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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.
