# Training updates with Stella! &#x1f642;



## PinkMellow (Aug 23, 2018)

Thought it would be fun if I posted week to week on a thread mentioning what I’m doing for training and how little Stella does! Maybe it can be helpful for other trainers learning along with me and helpful for me too because I can get more experienced trainers to chime in 🙂 

This is week 2 of training Stella.
-Housebreaking has met some regression. I have had to be out of the house a lot this week for work, and that means my mom has been watching her. Mom multitasks as she manages the house so can’t keep as close an eye on her as me so she went potty in the house more and determined our living and dining room are her potty rooms, so I gated them off. She has stopped waiting at the door 😞 when I see her waiting at the gates to the dining room or living room I say “Outside!” Lead her to the yard and give her a small treat when she gets out, then we go potty. She still knows the potty command very well and responds to it excellently. My mom is apparently having more trouble with it and still getting some temper tantrums so I’m telling her to be patient and wait it out as I did. (My Mom is much less assertive than I am unfortunately and our puppy is very feisty/strong willed which isn’t the best match) 

-Crate training had major breakthrough last night, I put the towel from her dog bed in the family room over her crate and she didn’t cry when I put her in or walked away for the first time ever and slept through the night entirely. Awesome!! Excited to see if the same trick will work tonight

-She has had her first round of vaccines so we decided that the risk of kennel cough (which we can’t get vaccinated for until she’s 3 months) is worth getting her out & about and socialized so this is the first week we’ve been taking her out to meet people, dogs that we know, and on a walk. My mom says she’s been doing well meeting people. I took her on her first walk and she was slow at first but then did awesome and caught on very quickly. She has been on 2 walks now and loves them and has an amazing amount of stamina for someone so tiny!! For walks I introduced her to them in the house by leading her around with treats, however being outside and keeping up with the family seemed to be motivation in itself to keep moving and I did not have to use treats. 

-Inappropriate chewing is making good progress, last week when she’d chew on something she wasn’t supposed to I’d slap the ground loudly to startle her, then give her her bone and praise her when she chewed it. This week, she sometimes starts to chew something she isn’t meant to, but then looks at me and stops without me having to do anything at all. However, she does not behave this way with my mom so I am trying to get her to do the same thing I did to be consistent. 

-Bite inhibition we are still working on but she’s making progress today took only one yip from me to send her to her toy and calming down/not biting as hard versus the several it used to take. 

-Grooming is going fairly well, according to my mom she wasn’t squirmy at all her last bath. Brushing she was still squirmy. We give her treats after each bath and treats as she gets brushed to distract her. 

-She has also learned the command “sit” and is very good about it 🙂 I have her sit before she receives her meals to curtail barking (she sometimes yips) and if I am eating and see her sitting quietly on the ground and not jumping up or barking I also give her a small tidbit. Sometimes I also just have her sit for fun too! 

That’s the progress of week 2 of training little Stella! 💕💕


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## PinkMellow (Aug 23, 2018)

Week 3 with Stella and I am so proud of her!! ☺ She is so smart and doing awesome with training! When she is chewing on something she shouldn’t (like carpet, coffee table) I usually don’t even have to make the loud noise anymore. Before I make the noise I give a warning by saying “Hey.....hey....” to give her a chance to stop on her own and it has been working perfectly and she stops on her own! 

She is amazing with the “gentle” command and I haven’t had to yip/ignore in days. I just say gentle and she goes right for her toys and stops biting. 

She does great on her walks and with baths when they’re needed.

She is making great progress with housebreaking!! Waits at the door a LOT, and if she forgets (which usually only happens if one of my family members has been watching her a while since as I mentioned they don’t follow her as closely) I simply say “Outside!” And she goes to the door instead. 

We have also been practicing heeling and she does great for the most part. We also now know “kennel!” And she walks right inside. She typically does not cry at all at night anymore and sleeps through the night entirely w no accidents. She also knows sit, and spin, and we are working on paw now. 

She has puppy obedience class next week 🙂 looking forward to it. 

That’s all for Stella!!


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## PinkMellow (Aug 23, 2018)

Week 4 with Stella 🙂 even if no one else follows these it’s a good way for me to see her progress.

I think I am most proud with her housebreaking progress. She waits at the door about 80% of the time now to be let out. Pretty much the only time she has accidents is if it’s pouring rain (she will go in light rain now but we still can’t get her to go in crazy rain but I mean I don’t blame her), or at rare moments where there is briefly no one around/paying attention. Other than that she is sooo close to being fully housebroken and is already way better than our last dog was.


Behavior wise the only other thing we’re having a bit of trouble with is bitey-ness. Not me, but my family members, especially little sisters, aren’t good at doing the loud ow, ignore thing though I’ve been helping them learn how to do it. Same thing with chewing objects around me she will stop very quickly, my family members just need more practice with the loud startle noise, give another toy to chew, praise deal. I will keep working with them so that she is not only well behaved around me. Most of dog training is training the people not the dog I swear!

Other commands she knows are coming when called, getting much better with heel with staying right by me, she knows kennel to go into her kennel, sit, spin, and paw. We just took her to puppy class yesterday and she’s learning to hold her sit and to look at me. She was nervous with the other puppy there and not very interested in socializing which was a bit disheartening but I’ll keep trying. 

She also always sits politely before she gets her meals. Very nice! 

She’s pretty solid in the kennel still no crying at night, no accidents. She’s learning how to be in her travel carrier in the car and still gets a bit nervous with that. 

That’s about it!


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## Jackie from Concrete WA (Mar 23, 2015)

Sounds like you are doing great!


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

PinkMellow said:


> Most of dog training is training the people not the dog I swear!


Especially kids! DS read so many training books during his 3 year campaign for a puppy but the minute we brought him home, it was all out the window - all of the cuteness made it hard to focus! They just had to practice doing everything, just like the puppy. The other day, though, I heard 12yr old DD tell my husband, "You can't call him more than once if he isn't listening. You're teaching him he doesn't have to answer the first time," and I was so proud! It takes time, but it will stick.


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## PinkMellow (Aug 23, 2018)

I think I’ve been slacking on this lol. Oh well. Stella, who we got at 9 weeks, will be 16 weeks old tomorrow! Crazy!! She is literally doubled in size from when we got her, now weighing a whopping 4.2 lbs 🙂 

Anyhow onto her training. She is pretty much fully housebroken. Only time she has accidents is if we aren’t paying attention when she’s at the door basically like if my mom is watching her & is busy cooking and doesn’t see. We’re like 80-90% there haha.

I have been taking her to puppy school twice a week for the past several weeks now and it is making a huge difference in her sociability. The first couple weeks, she was miserable, would hide behind me, under chairs, wouldn’t participate, didn’t want to interact with anyone people or dogs. Now she is so excited when we go, she wants to explore everywhere, she is very active in class, she says hi to everyone around (though she still gets a bit nervous when strangers come to pet her, she’ll go and sniff them, but when they reach out to pet her she’ll back up, we’re getting there!! I will say “go say hi!” And point at someone and then would give her tons of praise when she gave a friendly sniff, and would basically ignore her if she ran away and started barking. ) She is even starting to sniff noses with other puppies and dogs now!! Though big dogs make her a bit nervous of course. I am so proud of her growth here. Even the trainer says it’s night and day how much she’s changed she’s like a different dog in class now.

For training, she knows sit, spin, paw, lie down, let’s go (which is my phrase for “heel”), all done (means go back inside after playing or pottying outside), is doing excellent with drop it and leave it, kennel, knows a couple of her toys if you ask her to get them, and she is just recently learning stay!! She is pretty good when coming when called....unless a particularly curious smell catches her nose. Then it’s like she’s totally blind to treats and you basically just have to wait until she gets bored of whatever she’s sniffing and wanders back on her own. Trying to figure out better strategy there....it doesn’t happen all that often though. We have also just started working on not jumping on people (she gets excited and will leap at you and try to nip your face-big people can avoid it so I didn’t even initially realize it was a problem and found it cute when she would sprint leap into my lap but I realized with kids it isn’t easy and both my little sisters have had their lips chomped! So I’m correcting it now) We are also learning not to pull on the leash and I have her sit when she does so before we can continue. While she’s never going to be dragging me down the street, I’ve never taught a dog how not to pull on the leash before and I figure it’s good to learn in case I have a big dog someday where it will matter. 

She is really becoming such a wonderful little dog.


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