(Just one of the many benefits of subscribing to the newspaper)

Thank you everyone for your advice on potty training several posts ago, we used several of your tactics. We dedicated this past weekend to intensive potty training for Ben. Stayed close to home and concentrated on the throne.

I always said I would never compare our dog to our children - but I can’t help it.
We found many parallels between housetraining our dog and potty training Ben:

Diligence
Patience
Pay attention to the signs
Accidents happen and that’s okay
Gush with praise for trying/and succeeding
Have rewards on hand (oh and towels and carpet cleaner too)

And in both cases, there was some acting involved to get said reward. Our dog Chloe used to go outside and pretend squat just to get a biscuit. Ben did a little acting himself. There were a few fake Don Knotts faces combined with a knock-kneed pants grab and run to the bathroom just to get a treat.

He’d then sit on the seat with finger resting on his chin thinking out loud. “Let’s see, this time do I want a yellow M&M or should I have a purple M&M?”

Distractions helped relax him for the sessions, a book - or the comics (see above). Plus I know the sound of running water is always a big help for a shy bladder. But running the faucet seemed too wasteful if it takes awhile. Aha! I went and grabbed our trusty old “Sleep Sheep” plush sound machine and set it loud to “Rainfall.” Worked like a charm for relaxing and letting go of the flow.

We’re still in training - there are accidents - (but heck sometimes even mom has accidents!) but he’s well on his way.

Thanks for all of your support and advice Cribsheeters!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 8:44 am and is filed under Family Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.