5 Weeks, 6 Days To Go

Can I get a round of applause? Yesterday was the very first day that Theodore went the whole day without a single accident in the house. YAY!!!

He went on his puppy pad once when we left him in his pen for an hour or so. Every other time he went outside like a pro. The key? Getting up every 20 minutes to let him out! Seriously. Actually the credit is all to Theo. He would go sit by the door (and sometimes whine) when he needed to go out. He did this about every 20 minutes. Sometimes he just wanted to play out there, sometimes he actually needed to go. Either way I made sure to let him out and take some time to let him go or not, and then I took him back in. I hear that it should be every 2 hours that they have to go, but Theo plays hard and then sleeps hard, so while he was awake he would go out every 20 minutes or so (he probably actually peed about ever 40 minutes), and then he would sleep for a few hours and not go at all. It just ended up that way between waking up from naps, eating meals, and playing around.

House training is not a task for the lazy, that's for sure. It was so tempting to just ignore is cries to go out and tell him "no, you just went 20 minutes ago, I don't think you need to go again". But I held strong and was several times surprised that he actually did need to go. I know that since I'm back at work for the next 5 days, he'll probably have more accidents, but if he has no accidents while I'm home, then it's just a matter of time until he gets it when he's alone too.