We have been trying to potty train our nearly 7 month old Silky Terrier. The breeder said the dog was pad trained, but we think she only uses the pad by accident!
We have been following the advice of "experts" on crate training / potty training. They suggest you feed them and then every 15 - 30 min. keep taking them to the pad to "go." We think we must be doing it wrong.
Penny is crate trained (or lap trained LOL), maybe overly so. We feed her and then she gets in and out of the crate or our lap every 15 minutes until she goes both potty and poop. In other words, she doesn't get to play until business is done. (They say we are not supposed to let her have accidents.)
This is NOT working because she will just hold it many times. For instance, she ate dinner last night at 7pm and then breakfast this morning and still did not poop until this afternoon. (That was when we decided we wanted to eliminate no matter what and so we let her poop on an un-carpeted floor instead of making her go on her pad.) I know that if I "trust" her to follow me to the kitchen or something that she will poop somewhere. She will not poop on that pad willingly. The only time she goes poop on the pad is when we finally let her loose and once she starts we pick her up and make her finish on the pad. :-/
She will often potty a foot away from the pad, and she doesn't give a warning. Yes, sometimes she is sniffing, but she will not stand on the pad and go if we put her there. If we let her walk around she will walk off the pad and just quickly squat without warning. She will just be walking and lean forward and go.
Some say to stop her when she is going in the wrong place by saying "stop!." The problem with that is that she will NOT finish when we put her on the pad and it may be up to 2 hours before she will "finish" if we don't let her run around and just go where she wants. (I would rather let her finish off the pad so she can get to play some.)
All of this adds up to very little exercise and freedom. She is on an eating schedule (eats morning and evening) and either stays in our lap or crated until she fully goes. We say "go potty" when she goes and praise her tons when she does it in the correct place.
The last advice we got, we have not tried. We have been told to just stand her on the pad and not let her off until she goes. To not let her walk at all off the pad. They said we should do this on the pad, to the crate and back until she goes every time until she "gets" it.
I have read a bunch here, but I did not find anything specifically on this kind of problem. Sorry if I am asking a question that has been asked umpteen times. Any advice will be much appreciated.
Thanks, Tracie
