[PeggyTheParti]

Your guess is as good as mine as I try to decipher this poodle logic:

Peggy now enthusiastically races into her crate if I tell her it's time for bed. Tonight I was chatting with my husband in the hall outside the guest bathroom when I looked down at Peggy and told her it was time for bed.

She threw the stuffy she was holding into the air (Hooray! Bedtime!) and RACED.....into the bathroom.

I looked at her quizzically so she sprinted back out into the hall....and then straight back into the bathroom.

Finally, after sitting patiently while my husband and I laughed, she seemed to have an ah-ha moment, ran out of the bathroom and disappeared down the hall. Seconds later, we heard her put herself in her crate.

What do you think made her confuse the bathroom with her crate? All I can think is that it's also a small space? Although not really compared to her crate...

Poodle brains are fascinating.

 

[For Want of Poodle]

Hahaha, silly Peggy!!!

No idea, but Annie is similar. I will tell her to go to bed (her command to go to her crate), and she will run and jump on MY bed. No, sorry, you aren't getting this raw meat on my bed!! I feel like she is just telling me her preferred location. Huh, or now that I think of it, maybe it's my fault. I sometimes use "up on the bed" as a command, so maybe she's figured out the word bed...

 

[Porkchop]

Maybe she misheard and thought you said “time for bath.” She thought she hit the jackpot and was going to get to splash the elusive tub water.

 

[cowpony]

Do you normally brush your teeth etc. in the bathroom before you put her in the crate & go to bed? Maybe she thought she needed to supervise your flossing.

 

[lily cd re]

Funny girl I think it was either as porkchop suggests and she misheard or she thought you were skipping out on something that happns in the bathroom, like brushing her teeth.

 

[PeggyTheParti]

After a few nights spent studying this poodle of mine, I suspect she's conflated the "In" command with my more casual announcement that it's time for bed, which typically precedes it. Would that be considered back-chaining?

So when I declared it bedtime while standing in a spot I don't usually stand (the hall) her brain raced for something she could go "In" to, and the bathroom won. 😂

This girl reminds me every day that I truly know very, very little about dog training.