as a hobby. She trains them, finds them homes and that kind of thing. She's taken care of over 400 dogs, so she's a dog whisperer of sorts and offered to help us with Zero. Our main concerns are getting him house broken, preventing him from nipping at the kids and doing what we can to minimize chewing and damage to our house. When Dog Whisperer Lady came over, I immediately picked up on a few things. The first being that she doesn't have kids. I'd go one step further and say, she doesn't like kids. She prefers creatures with four legs who don't talk back. She kept giving Corinne the stink eye because, let's face it, Corinne is Zero's worst nightmare. But we're working on it! She suggested we keep Corinne away from him at all costs. Like I said, she doesn't know a lot about kids. At any rate, she had some really unrealistic demands on what we should and shouldn't do with Zero.

For getting him house broken, she suggested crating him at night. I've read up on it and it sounds like a good way to train a dog. It involves leaving him in his crate in our room at night because according to her, Zero desperately wants to feel part of "our pack." Even though he's inside all day, if he's left out at night he considers himself an outsider. We're talking, doggy depression would inevitably ensue and Puppy Prozac will eventually be needed. And I was all for it until I heard the catch. Every time he whines and wants out of the crate, we would have to take him out to pee. This could happen 3 or 4 times a night. The look on my face might have said it all to this lady. I've gone through sleepless nights with two infants. If you think I'm waking up to take the dog out to pee multiple times a night, sell crazy somewhere else. So we're not taking her advice on that particular topic.

But she did give us some great pointers on minimizing chewing, disciplining, getting him to follow without a leash, and how to help him become an all round good boy. The best part was, this was all free advice. We would normally have had to pay out the nose for something like this. So Zero is coming around. He's loving and friendly, and he's trying very hard not to pee on my carpet. Even though he doesn't sleep in my room at night, we definitely consider him part of "our pack."

Just for fun, I've decided to try and potty train Corinne this Christmas break because she's almost two and seems ready. This means I'll be potty training Corinne and the dog at the same time. Why not push myself to the edge, eh?

My pack, minus zero, did the obligatory family pic at Picture People. It wasn't half as bad as I expected.