The Puppy Nanny

Have you ever seen the show The Super Nanny? This is the one with extremely obnoxious children who are wildly out of control. The parents (who have had enough) call in the SUPER NANNY to "fix" the kids. If you have seen the show, you know that the Nanny comes in and tells the parents that they are really the ones to blame for their dysfunctional children. I use to love watching this show because I would dream about being the Super Nanny at restaurants to parents who were letting their children do things like climb on the floor or run around unsupervised. Well....all those parent's I have judged had payback this week. Jon and I called a dog trainer to come and meet with us. We wanted help in knowing how to deal with Charly's house training (or lack thereof), biting, and general temper tantrums. She really is a good dog most of the time--but sometimes we just didn't know how to handle her. Since neither of us really knew anything about training a dog, our vet recommended this lady. I now call her: Gitte, The Puppy Nanny.

Gitte is from Denmark. She was very nice and taught me quite a bit. A couple of days after our visit, she emailed us her report. As I read the report, my eyes got wide, my jaw dropped, and I said to Jon in amazement, "Oh my gosh. We are on the Super Nanny show for dogs!" I laugh about it now--but Gitte was absolutely right. Implementing the rules she taught started helping right away. I never worried about having children--but after this I wonder how well we will do!

Here are some of the highlights from the report:

* Behavior Problem(s):

1 Uncontrolled
2 Hyper
3 Not houseclean
4 Biting in hand (in everything In general)

*Observations: Charly is very confident, but she has been spoiled far too much, no consistent, no consequences, and your energy, could be used with better result. There is no clear agreement on how to solve problems.

*Diagnosis: Charly is confused and does not know what your expectations are.

*Summary of treatment program: You have to help her control when it is playtime and when it is enough. You need to plan what you want to achieve from Charly, you need to help him with controlling her when she gets hyperactive. You need to use the next 2 weeks working hard to get her houseclean. She needs replacement for hands when she is biting.

Some other cute pictures of Charly below. She is sleeping in my office in the second one.