After a visit from my mother in law, I need help!!

[UtahBelle]

What is it about mother-in-laws anyway?
Mine came for the weekend and it was her first visit with my 4 month old Lola. Everything was going great until Lola had an accident. I quickly grabbed the cleaning stuff and got to work picking it up. She just stared at me with her mouth open. "are you going to yell at her and rub her nose in it?" she asked. "No", I say "It was my fault I didn't notice she had to go." She smirked at me and said it was no wonder why she was still not potty trained. I mentioned that small breeds were harder to train and she smugly said her 2 chiwawas at home were trained in 6 weeks. She said yorkies were really smart and that you need to punish them or they will never train. I have been thinking about this a lot since she left. I trained Lola to sit in one day. I did this using treats. She gets a treat if she poops outside and I don't think it is working. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to be more harsh? She is potty trained fine if I take her out every two hours, but if she really needs to go she thinks nothing of squating and going wherever she is.
My mother-in-law made a comment that I was too nice and she will end up running the house. I needed to step up and be the alpha-female and show her who is boss. Um, I have never had a dog before and I have no idea if she is right. She does have some well trained dogs at home. Please help! I am sick of the accidents.

PS. I did try to crate-train her when we brought her home at 11 weeks. I think I let her spend too much time out of the crate. Now days she has a whole living room to herself. I have a baby gate keeping her in this room. Because she has had this freedom I feel bad having her spend more time in her crate and she cries in there. She does sleep in the crate at night and we have never had an accident at night with her. Do I need to step up the crate training?

Thanks everyone.

[TresCutePiggies]

Originally Posted by UtahBelle

What is it about mother-in-laws anyway?
Mine came for the weekend and it was her first visit with my 4 month old Lola. Everything was going great until Lola had an accident. I quickly grabbed the cleaning stuff and got to work picking it up. She just stared at me with her mouth open. "are you going to yell at her and rub her nose in it?" she asked. "No", I say "It was my fault I didn't notice she had to go." She smirked at me and said it was no wonder why she was still not potty trained. I mentioned that small breeds were harder to train and she smugly said her 2 chiwawas at home were trained in 6 weeks. She said yorkies were really smart and that you need to punish them or they will never train. I have been thinking about this a lot since she left. I trained Lola to sit in one day. I did this using treats. She gets a treat if she poops outside and I don't think it is working. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to be more harsh? She is potty trained fine if I take her out every two hours, but if she really needs to go she thinks nothing of squating and going wherever she is.
My mother-in-law made a comment that I was too nice and she will end up running the house. I needed to step up and be the alpha-female and show her who is boss. Um, I have never had a dog before and I have no idea if she is right. She does have some well trained dogs at home. Please help! I am sick of the accidents.

PS. I did try to crate-train her when we brought her home at 11 weeks. I think I let her spend too much time out of the crate. Now days she has a whole living room to herself. I have a baby gate keeping her in this room. Because she has had this freedom I feel bad having her spend more time in her crate and she cries in there. She does sleep in the crate at night and we have never had an accident at night with her. Do I need to step up the crate training?

Thanks everyone.

That is very DATED advice with regard to potty training. It does NOT work. I personally believe in positive reinforcement while training. Unless you catch her in the midst of her accident (she is still squatting) yelling no even as she walks away isn't going to do any good - I think you literally have .5 seconds (refractory period) for the dog to make the connection if I can remember anything from all my psychology classes.

[kjayne]

I think that puppies (ANY puppies) take a while to house train - regardless of the breed. Many things you do sound exactly how it is here with Bronx. I have the living room baby gated off at the kitchen so he has free run of the entire living room. He uses the puppy pads really well most of the time, but still occasionally has accidents. As for the crate training, I put Bronx in his for about an hour or so each morning because my husband works nights and is sleeping so I don't want to wake him, but at night Bronx sleeps in his dog pen with his bed and puppy pad. If you wanted to try crating her more and she cries, you could try putting a blanket over the crate. I do that with Bronx and it seems to work great. Best of luck - I think you're doing just fine!

[QuickSilver]

I can't claim to tremendous success potty training Thor, but yorkies are notoriously hard to potty train.

If you look in the training section, I'm sure you'll get lots of ideas. There is more than one way to go about it. She is entitled to train her dogs the way she sees fit and you are entitled to the same leeway.

My guess is that the tension is not really about who has better potty training techniques -- it's good old territory marking, human style! It's tough for most mothers to accept another woman into their sons' lives.

[Lexi Rae]

not for nothing,please dont take your mother in laws advise.
do not rub their face in it.. no way!!!!!!!!!!! i think your doing a fabulous job.
keep up the good work.. lexi will still have and accident , who cares, its
an accident and lexi is going to be 4 yrs old/// your talking about a
4 month old.. these things happen.. you need to be patient.. she is still
a puppy.. if shes peeing all over the house thats one thing, but if its just
an accident here and there, dont worry..

[Nikki+2]

I can sympathize. My mom always told me I needed to give mine a little pop on the bottom with newspaper. Of course I never did and I had to hear a million times that that was why I had so much trouble training them. I am actually pretty bad at training dogs- 2 of my 3 are what I would call housebroken. The other used potty pads and now at 4 yrs old has decided not to. So, I won't even try to offer training advice but as far as your MIL goes, just let it go in one ear and out the other.

[Lexi Rae]

not for nothing,please dont take your mother in laws advise.
do not rub their face in it.. no way!!!!!!!!!!! i think your doing a fabulous job.
keep up the good work.. lexi will still have and accident , who cares, its
an accident and lexi is going to be 4 yrs old/// your talking about a
4 month old.. these things happen.. you need to be patient.. she is still
a puppy.. if shes peeing all over the house thats one thing, but if its just
an accident here and there, dont worry..

[snoopymom]

Here's what I told my daughter in law before she and my son got married: If I offer an opinion that she doesn't agree with, she should say, "Oh, that's very interesting. I'll give that some thought," or "that's one way to look at it--maybe I'll give that a try." Maybe that will work! (Or maybe it's just an interesting idea, that you'll try....haha!)

Seriously though, Snoopy is 11 months old, and I would have to say that he's only been reliably potty trained for the last month. It might take a while, but it'll happen.

[Yorkiekids]

Tell her when she gets old and senile and has an accident you'd be glad to rub her nose in it. You might want to cut your little one down to a smaller room like the kitchen, or bathroom. She will cry a little, but she'll get use to it, and no you're not being mean. Being mean is rubbing her nose in it.

[kelly jo]

HaHaHa, I love the old mother-in-law rubbing her nose in it.....I don't think your doing anything wrong. If I catch Roxy, if she does have an accident, I tell her no and take her right out because it's usually me loosing track of time. You should take one of those urine lights to your mother-in-law's......I can guarentee you those little one's of hers have done things she's unaware of.....if they havn't, save some of your lil one's and spill it on her carpet......tell her see, pee!!!
You don't have to tell her where it came from......lol.....and after she's older you can tell her what you did. She'll be too old to remember.

[Nikki+2]

Originally Posted by snoopymom

Here's what I told my daughter in law before she and my son got married: If I offer an opinion that she doesn't agree with, she should say, "Oh, that's very interesting. I'll give that some thought," or "that's one way to look at it--maybe I'll give that a try." Maybe that will work! (Or maybe it's just an interesting idea, that you'll try....haha!)

Seriously though, Snoopy is 11 months old, and I would have to say that he's only been reliably potty trained for the last month. It might take a while, but it'll happen.

You are brilliant! After 15 years of marriage my MIL and I get along great but those first few years... well that advice would have come in handy.

[lil fu fu girl]

Originally Posted by Yorkiekids

Tell her when she gets old and senile and has an accident you'd be glad to rub her nose in it. You might want to cut your little one down to a smaller room like the kitchen, or bathroom. She will cry a little, but she'll get use to it, and no you're not being mean. Being mean is rubbing her nose in it.

Lol.... Love it.
Please ...please do not rub his nose in it. Their nose is one of their most sensitive areas. Doing that is only cruel, it teaches them to be mean.
When you see them starting to go... use the stern voice or use a can with pennies in it and give it a hard shake and say," NO , Outside".
Then open the door and let him out. Hell, I'm not old but I have accidents too

[megansmomma]

Originally Posted by UtahBelle

What is it about mother-in-laws anyway?
Mine came for the weekend and it was her first visit with my 4 month old Lola. Everything was going great until Lola had an accident. I quickly grabbed the cleaning stuff and got to work picking it up. She just stared at me with her mouth open. "are you going to yell at her and rub her nose in it?" she asked. "No", I say "It was my fault I didn't notice she had to go." She smirked at me and said it was no wonder why she was still not potty trained. I mentioned that small breeds were harder to train and she smugly said her 2 chiwawas at home were trained in 6 weeks. She said yorkies were really smart and that you need to punish them or they will never train. I have been thinking about this a lot since she left. I trained Lola to sit in one day. I did this using treats. She gets a treat if she poops outside and I don't think it is working. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to be more harsh? She is potty trained fine if I take her out every two hours, but if she really needs to go she thinks nothing of squating and going wherever she is.
My mother-in-law made a comment that I was too nice and she will end up running the house. I needed to step up and be the alpha-female and show her who is boss. Um, I have never had a dog before and I have no idea if she is right. She does have some well trained dogs at home. Please help! I am sick of the accidents.

PS. I did try to crate-train her when we brought her home at 11 weeks. I think I let her spend too much time out of the crate. Now days she has a whole living room to herself. I have a baby gate keeping her in this room. Because she has had this freedom I feel bad having her spend more time in her crate and she cries in there. She does sleep in the crate at night and we have never had an accident at night with her. Do I need to step up the crate training?

Thanks everyone.

She is only 4 months old and just a baby! Even 2 hours is a long time to expect her to hold her potty. She is going to go when she needs to go. If you really want to train her then you will need to change a few things that you are doing to become successful.

When you take her outside, you need to only spend just enough time for her to go potty lets just say no longer than 5 minutes. Take her outside and put her on the ground and say "go potty" or whatever other word you want to use. As soon as she does her business you need to give her a treat and praise, pick her up and back into the house. DO NOT wait until you have gone back into the house for her treat. You want her to associate the potty and the treat so you need to give immediate praise and treat. If you are going into the house and getting a treat she will think the treat is for going back into the house and not for potty. Do not allow her to wander around the yard, this is not the time to sniff the bushes, look at the birdies or bark at a falling leaf. It is potty time.

If she goes potty then you can let her have a little freedom, maybe 30 minutes but at some point she needs to be contained. If she did not make her potty you need to either keep her at your side on her leash, put her into her crate or purchase an xpen to contain her. You should never use negative actions on your puppy. It is not necessary to rub her nose, smack her with the newspaper, or yell. Positive reinforcement always works best.

You do need to have control over your pup but negative attention is not the answer.

As for your MIL, just ignore her negative behavior and praise and treat the good. She will learn as well.

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by megansmomma

As for your MIL, just ignore her negative behavior and praise and treat the good. She will learn as well.

Ha! That is great advice. Bring a bag of M 'n Ms with you and toss her one every time she says something nice.

[Karrie]

Potty training is hard - no doubt about it. Each and every person has their own techniques. I personally, disagree with rubbing noses.

That said, I do agree with constant supervision until trained. The idea is to allow the puppy to err and then correct the behavior. If you cannot watch the pup 110% - then it must stay in the crate. Easier said than done - right? Yeah, I know! The #1 mistake is trying to do something else while the puppy is out.

Believe me, this works - we trained Bailey in 2 mos. It was 2 mos of total devotion to Bailey's training. Our lives were completely on hold during those two months - but it was worth it!!! Good Luck!