Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Winter Walks: Creating a Walk When they Won't Walk Outside

Even with all the terrible weather here in Chicago, our pups still need to get walked. 
While our pups have been through a lot, once"Chiberia" hit, and temperatures in Chicago dipped below those at the South Pole, they had enough.
Miss M completely boycotted potty-breaks.The moment E opened our door to take her into the hallway of our building, she made like a donkey bracing herself.
She had to be physically carried outside, set down, and back inside, each time she needed to go potty.
While we semi-solved the issue of bathroom breaks, we knew this wasn't enough and sitting around in our home the pups would begin developing cabin fever. 
So we added some indoor 'exercises' to our walk. We had written about some of the things we do in this post here
With limited time as we're getting ready in the morning, we exhaust the pups"mentally": practicing elevated sit-stays and down-stays on our benches and ottomans. We wrote more about it here.
These exercises help the pups practice will-power and self-control, which can be exhausting. 
They can even do it as they're watching TV.
What has everyone else been up to as the cold weather has been keeping you inside?

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought I had it hard carrying (read forcing) Jake out, but you win for carrying the Queen down!!! I forgot about that ottoman/bench stay trick, going to work on that!

Rachel said...

I love the pics of Ms M haha. She always cracks me up. I like to play hide and seek in the house with the pups. They get really amped up trying to find me (and the treats- let's be honest, that's their main motivation lol) and you can tell they get tired from having to think of places to look.
I like your sit and down stays - will definitely have to try elevated ones!

Cocos Mommy said...

What a cutie Miss M is! Luckily here in Florida it doesn't get cold enough for Coco to boycott outside, but in the summers it rains like crazy. She hates the rain and won't budge when we open the door. How funny they are!

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