Odd or accidental training

[Melissa & Porter]

I'm curious in what ways other people have accidentally trained their doodles (or been trained by their doodles).  Here is my example to show you what I mean.

 

When Porter is thirsty and feels his water bowl could be a bit fresher--anything over 15 minutes in the bowl seems to be "unfresh" in his mind--he will make a big show of walking into the mudroom bathroom.  This is a threat to drink from the toilet.  When I see this, I say, "Ohyawansomefreshwater?" and he turns around, walks out of the bathroom and waits by his bowl, which I then pick up, dump in the sink, and refill.

 

This is similar to how I accidentally trained my toddlers to come to me crying and saying "Are you okay?" every time they got boo boos.  Also, I "trained" them to come to me, raise their arms in the air and say, "Carry you?"

 

I bet you all have some of these stories, doodle or kid, too :-)

[Bonnie and Kona]

It's very funny! I love the way my doodles make me laugh every day!

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

I made a blog post about one of these a while back, sometimes accidental training is the best training!

 

Luna gets hungry in the morning and tries to get us up (even on weekends) and we kept saying "go to sleep" in frustration about her wanderings in the wee hours... eventually she figured out that if we said "go to sleep" we weren't getting up soon.  Now if we say "go to sleep" she goes back into her crate and gives us another 30-60 mins of rest ;)

 

Around dinnertime I always seem to ask her "Are you hungry? Want your food?" and now when I say that she runs to her food bowl.

 

The cutest of all is that I think we accidentally trained her to be more vocal.  Ever since she was a puppy she liked to make wookie noises (growling in funny pitches).  We started making "rrroo" noises back at her... and now we have hilarious wookie "conversations". She is especially noisy when we come home - loud wookie noises as she circles our legs and some attempts at howling.  I have also started to try howling at her to see what she'll do - she looks at me quizzically and has tried to imitate me a few times by whining in a similar pitch to my howling.

[Barbie]

I accidentally taught one of my former dogs to put away his toys every night before bed. He saw me do it a few times, then one night when I asked him if he was ready to go "Nite, Nite", he started picking up his toys one-by-one and placing them back in his toybox. I was in shock the first time he did it, and he kept doing it every night, so I never had to clean up after him again.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

IMPRESSED, Barbie!  We should all be so lucky.

[BG and Gavin]

Unreal!  Smart dog!

[shelly]

WOW, Barbie!!!!  What a smart dog!  I think I'll try that one!  My KIDS don't even do that!  LOL

[Barbie]

Ha-ha! I'm hoping Zeus will start doing it. We're now up to 4 huge dog beds and 52 dog toys, so you can barely see the floor at any given time. When I start putting away the toys at night, he thinks he's supposed to pull them back out. Maybe he's hinting around that I need to get more exercise. Hmm ...

[Michael Gurley]

Sunny pulls all her toys back out if I put them all in the basket on the floor. Now I put the toy basket up on the counter when it's time to go to sleep!

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Long story.... but Starlit was really hard to potty train.  She never had an accident in the house, but she would hold it for several days. We thought every one should go out to help.  Wake up Spud, DH, Me.  We all went outside for the group OUT.

Now she feels it is a big party when she has to go out.  She goes over and wiggles and paws DH, then me, then Thumps her brother ( really makes him mad the first time she wakes him up), then back to me, then to DH, then a bigger thump to Spud's head, then me.  We all have to go out.  If you are home, you go out with her.   It is a big party. (she thinks--we don't).  If someone stays inside she is NOT going.

I guess we are all house trained.

If we don't pay attention to her, Spud will go ring the bell for her.  She refuses to ring them but she will thump Spud in the head and he gets up to go ring her potty bells.

[BG and Gavin]

This is hilarious Joanne!  I can just picture the potty party!

[Tina, Clover, Plus 5 More]

ROFL!  Starlit is one smart doodle.

[shelly]

That is so funy... sort of how Tori would come in with something in her mouth that she shouldn't have and run away.... then if we just ignored her she would prance back and forth with it in her mouth infront of us.  Then if we just as much as stood up... she'd tear under the dining roome table.  Guess by us chasing her, she has created her own little game, but little does she know... we're on to her shennanigans now!  LOL

 BTW ~ Tori does like fresh water too.... but she doesn't threatened, she just stands in front of ME (no matter who else is in the room) and barks at me.  Another quirk she has... if you fill the bowl too high, she won't drink it... go figure.  DH, of course doesn't believe me, and says she'll drink it if she's that thirsty, but... gotta' give the "princess" what she wants!  LOL