We got this cute little monster three weeks ago… meet Yoda 😉 He is the newest member of our family and MOST of the time a great family pet. We love him to death.
Unfortunately we got him at 11 weeks after he had already been potty trained on newspaper. I am beyond frustrated at this point on how to potty train this little guy. He will FIGHT to get back into the house when we take him out to go. Or he will be outside playing for a good hour and come inside to go. At first I continued the paper training with puppy pads and then I tried to slowly move them out through the doggy door and finally placed them outside. Now he just pees and does his business on my carpet 🙁
I bought the puppy training crate a couple weeks ago as it was a crazy deal at PetCo! Again, he is great about not going in there. Then we let him out and put him straight outside. He will continue to hold until he gets back in the house. I am stumped!
Anyone have some ideas and tips for me?
From what the people at pet smart told us for our dog you have to wait him out and when he goes outside and uses the bathroom make a big deal about it petting him and giving him a treat and he’ll start to associate going outside with getting praises.
He sounds like a stubborn one. You’re gonna have to go all “tough mother” on this one I think. lol If he’s crate trained (yay, that’s a positive), then use that to your advantage. Take him out of his crate, take him outside on a leash and walk him around for about 10 minutes. If he goes, act like he saved the world and give him a special “potty only” treat (I used sliced and quartered hot dogs). THEN he can run around and play for a while. If he doesn’t go, back in the crate he goes until the next time you try (and since he’s so young, I’d take him out every hour). It shouldn’t take him long to catch on that pottying outside = fun and not pottying = unfun. If you don’t want him in the crate so much, just tether him to you. That way he can’t sneak off and potty in the house. If he was paper trained, he’s got some brains in his head, you just have to encourage him to use them. 🙂
OMG, what a cutie!!
My dog was neglected and over a year old when we got her, so housebreaking her was a HUGE challenge. I got the book Good Owners, Great Dogs which was a gigantic help, and I still refer to it years later for the little things.
Crate training was the best thing I did for my dog. She started out hating it, but I filled up a little Kong full of a mixture of cream cheese and meat scraps every.single.time I put her in there. I eventually switched to peanut butter, and now she LOVES her crate. Back to housebreaking…
If she didn’t go potty outside, I’d put her in her crate with her Kong and set a timer for 15 minutes. Then I’d take her outside on a leash with a really good treat (real meat) in my pocket. If she went, she’d get a treat immediately along with tons of “good girl!!”s. If she didn’t go it was back in the crate for 15 minutes, then back outside on the leash. Repeat until she went. Once she went and had her little treat, we’d go back inside, she could be “free” and I’d set the timer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, we’d go back outside with the leash. If she didn’t go then I’d set the timer for 15 minutes and let her be free for 15 minutes. Then outside. If she didn’t go again, we’d go back to the crate/Kong routine every 15 minutes until she went.
This was practically a full-time job, but it was very effective! If I strayed from the routine she’d pee on the floor. Eventually she started going to the back door, where she’d get praise and a tiny treat before she even went outside. That encouraged her to go to the door when she had to go out. Then someone would take her out on a leash and be ready with a treat whenever she went outside.
I think the key was consistency, and it was like having a newborn baby for about a month 🙂
Thanks 🙂 Very helpful though!!!!
Oh, dear. Sorry that was so long! xoxo
So cute! But I don’t miss the puppy days!! We used the crate. Ours spent the better part of the day in it, come out to go potty, if she didn’t go…back in the crate. Once she went, lots of love and praise then she could play in the house for a supervised short time…then….back in the crate. repeat… It lasted only a few weeks then the time out of the crate became longer and longer. They also make some spray I hear it works–you spray where they go and they don’t want to go there again (“No Go” or something like that). Also, yours looks like a Cocker? I had one for about 12 years…that dog was very difficult to teach. Good luck!
Yup — he is a Cocker. Such a sweety but definitely NOT learning to go outside! LOL
I don’t know if you have solved your problem yet, but here is another idea that worked for me. After I put in a dog run, I needed to teach my 4 dogs that’s where they needed to potty not play, and I didn’t want them to use the front of it for obvious reasons. I bought something call Wee-Wee Housebreaking Air Spray for puppies (my dogs are older and it still worked) at my local pet supply strore. Before I took them out in the run the first time, I sprayed the lower back two thirds of the run. It worked the very first time I took them out. I continued to spray the run the same way for about 3 days before taking them out, and it has never been a problem. Of course, lots of praise helped too. Showing them where to potty is a big help, since all we as humans seem to do is say “no, not there”!