He Found The Powder Room

October 2nd, 2012

Yesterday I decided to help him get downstairs and out the doggie door with out a leash.  I just directed him out the bedroom door.  Down the stairs was no problems.  He keeps wanting to turn right instead of left at the bottom of the stairs.  For the first couple of weeks I turned him right to go out the front because he did not want to use the doggie door.  He also would not walk around the back yard carefree.  I indulged him and let him go out the front, brought him home through the back.  This original mapping that he did is completely opposite what I am asking him to do know.  Very confusing.  We have only been back home a couple of days from our doggie  sitting and since then I have turned him the opposite way at the bottom of the stairs.  Yesterday, I had to drag him with his collar to the kitchen.  As soon as he got to the kitchen he realized he had to potty, and he finished the trip.  Today, I just barely tugged on his collar to make him turn left.  I think He is doing incredible.  This is just his third week and five days was at another house.

One issue is water.  Today I decided I had to detour his jumps into my bath tub.  They are the main source of circling and barking upstairs.  I tried to block the tub, but he got around, under or over everything that I put in front of the tub.  I have a really large European ironing board that I used to cover up the top of the tub.  He jumped on top of the ironing board and before I knew it had torn the cover to shreds.  Not only that, but I have a wide ledge window behind my tub, and he managed to knock off everything from the window sill.  I am at a lost as what to do.  I suppose that I am going to have to close the door, but the bathroom doubles his area to play, and I hate to sacrifice any of his play area.  I am still working on that problem.  He just seems to have obsessive behavior wherever there is water.