First week with Pepper…

Saturday, October 1st, 2005 at 9:56 am

This is almost a week since we’ve got Pepper. It was quite hard for the first 2-3 days because we did not know what he wanted and had to learn about his schedule. HG and I read a book and lots of articles on the internet about how to housebreak training puppy. First night, we decided to stay with him downstairs and we could hardly sleep because he woke up many times and every time he woke up HG took him out to eliminate. Since we had him he did not poop in the house at all. He peed 4-5 times in the house for the first couple of days which I thought it was not too bad for the puppy at his age. From what we had read, the puppies at his age do not know when they need to pee. On Sunday, when I was working in the shower, fixing the water leaking problem, we put Pepper in the crate and HG monitored him. He whined a lot and then he went to sleep. Then he woke up and whined again. HG thought he just needed attention, so he ignored him. He did not stop whining and suddenly HG could smell his pee. So we had learned that the whining after he had a sleep meant he needed to go to the toilet. HG had to go to the pet shop to get a new cushion for Pepper.

On Monday, we took him to see the vet in Haddington. I could not go to see the vet with him because I had an appointment for my blood test at the same time. HG said Pepper was the center of attention while they were waiting to see the vet because he was the only puppy there. Pepper was well behaving among other dogs; he did not seem to be scared. Pepper was vaccinated and wormed on that day.

I started recording his schedule on Tuesday so I could understand him more. I created a new blog for him called black-pepper. This way HG could see how we were doing during the day as well. HG said he liked the way I wrote his blog because I wrote it on behalf of Pepper. I did not have time to correct any grammar or spelling on his blog but HG said it was ok because Pepper was just a little puppy.

During the day I tried Crate training method for the potty training. From what I read, they said after you took the puppy out to pee, put the puppy back to the crate and once he woke up, took him out to pee again. I found that if I took Pepper back to the crate immediately after I took him out to pee. He would start whining and be upset. I had to put his toys in to lure him and pushed his butt in and closed the door. He started whining immediately once the door was closed. In the article said you should go away and ignore him, if he did not stop tap the top of the crate. I did as the article said and he eventually stopped and went to sleep but I felt bad because he felt like the crate is the evil place to be. Finally I found a technique to put him. After I took him out to pee, I would let him play with his toys and be outside the crate under my supervision. When he had enough and felt asleep for 5-10 minutes I put him in his crate. This way he was too sleepy to start whining and he just went back to sleep almost immediately. After that when he woke up and started whining, I knew that it was time for him to go out to the toilet again. I found out that this technique made him more comfortable to be in the crate.

We tried to train Pepper to sit when we said SIT. It did not take us long for that. He is quite intelligent little puppy. He sat and looked up when we told him to sit and he could give us his paws when we asked for them too. He likes to jump up to people and also likes to nip or bite people’s hands and feet. These behaviors need to be stopped soon.

Pepper had a chance to meet Taggie once. Charlotte took Taggie to our house and we met at our drive. Taggie was not quite sure about this. She barked a bit. HG held Pepper in his arm. Taggie tried not to look at Pepper. Charlotte said she was jealous. Charlotte tried to hold Taggie and we tried to put Pepper in her sight but she obviously tried to turn away. Charlotte said to Taggie that Pepper was a boy and I tried to show Taggie about Pepper’s genital to proof to her but it was not yet successful. Taggie was not aggressive to Pepper and Pepper did not show any sign of terrify of Taggie. We will keep trying and we hope that they will lick each other on their second date.

Having Pepper changes our lives completely. I have to wake up very early. HG had to wake up at night to take Pepper out because I could not hear if Pepper whined at night. We could hardly have time for ourselves but it was what we chose to do.