Lessons from training a puppy

My partner Anthony and I recently adopted a Papillon puppy, Ptarmigan. The more time I spend training her to do the things that dogs should do -- use the litterbox, rest peacefully in her crate, come, stay, sit-- the more I realize that all of us humans have an inner puppy.

You know what I'm talking about: the yiping, whining voice of "I don't want to take a bath. I'd rather play with my squeaky duck toy!" Substitute "the internet" or "my favorite food" for Mr. Duck, and "going for a run" or "organizing my closet" for the bath, and voila!

We're much more sneaky about it than dogs are, though. Instead of crying and yelping, we concoct a bevy of excuses that rationalize why we should be playing with Mr. Ducky instead of getting that bath. I had a rough day and I deserve some chocolate cake. There's plenty of time for organizing my closet later. Maybe I'll hurt my knee if I run-- better not risk it.

We get caught up in these excuses, and lose sight of the simple, real truth: you know you should get your bath, you'd rather play, and you're whining about it. Dogs operate on this level of simple, honest truth all the time. They want to play, you want them in the bath, and that is that.

Training your inner puppy is not that much different than training a real puppy. Through repetition and persistence, we are training Ptarmigan to do her business in the litterbox instead of in the corner of my office. Goodness knows what appeals to her about this particular corner, but for whatever reason she delights in using it as her private commode. Over the past 14 days, we have shifted how she thinks about doing her business:

Day 1: "I want to do my business in the corner, so I'll do my business in the corner."

Day 14: "I want to do my business in the corner, but I know that I should do it in the litterbox, so I'll use the litterbox."

We haven't taken away her desire to use the corner--I'm sure the magical appeal is still there-- but instead we have trained her to ignore that urge and go in the litterbox instead. The more she goes to the litterbox, the more it becomes "just what she does." She doesn't entertain an internal dialog about the corner vs. the litterbox anymore.

This is where we need to go with our internal puppy. No internal dialog about the pulses and minuses of exercising vs. sitting on the couch, or rationalizing why we should eat a donut just this once. Through practice and repetition, we cut out the thinking and just do. One of the best results of this state of doing is that our inner puppy is quiet. No more whining.

I leave you now with a great example of litterbox-esque training that our parents did on us when we were kids... afterall, kids are even closer to puppies than adults. Do you think that as a kid, you enjoyed brushing your teeth? Probably not. Do you brush your teeth every night now? I hope so. Do you whine and yelp about it every night? I didn't think so :).