 New Here- This worked for me. =)
I have two Yorkie babies from the same litter. They are now 13 weeks old and fairly house broken all ready. This is what I did...
First each of them has a crate and a cage. During these first few days I kept them in their crate (bed or den) and took them out every 4 hours. It was a little rough=) At 2, 6, 10. Since the books say dogs don't like to eliminate in their "dens", this has worked for me. Outside of the crates inside the cages, I had them use puppy pads for the first couple of days. I then took the puppy pads outside where I wanted them to go, then I just took them to the spot without the pad.
After about another week around the scheduled times (2, 6 and 10) they started to bark/whine and paw at the door to their crates. This lets me know they had to go. If the weather permitted they went outside to potty, if not to the pad.
The next step was; I let the doors of the crates off. I still took them out at regular times but started looking for signs they had to go. As they had more freedom then the crates and more room to make messes. =) They still did the barking/whining thing to tell me they had to go. And I left a pad down so if I don't get to them in time, they'd go on the pad.
The information I have is this. If you have them in the crate and they whine take them out and give them 10 minutes of "potty time" where you say to them "go potty" or whatever your "cue" is. If they don't go put them back in the crate.
We are now in our next phase of training. We've been training for 2 weeks. We still have the doors to the crates open but now we are starting to stretch out the 4 hours. We are working at every 5 hours. So far, so good. There has only been one time when one of them when potty inside and that was when I had my son at the doctor. He was a good boy and went on his pad.
Another thing I remember when reading about house training is that these pups should not have run of the house or large area. Which is why we opted for the the cages. It confines them to smaller areas close to us. The more they show they will not potty in the house the more freedom they get.
Once they learn to potty in the house it's hard to change their minds. But it can be done.
These are the first pups we've used the crate training with. It's working wonders for me. I hope this helps you.
Thanks.
Kay |