I have learned some very important lessons while training a dog! Cam and I have been teaching our puppy to stay in the kitchen so that he won't go to the bathroom on our carpet. We used a baby gate when we first got him to block off the rest of the house so that he could only stay on the hard floor. Just recently, we moved the gate and have taught him not to cross "the line." He has been doing so great! We were so surprised at how quickly he caught on to not running on the carpet. We were starting to feel really confident, and even bragging about how great we are at training our dog!! It was yesterday afternoon when we decided to go over to Cam's parents for dinner and leave our dog unattended and in the kitchen for the first time while we were gone. BAD idea!! We were gone for about two hours, and had quite the surprise waiting when we came home! Noche came cruising past us from the living room when we opened the front door, and our living room totally stunk like poo. We both looked at each other with horror on our faces thinking... what have we done!? Blah! He had gone to the bathroom on the floor and had had quite the party while we were gone! His food was randomly scattered in the living room, and he had chewed up a pen that he had found on the floor that left ink and pieces of it hidden throughout the house. I started yelling at the puppy and Cam was laughing so hard because he had never heard me yell before. Haha I was so mad! I guess it was partially our fault for leaving him alone, but it taught us one thing... we won't ever do that again! What a blunder... seriously!
