As part of Tootie’s training I must ignore her when we reunite. This is the cornerstone to amichien bonding. If her song and dance of trying to reestablish dominance becomes aggressive, for instance scratching or jumping in the face and biting, she must be removed from the room and placed in time out. After she has ceased barking and whining for ten seconds she may be allowed back into the room with you. You must then ignore her once again. If her ritual of trying to establish dominance by jumping on you escalates to biting or aggressiveness once more, you escort her gently by the collar to the time out room (which you have cleared for any thrashing that may occur.) Each time she is led to the time out room for unacceptable behavior she must wait longer and longer after ceasing barking to be let back into the training room.

This is Tootie’s fourth time in time out. It is sort of like Super Nanny for dogs.

I just let her out of the bathroom, her designated time out room, and she came in and jumped up on me. It didn’t hurt, so I let her. I ignored her while I looked at a few photographs lying on the boyfriend’s desk.  She calmed down for a minute, until I sat down at the computer. She then bit me on the knee. (Her bites are hardly painful–she is barely gripping me at all–she is just trying to remain the Alpha dog.)

So now this is fifth time to time out. She’s hardly putting up a fuss anymore. Just whimpering sporadically. I need to wait a minute and half now for silence before I let her out, since she’s had to go back to many times. I suppose this could go on all morning, though I suspect she’s pretty close to getting it now.

This requires a lot of patience. Something I am short on, so this is training for me, too. I was going to go to a yoga class at the Y at 8:30, but it looks like I’ll miss that now. I’ll just hit the treadmill instead.

If she’s quiet 30 seconds longer I can let her out. Hang on…

I let her out. It went well for a while. She even laid down and gave the sigh that they are supposed to give when they give up the Alpha role. But the second I sat down she starting the fake biting again. So Tootie is now serving her sixth time out sentence. She must wait two minutes after being quiet before getting out.

At this rate I won’t make it to the Y before it closes. This is only Day Two. Let’s hope my perseverance pays off.