New! Puppy Prep School

By Laura Sharkey

You have GOT to meet Lucy.  Lucy is our first Puppy Prep School student and she is adorable. Lucy is an 8 week old mini dachshund who started Prep School on April 5th. I will be chronicling her progress here. We have a lot planned for this little girl.

We immediately started working on Lucy's crate training. Her owners reported some seriously pitiful crying when she was crated, including an episode of getting her teeth stuck on the crate bars which was terrifying for everyone. Our goal is to have her willingly crating without protest by the time she goes home so today we started to teach her to go into her crate on cue.
The next thing we did was switch Lucy from a large metal crate to a small plastic crate. There were reports of her urinating in her crate so we wanted to make sure the crate was the proper size.   She will absolutely sleep in her crate every single night. No exceptions. No sleeping in the bed. Last night she cried for about 15 minutes before going to sleep. We are hoping for similar results on night two. Her crate will be right next to the bed. Close enough that I can put my fingers through the bars to comfort her if needed. I expect she will wake me up once or twice in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. Totally normal for her age and size.

Lucy had a busy day today. In between sleeping and training, she spent most of her day in the WOOFS! front office hanging out with some other dogs.  In the evening she went on a field trip to ProFeed to get some puppy supplies where she met at least 5 new people and was passed around for lots of loving. Yay socialization! Then it was home to my house to meet the big dogs, play some tug and crash out on the couch.

Can't wait until tomorrow!