Our friends’ Golden Retriever uses a bell to tell his pawrents when it’s time to go out for a … or a …. No matter where they are in the house, the dog can let them know when it’s time for business, preventing any accidents to happen. We saw this first hand and Mr HE sooo liked the idea that he immediately started teaching Lottie how to do it. It really helped with the schedule that we were working towards (I’ve spoken about this in another post).
So, off he went (virtually) to Mr Bezos and looked for some bells like these ones. We installed them first in our kitchen, the room Lottie spent the most time in and was easiest for us to monitor. Very patiently Mr HE rewarded every ring with a few treats and after two weeks of ringing the bell every time we would leave the house together with Lottie, she got the hang of it (our biscuits worked wonders here!). Mr HE trained her in the kitchen and once she’d mastered that and was allowed into the rest of the house, the bells went next to the front door. She is now so good at it that she rings the bell for other reasons to.
Basically, she has now turned us into her slaves. If she’s wants to go out to check on the neighbourhood … she rings the bell. If she feels she should get more food … she rings the bell. If she’s wants another toy … you guessed it – she rings the bell. Now, you might not want to voluntarily upgrade (or is it a downgrade??), but if you do – and we found it incredibly helpful and still rely on it today whilst working from home etc – here are 7 simple steps to follow to join the Fellowship of the Rings.
- Step 1: hold bells in hand encourage them to engage with the bell (say ‘ring’ while using the bells). Give a treat every time they sniff or touch it with their nose and praise with ‘good ring’
- Step 2: hang the bells up and stand next to them (so that you don’t hold them anymore and they associate the treats with the bells and not you) and ask them to ring, again rewarding correct behaviour
- Step 3: move further and further away from the bells and don’t forget to reward. Verbally and with treats. Repeat this exercise a few times a day (5 minutes or so is long enough for a small puppy!)
- Step 4: every time you leave the house with your dog, ask them to ring the bell and reward correct behaviour.
- Step 5: continue to reward when they ring the bell to go out
- Step 6: slowly reduce rewarding with treats once they consistently use the bells to ask to be let out until you completely stop doing so
- Step 7: order more treats from Poppet & Floof to keep up with the training!
