Do ya?

Smid taught me to be careful what I was teaching him, because...you never know.

When we first got Sidney, naturally we tried to house break him. Teach him where to do his business. He was a stubborn little toot. He couldn't seem to get over how convenient it was to go, just wherever. You could tell by the look on his face that he understood what you wanted him to do, but it was like he was deciding if that's what he wanted to do.

We tried to implant in his mind, the concept of "outside", but what ended up happening was slightly altered. I suppose it came from the phrase, "do ya want to go outside?" In our human minds, we focused on "outside". We found out that wasn't Smid's focus. We'd say, "Smid, do ya want to go outside?" and he'd get an alert look on his face, but that was it. After a period of time asking that question and realizing he was reacting, but not acting like he wanted to go outside, I said, "well...do ya?" and he barked in recognition. His "outside" trigger word was "do ya". After that, we'd go through the routine of asking him if he wanted to go outside and watching him become alert and then asking the follow up, "do ya?" question. He'd go outside if a human was there to let him out. If no one was there...then wherever.

As a corollary, I found out on vacation, when he and I stayed at motels, and I walked him on a leash, that he had another trigger word. "Finish". I'd walk him and he'd sniff. He had to smell all the umpteen dogs that had gone before. He would take his time. It would be an interminable wait. One time, I said, "come on Sidney, finish!" and he gave one last sniff and got into his potty-going stance. It was as if he was saying, "oh, OK" and he'd go. After that, I'd give him a little sniff-time and then say, "finish" and he was pretty good about wrapping things up so we could go back in.