Quote:
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.
