Okay, it's confession time--Scout is having some problems. First, she has an ear infection, so we have to give her drops. She's actually tolerating that really well, probably because she gets an ear rub afterwards, which she loves. But other than that there's two problems--one is excessing barking in the morning and the other is peeing in her crate. The problems are related.
Scout seems to think she has a God-given right to wake up whenever she wants to and to wake the rest of us up along with her. Her wake up time varies but it's generally around 7:00, give or take 1/2 an hour. We know we shouldn't take her out of her crate until she shuts up, but that's so hard to do when she's howling. And the worst part is that once she gets going, Digory jumps in, because barking=fun! So when she starts barking I put the ear plugs in and try to wait it out, but it's not easy. This morning I waited until she was quiet for 10 minutes before getting her.
We tried to separate Scout and Digory into separate rooms--oh my God, practically instantly there was the most piteous howling I'd ever heard coming from both rooms. They are really attached to each other and did not like being separated at all.
So the next problem is peeing in the crate. Scout has had some problems with that in the past but hasn't for a long time. She has a very cushy crate pad (thankfully machine washable) so it soaks it up and the surface is only a little damp. Part of the way crate training works is that the dog won't go because they don't want to sit in it. So I don't know what to do. I think I'm going to just have to pull her crate pad for a couple of days to see if that works. She's going to the vest on Tuesday for an ear check and a urinalysis to check for UTIs, so that could be one cause. We don't know how often she's going during the day because we keep the door open (it's beautiful here). So I don't know. We'll see what happens tonight/tomorrow.
Posted by Shelby at April 17, 2005 01:13 PM