Stupid Bells.

[JazzysMom]

Okay, so it appears that Keoki has gotten a message:

If I ring the bells, someone comes and gives me a cookie.

Now how many times a day do you think the bells ring….. and no one has to go potty? Trust me; it's A LOT!

When he rings the bells, we do open the door and toss a treat out onto the porch, and shut the door. Then he wants in. Then he rings the bells, goes out, gets a cookie, comes in, rings the bells, goes out, gets a cookie, comes in....
You get the picture. :rolleyes:

So, we are working on: ring bells, go outside, get cookie, GO POTTY, get cookie, stay outside. LOL
But he is determined to come back in so he can go back out again. And yes, we stay w/him outside.

Goofy dog.

[Quercus]

Now is the time to stop with the cookies. And have the reward for ringing the bells be the door opening. He will still do what we call "false rings" but eventually he will put it all together.

[BaMica]

What beautiful, precious animals, these little B's. Such wonderful creatures - can we reach their level? They are trying, all these little creatures.

BaMica's mom

[Duke]

JazzysMom - Do all three "touch" the bells? So far, I'm behind b/c I just put the bells together last night. I put peanut butter on them and only Daisy wants to lick the bells. Duke is hesitant.

[tanza]

@JazzysMom:

Okay, so it appears that Keoki has gotten a message:

If I ring the bells, someone comes and gives me a cookie.

Now how many times a day do you think the bells ring….. and no one has to go potty? Trust me; it's A LOT!

When he rings the bells, we do open the door and toss a treat out onto the porch, and shut the door. Then he wants in. Then he rings the bells, goes out, gets a cookie, comes in, rings the bells, goes out, gets a cookie, comes in....
You get the picture. :rolleyes:

So, we are working on: ring bells, go outside, get cookie, GO POTTY, get cookie, stay outside. LOL
But he is determined to come back in so he can go back out again. And yes, we stay w/him outside.

Goofy dog.

So Sorry… I just have to laugh... that is too funny.... I can just see him doing that... smart ass little creatures....

[JazzysMom]

Oh, man! You should have been here today during our lunch time.

I'd made waffles and bacon for the kids – don't usually do that,but once in a while . . -- anyway, he was going nuts!! He kept jumping at the table, which is a big no-no, etc.
Then he started running for the door and ringing the bells. Of course, we couldn't ignore that, so one of them would run and toss out a treat.
As soon as we'd let him in, he started a'ringin' them bells. It was was crazy, nobody could get a bite in, no one wanted to stay out with him, and the kids were getting not-just-a-little annoyed! LOL

{we don't leave him outside alone yet as there is a gate that he tries to climb. Haven't figured out just yet what to do about it, as it would cost big bucks to change. Jazzy, of course, never even thought to climb it}

So, we've taken Quercus' advice and are just letting him out with lots of "YAY!! good boys" and running off the porch with him. We're still getting some weird looks from him, like, "Hello?? Where's the cookie?". But I have hope.

[Quercus]

Also…you CAN remove the bells during a time that it is inconvenient for you to do a training session. It might delay the progress just a little bit...but the bells training process can definitely make you crazy

[tanza]

How old are your kids?…. cause if they are old enough to understand a hot wire, you can do that on the gate... they sell them on line and at many farm stores... you can do one wire at the top and one at the bottom of the gate.. Trust me, one or two zaps and he will give the gate a very wide berth...

And they really don't hurt... just the "shock" (play on words)... no different then people use for fields for horses, sheep, cattle, etc... and very inexpensive...

One of my friends did that on one of his houses because the back opened up on open space and there were cattle grazing and the city would only alow chain link fence... after one week, he never even turned it on... the dogs stayed 3ft from the fence...

[Basenji_Boy]

We trained ours to ring the bell, just rang the bell everytime we let them out. Max picked it up in one evening and then over time he proceded to just go ahead and open the sliding glass door himself and just let everyone out:rolleyes: .

Goofy indeed.:)

[Quercus]

Pat, is a hot wire flexible enough that a gate could open and close? If so, that would be a great solution.

[tanza]

@Quercus:

Pat, is a hot wire flexible enough that a gate could open and close? If so, that would be a great solution.

Yes, it is typically you would have to have one part that would have a release handle to unhook go in or out of the gate and then rehook it…

[JazzysMom]

Jill, no the other two don't ring the bells. They just come and look at me and hurry to the door. Usually if Jazz has to go potty, she'll stare at me and then spin in a circle. However, when Keoki rings the bell the other two do run to the door.

I didn't put anything on the bells, just held a treat right above them. When he tried to reach the treat, he hit the bells, was told "good boy!" and got the treat. Then we moved to hit the bell, get praise, door opens, get cookie. Then onto hit the bell, door opens, treat gets tossed outside. NOW we're working on, "Stop ringing the flippin' bells so much!!" LOL

Quercus, I don't want to remove the bells as I reallly don't want to slow this already painfully slow process of house-training. But we are no longer treating for ringing. But we are trying to make it as fun as possible to get outside. So, he rings the bells and one of us goes to the door with a "good boy", and runs outside in the yard with him.

Pat, a hot wire may well work. We had one around the perimeter of the fence about 12 yrs ago because Gypsy would dig out. We disconnected it after we found a few dead birds by it. BUT, birds don't usually sit on the gate that he tries to climb as it just opens into the boat-port area {dh used to have a boat}; That gate stays closed all the time anyway now.
Dh is in San Diego until June 1. I'll see what he thinks when he gets back. My kids are old enough – and it may encourage them to follow the rule of DON'T CLIMB THAT GATE!!!! LOL. I could just turn it off if younger kids come to play.