Reflection 2: Genius Hour Project Teaching Little Miss Muppet

September 29 2016

Hi everyone,

This week for my Genius Hour topic it was all about research. While still keeping my doggy potty journal active, I explored online sources providing advice and guidance on how to properly house train your pup. When googling any subject one can find a tremendous amount of helpful information and also a great deal of insignificant information. It is important as students and a future educator to learn how to weed out the bad information from the good. Therefore, I explored numerous sites and put some of their methods into action!

For example, http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/guide/house-training-your-puppy had some great information. From this resource I learned about the importance of consistency, patience and positiv reinforcement. Good habits are key to instilling in the first 4-6 months of your dogs life. Unfortunately, Muppet was trained in multiple wrong ways in the beginning of her life. Thus, it was my challenge to try and break Muppet's hold habits and instill new proper habits with appropriate training. I discovered from this website that smaller dogs are harder to house train then larger dogs because they have "smaller bladders and higher metabolisms, therefore requiring more trips outside." (webmd.com) Furthermore, this sight taught me that, if a puppy is confined to a certain space, such as their crate or their leash it can help to prevent accidents. Unfortunately, in the beginning of Muppet's training my mom and sister taught Muppet that her crate is a bad place. This is totally wrong! A dogs crate is suppose to be their happy place, it is their den and their home. It is their space where they can go to feel safe and therefore they will not have accidents in their happy place because it is their home. However, if Muppet ever did have an accident when we were house training her, my mom or my sister would use the crate as negative reinforcement and as a disciplinary tool. Hence, Muppet never enjoyed going into her crate and still doesn't to this day. As well, from this site I learned several tips that I already had some knowledge about. For instance, these included: taking the dog out first thing in the morning, after meals and right before bed, taking the dog to the exact same spot everytime to do their business because it builds up their sent and giving the dog immense amounts of praise when they complete their business outside. Lastly, this site provided some information to watch for if your dog needs to go out. Such acts indicating your pup may need to use the bathroom include: sniffing, barking, whining, circling or scratching at the door. (webmd.com) Therefore, I found this site very useful when it came down to re-training Muppet. It provided some great does and don'ts for how to properly house train your dog.

Another great resource I found was, https://www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/house-training-adult-dog . This resource also had some great insight into re-training a poorly trained house dog. For example, this site highlighted the importance of, patience and time if you want to be successful. This sight spoke to the fact that routine, the age of the dog and the dogs past experience with house training are crucial factors that come into play. (bluecross) As well, I always thought Muppet was a needy dog and it turns out some dogs do have separation anxiety and anxiety about being left alone. Therefore, when training your pup you want to make sure  you are there for your dog at all times during the process and you do not leave them alone. I can relate to this point because I noticed when I started my training with Muppet that if I did not wait with her outside for her to finish her business or if I wasn't in Muppet's sight line she would rush back to me as fast as possible and not fully complete her business. Thus, when she would come inside Muppet would have an accident because she did not finish outside. Also, this site highlights the fact that some dogs learn one thing about housetraining and that is, if they do it infront of the owners that is wrong. Hence, dogs will try and hide it because otherwise they would get introuble if they were caught red handed. This idea taught me that if you catch your dog in the act it is important to discipline them. Specifically, change your tone of voice, and immediately take the dog outside to where they should be doing their business and say the magic words, "go pee, go pee, go pee" and provide a reward if the dog does what its told. However, if you catch the accident and not the dog then disicpline doesn't always work because the dog associates the accident with negativity because they don't really remember doing it. You cannot discipline your dog for acts they have done in the past and acts you were not present for because they cannot associate your upset feelings with what they did in the past.This just promotes a sneaky dog who slips away and tries to hide their business when their owner is not looking. I found that this site had some great tips and tricks for how to re-train an adult dog house manners.

Furthermore, I put these tips and tricks that I learned from the above two sites into action for Muppet. So far the tips provided from the websites are working but we will have to wait and see until next week for greater improvement.

I hope you are all enjoying reading this learning process just as I am.
Till next week,

Below is a video of Muppet in the morning learning to wait at the door to go outside to do her business. As you can see she is wagging her tail & happy to be learning!

Cheers, Courtney