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Piggy says no


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I thought you guys might like to know a rather odd but funny development in our house with our 5.5 month old pup Merlin. 

A while back we bought him a squeaky toy pig. We thought he would like it as he likes his squeaky blue bear and even has little conversations with it haha!

Anyway, he was very wary of this pig and would give it a wide berth. We left it on the floor for a few days and thought he would come to like it but he never did. 

One day he was chewing the threads under a chair and as an experiment I moved the pig under the chair. He left the threads and hasn’t tried to chew them since (even though the pig is no longer there and he is happy to go under the chair). 

Well we repeated this for other things and it worked so well we named the pig the Behaviour Pig. Please bear in mind our pup is not shaking or whining or distressed. He just defers to the pig. We then started saying ‘Piggy says no’ when We caught him doing something he shouldn’t and just moved (without sweaking it) the pig into position. 

The pig never gets put near his food or water or crate. 

It’s worked so well that we have two pigs now! And we’re just at the stage where if we say ‘Piggy says no’, he will often stop his misbehaving - even if the pig isn’t there!

Today we had two visitors. One is allergic to dogs and one is recovering from an op. They wanted to stroke Merlin but couldn’t cope with him getting too close. Our visitors sat on the sofa and each had a piggy on their lap. Merlin cautiously moved toward them for a stroke but was very gentle. We are actually training him to be like this even without the pigs in place but we used the pigs because we couldn’t risk any accidental enthusiasm from Merlin and they so wanted to stroke him. It worked like a treat. 

We are careful not to overdo it because Merlin needs to behave without the pigs but as an aid for us to help identify areas in the house that Merlin needs to be wary of, it works well. 

This is piggy! 

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That is great! We don't have anything like piggy but I love reading your posts because it seems so many of the things you describe Merlin do, our boy does too. Chewing the threads under the sofa and chairs! We had that behaviour too :lol: I didn't even know there were threads under our furniture until we got a puppy.

 

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@GentleLake - this is Blue Bear. This is the only toy that Merlin has conversations with - like little groans. He doesn’t chew this toy. That was done by another dog. Our previous dog (who Merlin never knew) inherited this toy and also liked to have conversations with it. And as a baby our daughter had a blue bear on an mobile over her crib and she used to gurgle to her blue bear. All pretty spooky haha! 

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I LOLed about Piggy for at least a couple minutes. I know I'll be chuckling to myself for the rest of the day, maybe even through the weekend. (Note to self ~ self-restraint will be necessary when interviewing new client!) 

'Piggy Says No', I swear to God, belongs on a bumper sticker.  Sooooo  many uses!

Ruth & Gibbs

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On 9/29/2018 at 10:32 AM, urge to herd said:

^^^  Always trying to please and delight. Thank you for your support. And now, Piggy On A Toilet Seat seems to be a permanent resident of my brain.

Ruth & GIbbs

As "Piggy says No" will be a resident of mine.

I think I actually want the bumper sticker.

:lol:

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