Outsmarting the Puppytron

At first, Rhys would sit everywhere but the crate: his former bed, an empty mesh bag, the kitten’s scratching pad. All of these seemed more attractive than his warm and cozy crate. I would turn around and see him sitting on a sock in the middle of the empty room, and I would think, “Really? This is more comfortable than your big, plush bed?” So, thank you Rhys for giving us yet another reason to keep our dirty socks off the floor.

However, once we got our floors cleaned, he still wasn’t hanging out in his crate. Instead he would stand at Jared’s or my feet, eyes lighting up every time we looked at him. This is one needy dog. That’s when the idea-bolt struck: put the crate where he spends his time. It seems really obvious now, but it took some time.

So now his crate is under the desk and he could not be happier. He spends a lot of time in there when we’re not directly interacting with him. Initially, I thought he wouldn’t like it, but now I think he enjoys the hum of the computer and the roof over his head. Also now I have a footrest!

I didn’t want to rush Rhys, so it was a few days until the next step: locking him in his crate while feeding him. Up until now, the door to the crate had always been open. When I tried to crate train him in August, I rushed the process and came home to a pile of sawdust from his wooden crate. The poor guy gets very anxious when locked up, but he can overcome it.

As you can see, food is the ultimate distraction for this guy. It’s been about a week, and he’s progressed to where I stay with him and keep the crate locked for a couple minutes after he’s done eating. There is no whining or pawing at the door. Progress!

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Introducing the real Rhys “Puppytron” Jenkins

I love Rhys “Puppytron” Jenkins very much. That’s why I’m going to devote some space to him here. He’s an 18-month-old mixed breed: chihuahua and miniature pinscher. As such, he weighs less than six pounds, but he has bark and personality enough to take on the big dogs. Literally.

I’ll confess to being one of those dog owners that had no idea what they were getting into. I normally over-research every change in my life, so the fact that our dog is a huge daily challenge definitely took me by surprise.

According to the extra-over-research I’ve done since we got him in August, his personality comes mostly from his min pin genes. In other words, he’s stubborn, defiant, loud, whiny, (next to) impossible to housetrain, and prone to eating himself to death.

None of that bothers me much except the part about him being impossible to housetrain. How did I miss this in my hours and hours of Internet and library research? Seriously. How. Did. I. Miss. This?

Not missing it now. There are, as Jared urges me to call them, “presents” from Rhys quite frequently hiding all over our home. We have been at our wits’ end and tonight we decided to crack down on the bundle of cuteness. Because we cannot put this dog out of our home. He is our responsibility and we love him.

Hopefully, a series of posts will follow on the success of crate training a dog who supposedly can’t unlearn anything. A dog who is terrified of being alone and who will cry for hours and hours until he gets his way. I wish I were exaggerating this part about the hours and hours. Because I’m not. Because I’ve tried to outlast him and it usually ends badly.

Here’s a photo of him sitting quietly, being his cute, loving self. Wish us all luck please.

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rhys jenkins miniature miniature pinscher chihuahua dog training housetraining photo crate training