Digestion 101

Nero is a puppy of a fairly strict schedule. He started with 2 hour cycles of sleep, multiple pees, and chewing frenzies. Now its about 3 -4 hours. He sleeps a lot. It scared us for a bit, till we read in many places that puppies do most of the time. He is strict about his food. It must be on time.

The first couple of nights he was very restless, and tended to whine to let us get him on out bed. But once we didnt give in, he's settled down. Now if he wakes up at night, he remains in his bed chewing his toys till he goes back to sleep.

He doesnt have too much bladder control yet and he pees a lot. Not just a lot of pee, but a lot of times! Through trial and error, we've found he's fairly organised in this as well. Once immediately after his sleep, a couple of times in the next ten minutes with sometimes a poo thrown in for variety. Then he needs food. After food is another pee which may take from 0-10 mins from end of eating. Sometimes there maybe 2-3 more pees. The record is 6 times after lunch in a period of 15 mins. If its lunch and tea, he may poop too; but not after breakfast or dinner. After food is the hyperactive chewing time. This is the time when he chews everything in sight, toes, heels, clothes, slippers, cushions and sometimes (when forced) his designated chew toys. In this phase he may or may not pee once or twice (hey, he need some discretionary control!). Post this he normally goes to sleep. And then the cycle repeats again.

Currently, we're trying to train him to go to pee in the verandah. He's adopted 3 rooms as his own, each of which has a puppy-proofed verandah, ready at hand for immediate pee/poop dashes. So far its more miss than hit, but sometimes, some rare times, we do actually manage to get him out before he lets go. In this, there is absolutely no use expecting him to go on his own. If there is a slightest pee/poo pose, its a desperate dash to pick him up and deposit him in the verandah before the deed is done. I think he's getting the idea slowly. Today on one occasion he DID go the the verandah door and whine to go outside to pee. Of course, he also peed in the bedroom, the den, the corridor, and the drawing room (his favourite spot to pee and poo is near our couch)...BUT its progress!! He may yet get trained!!! Maybe there IS a potty training God! The good news was that he has more or less designated areas where he wants to pee and poo. The bad news is none of them are our designated areas, AND the list of his areas is growing everyday. One day maybe he'll discover the great outdoors!!!!!

Yesterday, the hubby's boss came to visit with his son who wanted to see Nero. But Nero was not impressed. He sat in his lap for a bit, then ran off to cooler inner regions of the house, his
adopted territory. When made to come out, he showed his displeasure by peeing all the way from the den to the drawing room. He then underscored his digestive dominance by peeing 5 mins later in the drawing room. Happily, he left pooping to more private times and places.