I\u2019ve learned to ignore distractions and focus on one thing, even if it is ensuring the little fella doesn\u2019t wee, or worse, on the carpet<\/p>\n
Last week, our family got a puppy. Not for Christmas \u2013 I\u2019m too respectful of the Dogs Trust for that \u2013 but, in some ways, because of it. I work from home, and the December slowdown is the perfect time to do what puppies demand of you, which is to spend half your waking moments paying attention to their every twitch and snuffle, in case you miss some developmental milestone that condemns you to six more weeks of accidents on the floor.<\/p>\n
In case you have never potty-trained a small dog, here is how it (roughly) works. After they snooze, eat or play, you watch them, hawklike, for any indication that they might be about to unburden themselves. Indicator eventually noted, you hustle them outside to a specially prepared area, where you eye them, not too obviously, in the hope that they will let nature take its course. While they are in the act, you repeat whatever mini-mantra you are hoping to associate with the deed \u2013 in our case, a cheery \u201clet\u2019s go!\u201d \u2013 then once they are done, you give them a cuddle and shower them with praise. Then you repeat that, five or 12 times a day, until they get the hang of it.<\/p>\n
Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019ve learned to ignore distractions and focus on one thing, even if it is ensuring the little fella doesn\u2019t wee, or worse, on the carpet Last week, our family got a puppy. Not for Christmas \u2013 I\u2019m too respectful of the Dogs Trust for that \u2013 but, in some ways, because of it. I work … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}