Carpet or Grass. Hmmmmm

So, this morning I am awakened by a little puppy sniffing in my ear. As cute as it was, too many rules were broken. First on the list is the puppy on the bed. Little Great Dane puppies are nice and warm and love to snuggle. Adult Great Dane's also are nice and warm and love to snuggle. Therein lies the problem. I do not want a massive dog snuggled between me and my wife on our already too small of a bed. Great Dane's are known to take over certain pieces of furniture if you allow them. We have also agreed to also keep Tumnus off of our new couch, which is also hard to do after a long days work and all you want to do is sit relax and play with your puppy. But I digress.

CC left early this morning so I plopped Tumnus on the carpeted floor while getting ready. He was playing around, sniffing in places, and wagging his tail contently. Then it happened. The poohnaumi stuck. At first I was stunned to see such a sight, but I quickly reacted with a "No no no. Noooooo." I was impressed how quick I flung my decaffeinated body across the room to scoop the crappy critter. We quickly made hast to the backyard where little Tumnus finished his business, but unfortunately the worst of it was on my new homes carpet. The situation was compounded by the fact that he has diarrhea. I couldn't get mad at the little guy nor was I incredibly upset, but more surprised than anything I guess. Generally Tumnus has been great with "his business." He will now go to the door and sit or when in his cage whine a little to let us know it is time to go. We have notice over the weekend that when in the basement, on carpeted floor, without warning he would start his squat of appending doom, but luckily we would grab him before he had a chance and bring him outside. This morning I was not so lucky.

It got me thinking on the way to work, why was he so great downstairs on the hardwood floors, but would pee freely on carpet? I think it's because he has been trained to go on grass. Now you and I can tell the difference between grass and carpet but little puppies feel the tickle of the nylon fibers -thank goodness we don't have shag carpet- on their paws and think it's grass. It also doesn't help that our basement carpet is green -please no comments on the colour. I guess we'll have to be more attentive an train him the difference, but hardwood floors are much easier to clean than the carpet.

A couple of questions for you. Have you had any accidents in training your dog? What command do you use to tell the puppy it's time go? How long did it take you to train your dog?

~2q