It’ll be a while until things are back to normal around here, but I wanted to update you on my one attempt at combating Lilly’s new whine strategy — whining to Ginko.
One day while Lilly was fussing at Ginko out in the living room in an attempt to get my attention, I walked out, convinced Ginko (who was firmly ensconced on the sofa) to come with me, and brought him in my office. We closed the door and waited.
The outcome?
He stood inside the door crying to get back to his sofa. She stood outside the door crying to get in.
Oy!
We haven’t tried timeouts at home. We did a couple times at class, and it only made her fears worse. I’m afraid she’s just too sensitive for a correction like that. Things have been different while I’ve been sick. Plus, it’s been so warm she can be outside more. Maybe the time “off” will magically fix the problem. Ha!
Bummer – sorry to hear that it definitely didn’t work.
Have you tried ‘time outs’ with Lilly? We’ve used them with K when she was a puppy and more recently with R. It’s been the most effective way of dealing with R’s counter surfing. I very dramatically take him by the collar and put him in the bathroom (door closed) for 30 s. I leave the tempting item in the same place on the counter and let him out. If he goes for it again, it’s a minute time-out. We’ve never had to do it more than twice in a row, and his habit is almost broken.
I don’t know if a time-out would be too tough on Lilly? But, if you think it would be OK, you could march her to her time-out place as soon as you’re aware that she’s doing the whining to Ginko.
Ha ha ha ha! So much for that brilliant idea!