The dog trainer, Christy, told us we are not using her crate nearly enough (only using it at night and when we go out) and that when she's not in her crate a puppy her age needs to be restricted either to a leash or confined in a small area like the kitchen. We baby gated off the kitchen while she was here, and received much instruction on dog/human body language, tools for correcting bad behavior, a whole new schedule of eating/pottying that now involves us taking her out to potty on a leash and giving her 5 minutes in one spot to do her business before coming back inside. Also she only has 10 minutes (timed on the microwave timer) to eat her food now.
Apparently in addition to just letting her roam around way too freely and roam the back yard to go to the bathroom (or not as the case may be) without supervision, we have been teaching her to bark whenever she wants something, and have no idea if she's gone to the bathroom recently or not so can't tell if her whining/barking is potty related or just attention-seeking.
The good news is that she seems to be inherently a very submissive dog, and her bad behavior is easy to correct. We just need to be consistent and stick with the new routine and the new rules, which include new rules for the kids as well - no sitting on the floor with the dog, no unsupervised play with the dog, only Joel and I are allowed to let her in/out of the crate and take her outside to potty, etc.
We have a couple more sessions with Christy, finishing off with leash training in early January, and after that we have a lifetime guarantee so that if we ever have a behavior problem with Clara, Christy will come back for free to help us correct it.
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