Housetraining ........ the saga !!!

[chorbs]

Jamie is now just over four months old. We've had her for two months. She seems to be settling in pretty good; her elimination habits seem to be regulating; she's getting used to the routines; she's definitely learned 'sit' and 'lay down', we're working on others.

But after two months of working on it, trying to always follow all the rules, Jamie proceeds to squat on my bed this morning .... and take a pee!!! I swear she's just not 'getting it' !!! My whole big house and she pretty much lives in the mud room, and sometimes the kitchen. She's only allowed in the rest of the house if someone is right by her side, because if she decides she has to go she pretty much squats where ever she is ... and goes ! I'm on her most of the time and she's taken out a lot so she's not accidenting as much as she was, plus I"m outside working a lot and she's usually with me, but she certainly doesn't yet seem to be able to hold it for very long ..... just goes when and where she wants. Albeit lately it's always a 'pee' accident (not really an accident as she's doing it intentionally !), hasn't pooed in the house for a week or so.

It's gotten very old. I'd SOOOO love to take the baby gate down and have her just living in the house with the four people and four cats; but I just can't allow it. I don't know what else to try or do !!!

[Nettle]

Have a read through our pinned thread on how to potty-train your dog. It really works. Come back to us with your questions.

Your pup is very young yet, so needs your guidance in order to behave the way you want.

[doggiedad]

i think you should take the baby gate down
and let here be near the family so you can
train and socialize her. take her out often.
you could always tether to you when she's
in the house. when my dog was 4 months
we were taking out him out every 2 hours or so.
he always had to go in the middle of the night.
he would wake one of us to take him out. he was never denied.

[doggymama]

My puppy girl is 10 months and still not 100% house trained. She clearly prefers to wee on the carpeted areas of the house (ie all rooms apart from the kitchen) so I just know I can't trust her to get the run of the house. She has a crate where she sleeps at night; her and our other dog. They have a bed each inside the crate. Dogs don't like to do toilet where they sleep, so it's a good way of training the puppy to ''hold it in'' at night time. She can go for 8 hours without needing toilet now, and will do it first thing in the morning when I let them out. That's when she's in the crate - every single time I've accidentally let them run around the house she is guaranteed to wee in the wrong place. So I just have to remember never to let her in any other rooms unsupervised. If she is about to do a wee or poo in the wrong place, or even if she's just done toilet in the wrong place, I take her outside and say ''wee wee and poo poo''.
Now, I can take her outside when I KNOW she's due a wee, and put her in the garden and say ''wee wee''. She knows what to do - and I'm proud to say that she usually can wee on command - it takes a little while sometimes. She is getting better with the house training but it's been a long journey. Our (once) cream carpets now have grey stains all over them..in the hallway, bedroom, utility room, living room, office, guest room and dining room! PHEW! But we've said that once she's properly house trained, we're gonna get a professional carpet cleaner in.

[jacksdad]

just some thoughts....

crates. while dogs prefer to not bathroom where they sleep, if you ask your dog to hold it longer than is reasonable, they WILL go in their crates. crates will encourage your your dog to "hold" it, but does not teach them where you want them to go.

making it 8/9 hours over night. just like us, their bodies slow down at night while asleep. it isn't overly unrealistic to ask a healthy adult (key being adult and healthy) to have a final bathroom break just before going to sleep to be able to make it over night, but this does not translate to during the day. during the day it's not unrealistic OR even unreasonable for your dog to need to be let out to bathroom much more frequently.

keep your dogs age in mind, the dog may look "adult" but is it? try and avoid asking a puppy in an "adults" body to go between breaks longer than is reasonable.

rescue dogs, might be adults, but that doesn't mean they know that bathroom in the house is "wrong"

if your dog doesn't seem to be "getting it"...maybe you need to back things off a "step or two" and take your dog out every half hour or hour and rebuild back up from there. initially don't be stingy with the reward for getting it right. and as frustrating as it might be, resist punishing for going in the house. if you aren't blocking access to part of the house you don't want your dog going in or if your not taking your dog out frequent enough, punish your self, not your dog.

don't ask dogs to hold it longer than is necessary/reasonable. try to give regular breaks, we humans don't hold it for 8 hours just because, we go when we need to. but because we keep our dogs indoors a lot more these days we do ask our dogs to hold it more than is "natural". my 2 cents...just because your dog can pull off the odd 8/9 hour "hold it" during the day doesn't mean we should ask that day in day out. find a way to give breaks in the 4 - 6 hour range. Again, assuming a healthy adult dog. sick or older dogs may need to be given more frequent breaks.

here is the link to the dog house training thread viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6125