Hello, list -- Just got us a lovely new Berner, Sasha, who's three months old. As neither my wife nor I are experienced with owning a dog, we're having a few problems which I'm sure some of you (all of you?) have gone through.
Some background first. Both of us work, although not so crazy hours as to leave the dog alone for huge periods at a time. We keep her out during the day but we leave her in at night. She sleeps in the living room (the non-carpeted area of the house) with all her toys and her beanbag. We move the toys outside in the morning, with a nice fresh bone, and she's generally happy to go out. If I'm up early enough (we both leave the house at around 7:30) I'll take her for a 30 minute walk, as she's pretty active in the morning. She hasn't been to obedience training yet - she starts on the 19th. 1. Fortunately we got her from the breeder already paper-trained. There are newspapers placed on the floors in strategic spots, and she was pretty good for the first three weeks (we got her almost a month ago) but the last week or so she's been ignoring the paper and going wherever she wants. We've been trying to catch her doing it but these little guys are a bit too fast for us. How do we correct this? 2. I'm sure this is a general puppy problem, but when she first sees us in the morning she gets so excited she pees. I'm guessing this is simply because she's got a fairly small tank to begin with. This morning however it posed a problem as the naughty girl got up on the couch. Pee on the floor is one thing to deal with... 3. Boy, does this dog howl. Is this something she'll grow out of? I know the breed is most happy with human presence but we obviously can't be there for her 24/7 (although we'd love to, but we do need to make money to feed her) (incidentally, I wanted to name her Kelvinator - Kellie for short - but my wife didn't go for it). 4. And about leaving her alone at night - does this breed get unhappy about staying out at night? (obviously we can't do that now or all the neighbours will be calling the council) Any comments would be greatly appreciated... Ari Maidenberg Melbourne
