Well, today I think we've had our first real success with crate training him. We've found that he seems to not cry when we leave him alone in the crate during the day---where he will cry all night even though we're upstairs---literally all night---when we get home from being out, he's not. Now, he used to start as soon as we walked in the door, meaning we couldn't let him out because then he'd think that crying was the way to get out of his crate. Well, today when we got home, he stayed completely silent until he'd been let out. Both times! I think we're making progress. Hopefully he'll be quieter tonight and I'm going to try and video him while we're out tomorrow to see if he actually does stay silent the entire time we're away.
In other news, however, potty training is not going so well. It's damn near impossible to tell when he's peeing since he just stands to pee---no squatting or anything to indicate he's going. This makes it really tough to both stop him from having accidents (although Fathead has successfully done that twice) and to reward him for going outside. You can't reward him for what you don't see! It's no better with pooping either because his stool is loose right now and I think it's made it hard for him to control his bowels. Either way, he's had three poop accidents and all were in his crate. :( I feel really bad for the little guy. It can't be nice to be in a box with your poop. He stopped crying for a bit last night and then started back up again, we think because he'd had an accident, but he's been crying so constantly that we didn't know to take note of it---have I mentioned how sorry I feel for him? I do feel pretty bad that we left him like that, even if we had no way of knowing it was a potty accident.
Well, my little boy may have some crate and potty issues, but he's not the little shark I was expecting to bring home (he barely mouths at all) and he's super great about being handled. Moreover, he really seems to like us. Like, he basically wants to have at least one of us in sight whenever possible. I know some people have trouble bonding with their new Shiba puppies because all they want to do is bite you and they feel like the pup doesn't like them. Zim's just not like that and I have to say it's made bonding a lot easier. It's pretty easy to bond with a pup that's happy to let you man-handle him into a harness and is perfectly happy being petted while he naps in your lap.
More pictures!!!
Video reminds me of Saya she used to whine and stuff her first time in the crate she shiba screamed omg it was loud!
ReplyDeleteWith work and time she eventually come to enjoy her time in it. Feeding her in it and giving yummy things in it helps.
Yeah, we've actually stopped crating him since our bathroom is safe and we're trying to feed him in his crate and drop yummy treats into it to show him it's an awesome place. :D Hopefully he'll come to like his crate like Saya does.
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