gigi d's Page

hi gigi!

You are going to love having a doodle.  they are so lovable and have great personalities.  As I stated before, I loved this book.  I took the training seriously and my husband refers to me as Nazi crazy!  I made sure that I meant what I said. lol  if I asked for a sit, I gave the command, and waited for the sit.  follow thru is key.

Have in your mind what actions you expect from the pup and how you want it to fit into your schedule for the next 15 years, and then just work towards that goal. 

potty training that worked for us: we used potty bells, and I kept a pad of paper to keep track of everything.  I took the pup out every hour, gave the command, if no potty, then back inside, if there was a pee or poo, it got marked on the paper.  We discovered our pup does not follow like the books say regarding potty 20 min. after meals.  By keeping track of schedule I could tell after several weeks, how our pup does his business.  two poos in the morning, and an afternoon poo; 4 pees throughout the day, but I noticed he was eliminating about same times every day.

I also crate trained even though I am home all day.  I wanted him to learn to be in the crate for long periods of time as I sometimes I leave all day. So, started small doses of time and built up to my 6 hour time frame.

the biggest thing I have appreciated him learning is to look for me for commands.  I believe this book details the task.  Basically, sit on the porch with pup, or somewhere there are distractions.  Do not let the pup know you have treats.  Do not speak to pup.  Let pup look around. As soon as pup looks at you, give a treat.  Then just get back to looking and when pup looks at you again, treat.  Do several of these trainings a week. It really bonded the dog to me and really gets the pup to looking for commands as they age.  Fast forward 2 years and I could run and hide and the dog if he has not put eyes on me every few minutes, will come to find me.  This is helpful when in a large field or lots of dogs playing to have the dog look to you for a command or see if everything is ok as I do not have a loud voice to get his attention.  

sorry so long!  always feel free to ask questions.  The first 3 months are going to be like raising a baby.  I had lots of tears and gave up social life, but it was so worth the training!! take lots of pictures and enjoy all the moments.

PS--if you look at my photos or my blog, you will see lots of pics of past puppies.

Marci, the owner is in Florida right now and taking it easy after three litters were raised and sent to their homes--we had 22 puppies in less than a month--very unusual for us! So, I am not sure how fast she will get back to you. Sometimes she just forwards the emails to me--you can take a shortcut and email me at ginnynightingale@gmail.com. I can also accept your application (available on the website) as i do a lot of the sales for her. There is no obligation as far as applying--no deposit required until later on--it just gets your name on a list. If a female gets bred, we let you know and you can pass on that litter or put a deposit on it to hold a puppy from that litter--and if you find another pup in the meantime, you just let us know and we take your name off the list. Right now, the soonest we would have pups going home would be June or July--no one in heat yet, but we expect it any day--the gestation is 63 days, so that puts us at the end of April or early May for the litter to be born and they would go home 8 weeks later.