The next two weeks were a lot of work when it came to potty training.
For some reason, she would not go potty outside. I could not figure it out. She would stare at me when I waited for her to go. I would walk her outside for long periods of time, and nothing would happen. But as soon as I stopped paying attention to her inside, she would sneak into our spare bedroom or our bedroom closet.
I must have scared her really bad by mistake when she had that first accident. Whatever the case, we were desperate to get her to do ANYTHING outside.
I took her outside constantly, and nope, no matter how many times I brought her outside. As soon as we got indoors, it was her time to shine.
I cry about a lot of things. I’m a very emotional person… but I’ve never cried so much over poop and pee in my life.
We tried the “pee here” spray from the store which I had had high hopes for… but of course, she didn’t give a rip about it.
We wouldn’t have minded the potty incidents in the apartment quite so much if she had gone on the linoleum in the kitchen/dining room… but of course, she was too good for such things and had to have the luxury of soft carpet underneath her paws as she took a dump for the fourth time today. (Legitimately, she would sometimes take four craps a day.)
Thankfully, my husband is a genius and bought carpet protection from Menard’s which we put on all of the special places she had chosen for her pooping and peeing except for our closet… there we just tried to keep the door shut. It was still a pain to clean up, but at least in this case, she wasn’t destroying the carpet more than it already was at this point.
We quickly ran into another problem common to huskies: separation anxiety.
Growing up, we always had lab mixes and destructive anxiety wasn’t ever an issue. Occasionally a loaf of bread would get snatched off of the counter, but that could be easily attributed to labs just wanting to eat everything in sight. Regardless, Ginger was a whole new ball game.
The second time I left her home alone before we had to start crating her I came home to Josh’s guitars were all knocked over. She had destroyed my little fake plant and pooped in the center of the spare bedroom. Garbage had been spread through my dining and living room. Including the fruit loops that I had to throw away earlier that morning because I had mistakenly left them alone for more than a minute on the counter. Of course, now that she had been left home alone for two hours, she did not have any interest in eating them until she had ten minutes to calm down and realize I was home to stay.
Crating was another nightmare in of itself.
The first time I was super nervous, but when I came home nothing was destroyed or pooped on. So I thought, oh, she’s already crate trained.
I was very wrong in such fantastical assumptions.
I made this unfortunate discovery one day when I was home sick, and I don’t know why I did it, but I put her in the crate. I just wanted to while I napped. She did not stop crying and she loathed the crate entirely. The worst was when she would rock the crate back and forth knocking it against the wall. I panicked. What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t stay home with her. I would go insane if I had to stay home with my dog and never able to go anywhere without bringing her.
I did a lot of panic googling at this time, and one of the things that the inter webs told me was that it can take up to six months to crate train a dog.
Six months…
It wouldn’t have mattered had our living situation been different. When you live in an apartment complex and you really, really don’t want to get a noise violation… it’s a whole other deal.
Despite my worries… noise was not the one I should have had high on my priority list.
Crate training and potty training are not a great combination… especially when the potty accident happens in the crate… and then the dog proceeds to dance in it.
The first accident was bad. Poop smeared everywhere and dried onto the bars. I immediately took her outside and then we hit the bathtub.
Second time was easier to clean, and she hadn’t quite trampled it everywhere. A
Accidents weren’t bad compared to what was coming…
She was strong enough to bend the bars and escaped one evening. As predicted, she did tear up the room and found a big bag of stuffing which got destroyed. The worst though was the carpet… she tried to dig herself out of the room and tore the carpet to shreds in the process.
Thankfully we were able to figure out the problem and did a temporary fix.
But that’s all it was, a temporary fix.
Another night, she did not escape, but I took one look at this kennel and realized that it was not worth salvaging.
See everyone tells you. Don’t get a husky. They are so much work, and even though you know that they are right, you get one anyways because you want a pretty and fun dog. I was like, “I can handle the energy.”
Energy was not the problem with this doggo. Just the minor things like poop on the carpet and destructive separation anxiety. Everyone wants to live in a home that smells of dog crap and destroyed flooring.
I was exhausted and very stressed out trying to keep this dog under control and not give up on her. I did not want to give her up. I don’t say that with the most noble of incentives. Money was a big incentive, meaning we’d already dumped a bunch of money into her. Also, despite all of the issues we were having, I still loved having a dog around and really did not want to go back to not having one.
Natters Matters 