Adventures in Winter Recall

Our -12 degree potty routine, our three feet of snow potty routine, is send Elka out back, call her back when she's done. And she gets done pretty quickly, and with good efficiency, as I've mentioned. Lately, though, some of that distractibility has crept back. God knows why, it's still -12 some mornings, and there's still three feet of snow out there.

But, I've begun to utilize the three count. I'll tell her to go potty, I'll say hurry up, and then I start to count. If I reach 3, I call her back and we go inside. Mostly, she gets busy at 2, if I even need to count.

Miscues (or Missed Cues?)

The other night, Elka asked to go out, so I sent her to the back door. We have a routine, she sits and waits, and I either snap the leash on and have her wait some more, or I let her blast out the back door. I thought maybe I'd seen a deer or something out back, so I wanted her to wait after the leash was on. Typically, we hold up a finger, like "wait a minute", for signal purposes. I held out my palm instead.

(just a picture of Elka sitting, not from "The event")