[Yorkieforme]

Originally Posted by KathyK09

Mariah is now about 7 months old and is pee-pad trained. She is in an x-pen while we are at school/work during the day and anytime we can't closely supervise her. We put her x-pen in the kitchen which is centrally located in our house. She usually only has access to the kitchen and family room when loose.

When we were first pee-pad training her we would let her out of her pen and closely supervise her. We began by taking her back to her pen & pee-pads every 30-45 min to "go potty". We actually set a timer so that we didn't forget. We would walk her back to the x-pen and put her in her pen and close the door. I would then sit on the floor next to the pen and tell her to "go potty". Eventually she would go and I would immediately tell her "good girl, going potty, etc" give her a treat and lots of praise then let her back out. We would follow this routine every 30-45 min or anytime I suspected she had to go. If I could not closely supervise her I would put her back in the pen.

Eventually we got to the point where we coaxed her to go in the pen by herself and then told her to "go potty". She would pee on the pad every single time (on command) and then we would hugely praise and give a treat! It worked really, really well! Very quickly she learned to go during these times (although she has never pooped “on command” she didn’t have any accidents either - she seemed to go during the day or night while contained in her x-pen). It got to the point where we coaxed her to go into her pen by herself and with the door open she stayed in there and "went potty"!

This process took a couple of weeks. Eventually we got to where the point where she was totally pee-pad trained. Now when she is loose her x-pen door stays open - and completely on her own - she goes in and does her business.

We are now training her to also go outside. To help with the process we have put a collar with a bell on it to keep track of her – which really helps, as she is really active. We don’t use the collar to hook her to a leash or anything – we also use a harness for that purpose.

It’s important to keep them contained in a smaller area and closely supervised – this is why at 7 months she still only has access to the kitchen and one other room. I hope this helps! Good Luck!

Well said and Ditto