Housebreaking, I feel imcompetent, help!

[Tiffany]

We got a puppy three weeks ago when he was ten weeks old, so now he is 13 weeks old. The breeder said that he was partialy housebroken, but I think the case was more, when he is outside playing he also happens to go the bathroom. He wasn't housebroken at all, but getting a puppy I didn't really expect him to be. At times he seems to go so good but then there are times like tonight when I have taken him out so may times, he fools around outside and then has an accident inside. I just feel at my wits end sometimes.

My schedule right now is:
6:15 get him out of his crate and take him outside, he usually does #1 and #2, then we have play time
7:15 take him outside and put him in crate when I leave for work, just #1
He is doing well with this and rarely has an accident in the morning anymore. Occasionally he will leave a small turd on the floor, like he can't get all his business done at once outside.

5:00 I get get home and take him out, will go #1 twice and it take me like 20 minutes of being outside sometimes to get him to do #2, other times he is quicker. Then we play

6:30 take him outside and put him in his crate, most of the time just #1
7:15 get him up and take him outside, then have some playtime

9:30/10 take him outsde and put him to bed, #1 & #2.
Then if he wakes up when I go to bed I take him outside.

Then I take him out a lot in between, when ever he seems to be sniffing and turning a circle, but sometimes I turn my back for a second and there is an accident on the floor. I praise him greatly when he does go the bathroom outside, he gets a treat and many "good boy"s.

He just doesn't have an 'I've gotta go' signal. I just bought a bell for next to the door, and I use his paw to ring it before we go out, and I have heard that that will work eventually. Does anyone have any suggestions, I just feel like I am doing something wrong. Sometimes he will turn circles inside and we go out right away and then he does nothing. He just gets so distracted by leaves, cars, voices from other people's yards.... I know it will take him some time but I feel like I am missing some part of the process. HELP!

[la_bride_2004]

Wow, couple of things.

First, in my experience, a dog at 13 weeks can't hold it ten hours during the day! I couldn't hold it for 10 hours, come to think of it. I think your day crate time is too long, and the night crate time. Perhaps when the dog is more mature he'll have a better developed bladder and can withstand it. (I have small dogs, so even at adults their MAX capacity is 7 hours, and that's pushing it.)

Also, thirteen weeks is young! It takes a bit for them developmentally to understand the bell concept. If you hang in there, they WILL get it though. My guys start crying or run to the door now if they need to go. I also came up with a "keyword" (for us it's "do it do it do it do it!"). Every time I saw them going outside I would chant this over and over. Now if I need them to go, I say it and they run right out and do their business. It took a few months though.

For me, housebreaking was easy, but I stuck to an iron-clad schedule in the beginning. My little guys did not get to play, eat, or come inside until they had done their business outside. I also let them out religiously every four hours in the beginning (day and night). Here was our schedule:

12 a.m.- last time out
4 a.m.- outside break, then back to the crate
6 a.m.- outside break, when they finished, breakfast and then back to bed/crate
9 a.m. outside break, inside play time
12 p.m. outside break, run around in the backyard for a few hours. Lunch after potty break (in the beginning, puppies do well with 3 feedings a day.)

etc. etc. (adding in walks, more nap time, dinner, etc.)


Luckily, my husband and I work opposite schedules, and I was a full-time student during the housebreaking time!! Yes, it was exhausting, but worth it, as they only made one or two accidents and are now trained for life.

I'd check out a few dog training books as well- my favorite was "The Art of Raising a Puppy" by the Monks of New Skete.

[Tiffany]

He does well during the day and has never had an accident in his crate, ever. I don't like leaving him in his crate the whole day, for the first two weeks after we got him I came home at lunch. I would let him out when I got home, I would scarf down some food, take him out again and then head back to work. But then I started getting sick from eating so fast and rushing so much, so this last week I did not do that. We are in a new neighborhood and don't have anyone nearby that doesn't work that could take him out. Our main problem just occurs in the evening.

The first week he would wake up and whimper when I went to bed so I would take him outside, but now he doesn't even wake up so I just let him sleep.

We haven't really been playing outside too often since it has been rainy,snowy, windy crappy cold weather. When we go outside, I take him to the side yard on his leash and we don't play durning that time. The couple times we have had nice days I will let him out in the fenced back yard and play with him and give him some time to run around.

I had seen that "The Art of Raising a Puppy", I have been trying to save a couple $$ and just get ones that the library has, but their selection is slim and outdated, so maybe I will have to stop by Barnes and Noble tomorrow.

[ejs]

Here is a link from my local Humane Society that might help you:
http://www.hssv.org/LIBRARY/PDF/Behavior/housetraining.pdf

[curlygurl]

Couple of things that worked well for us:

If its a potty trip out - and he didn't go then he returned back to the crate. Try again in about 30 minutes. Repeat until he went. Then he got playtime and my full attention. It also helped to have a code word to mean that he needs to go to the bathroom. They really do want to please - its just a combination of learning what we expect of them and then loving on them like crazy when they "get it".
I only let him out of the crate if I was able to give him my full attention. Its so important to catch accidents when they are happening, and that's impossible if you aren't watching him like a hawk.
I actually rang the bell myself with every trip out. He eventually got the idea, but this took longer than the actual housebreaking training. You'll know he gets it - when he rings the bell all the time - since he finally realizes that bell means out. We curbed that by telling him his bathroom code word - and if he didn't go, back in the crate, even if we were in the middle of playtime.
Puppy breaks are really pretty much based on when they eat, so I fed him first thing in the morning - so that he'd be ready to go before I left.


Best of luck - give it time and I'm sure you'll have success soon enough.

[ManteoChik]

Well for starters....the dog is only out of it's crate for 1 1/2 hours a day (it seems like from your scheduel) 5-6:60.....why is he going into his crate at 6:30pm??? (am I reading that correctly?) As long as you are home, your dog should be out with you playing and socializing...especially if he/she has been in a crate from 7am-5pm.

Puppies need to be watched constantly, so EVERY time they eat or drink ANYTHING they need to be taken outside as soon as they finished. Also, they need to be taken out as soon as they finish playing because an excited puppy usually has to pee.

Please don't think I'm trying to sound rude because I don't mean to sound that way at all....it's just I'm a bid advocate for not getting a puppy unless you truely have the time to spend with it. I'm not saying you don't love your puppy (because I'm sure you do), but 10 hours is *way* too long for a 13 week old puppy to be in a crate without a potty break.

[pewee9196]

Does the breed have history of being poor house trainers? My breed is so we have struggled. My dog lets us know but very subtle! Be patient and try some of the tips given. It took my dog a long time to be very consistent. My DH were not always consistent with him- not intentionally just my DH would not pay attention to him enough. Good luck I know how frustrating it can be!

[j*east]

Your puppy may be too young for this, but a thought on accidents...if you can catch him doing it just once or twice, and immediately say NO and pick him up and take him outside super fast...he will get the message that going inside is not OK. Our dog was pretty well trained, but still didn't seem to get that it wasn't okay to go inside...until we caught her twice, said NO firmly and whisked her outside. That scared her and she got the point. We didn't yell or anything, we were just firm and took her outside. She hasn't had an accident since those times.

She doesn't have any signals for going out...we just have a regular schedule of walks at about 6:30 a.m., 4 p.m., and bedtime. (She's 2 1/2 now though...until age two, we walked her 4-5 times a day: 7 am, noonish (one of us would come home from work), 4 pm, bedtime, and sometimes an extra evening walk.) Are you walking your dog, or just going outside? Some dogs need to walk around (10-15 minutes) to get things moving. Just going out may not clue them in that it's time to go, just as we humans can't go on demand.

I'm not sure on how long a 12 week old puppy can stay inside, though, which may be part of it. Good luck! Your puppy will grow and get through this. :)

[Tiffany]

I have a Sheltie puppy, the books I have don't mention whether or not they are harder to housetrain or not.

For the most part it looks like I am pretty close to the schedule that is on the humane society's link that ejs posted(thanks for that) , for puppies 3-6 months old where the owner works. So I feel a little better. It is just not feasible for me to come home at lunch and still keep myself healthy. DH would be in no way able to even drive home and back on his lunch hour let alone have time to let the pup out.

Right now he is out for and hour in the morning, and hour and a half before dinner and then about two and a half hours before bed. My friend that used to work at the humane society suggested that we put him in his crate for about 45 mintues in the evening so that he has more structured times on when he needs to go out. Most of the time he is getting a little worn out from playing and laying in his bed in the living room when we put him in the crate at 6:30.

I do always supervise him when he is out playing, the times he has had accident have been quick moments when I haven't been in the room, like when I go into the bathroom or to check on dinner or change into my pajamas, just quick things like that. I used to take him out everytime he would sniff around on the floor but most of the time he wouldn't have to go. He sniffs before he lays down somewhere, sniffs around his toys, he ust seems to sniff constantly. The poop signals are much easier for me to catch since he will turn a few circles, but for peeing he will just all of a sudden squat, I clap and say 'outside' and take him out right away, but usually by then he is done since he just does short pees.

How do I keep him from food 'grazing' when I have to have the food and water down for the cats?

[jennylou]

How do I keep him from food 'grazing' when I have to have the food and water down for the cats?

Well, I don't limit the amount of water that my dog drinks. Of course, he's about four now, but I've done that since we got him at about 1 years old. As for the food - well that's a constant battle. I think the cat food is like crack for him. Even if he's not hungry - if he sees the cat food - he's going to eat it. In fact, just recently he figured out how to OPEN the cat food holder (where we empty the bags into). How he figured that out I have no idea, but darned if I didn't have an empty cat food container this morning.:(

At any rate, I really do think that it will get better. Remember, he's a puppy and it will take time for him to learn!

Heck, when we adopted our pound puppy (he was about a year), it took him about a year before he learned anything. We even took him to obedience training. The best he can do is walk on his gentle leader (he is a very strong 80 pounder though). Finally, after us working with him for almost a year, he understood that when we said "bedtime" it meant time to go to his crate. He now knows what walk means, as well as outside. All that said to let you know, that your puppy will get it (and probably faster than an older dog) so keep at it!

Also, sometimes my dog acts out. If we leave him too long in his crate and is generally feeling ignored (like, we're super busy so we make sure he goes out but he has no hanging with the pack time - basically outside, eat, inside to crate, then back out) he'll let us know he's mad by going in his crate. So the time outside the crate is very important. Even if we aren't constantly playing, he likes to just hang out in the same room that we are, while I play on the computer or while we watch tv. In fact, he loves his people time so much that he'll follow us from room to room.

Oh, and here's a trick for when you have to go to the bathroom or something, take him with you. I can now trust Otis for a quick bathroom trip (although the door is still open so I can hear if he's doing something he's not supposed to do), but if I'm taking a shower, I bring him into the bathroom with me, that way I know he's not scavenging the cat food - or the garbage. And I know he doesn't mind the bathroom, as I found him sleeping in the tub the other morning. :p

[jesvet]

At any rate, I really do think that it will get better. Remember, he's a puppy and it will take time for him to learn!


You've gotten some great tips. What jennylou said is key- housebreaking is a process, not something that happens right away. Three weeks isn't that long, he's doing well. Consistency and lots of positive reinforcement are vital and he will get there.

[jbenny75]

I agree. Housebreaking isn't instant. It takes awhile. Whenever I've done housetraining, with my own dogs and fosters, I took the puppies out every half hour-45 minutes and after playing, eating, or drinking. I mean, we went out CONSTANTLY, but they all picked up the idea pretty quickly that way.

Cat food: It was next to impossible for us to keep our first dog out of the cat food, so I moved it to the top of my dryer, and then when we moved into this house, into the basement and the cats got a kitty door to get down there whenever they want. Do you have somewhere to put it where the dog can't get to it?

IMO, your puppy is spending too much time in his crate. After being in a crate 10 hours a day, he should be out in the evenings. It sounds like out of a total day, he's in the crate for 19 hours out of 24. Can you hire a pet sitter to come in during the day to let him out to pee and to give him some playtime and attention? Or you should bite the bullet and come home to let him out for a little while. I agree with this:

Please don't think I'm trying to sound rude because I don't mean to sound that way at all....it's just I'm a bid advocate for not getting a puppy unless you truely have the time to spend with it. I'm not saying you don't love your puppy (because I'm sure you do), but 10 hours is *way* too long for a 13 week old puppy to be in a crate without a potty break.