How often is too often?

We are officially two hours into our new potty-every-hour-on-the-hour routine. SO far so good, no accidents as yet but he spent the first hour in his box because I also have to eat dinner and since I am the big dog, if I  want to eat with both eyes on my plate, I will.

We went out to pee. He scratched on the door and I took him out. He peed. I'm not going to argue with him when he says he wants to go outside. His scratch is my demand, I want him to know what that cue means - he scratches and we go out. Period.

The new schedule is getting tweaked. It turns out the upstairs sink has a leak. The best way to keep the leak from leaking is to not use the sink. So now, I am going to do my morning toilette in the downstairs toilet. Its going to make taking the puppy out ASAP both easier and more of a chore because I was rather enjoying the whole two mornings of leisurely getting up and getting dressed and putting on real shoes and then taking the dog out ASAP fully dressed. Now I'm back to doing it in my pajamas and flip flops.  I'm going to learn to love it though because since I took him out so fast, he didn't have a chance to wet his box and that is easy to get used to.

Dogs to get house broken at some point right?

Its a good thing that Rocket is not a sexual being because he's doing some puppy yoga right now that that's just really, really disturbing. If humans could bend themselves like that ...  well, lets just say, the world would be a much less busy place. Very peaceful, very quite , no lines for anything ever. We would all be very, very calm because if we could do that, we would find it much easier to love one another because we would be so in love with ourselves.

I'm not sure this new one hour regime is working. We have fifteen minutes left and we've all ready been out three times! He did ask to go out, so that's good but maybe I've just taught him that he has to go every half hour! Maybe I've created a tiny bladder-ed monster?

Or, he isn't scratching to  say "Hey Mom, I need to go outside!" he's scratching at the door to say "Hey Mom, the  cat is right outside!". So. Who is teaching who what scratching on the door means? I thought he was all working the program and letting me know he has to go outside because peeing inside is wrong, and in real life, Rocket thinks it means the kitty is out there and he want sto go torment him.

 I am sneakily teaching him that scratching on the door is a ticket to the back yard - a win for me, because in the long run, it will teach him how to let me know he wants to go out. The way he does that now is to pop a squat where I can see him and then I hurl us both into the yard where he finishes up. Progress?