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Originally Posted by lemonlauren  oooooo boy, I am the LemonLauren with the little "stinker" named Nikko :-) We actually officially call him "turdbrain," but I guess that's just semantics. I totally understand your problem, and am happy to commiserate with you.
At first, we ignored bell-ringing when we were pretty sure Nikko didn't have to pee/poo. At 4-5mo old, this resulted in peeing in somewhat hidden places along the edges of our living room, and we officially regretted ignoring his bell ringing, and we made some major changes to help rectify the situation. So please, at the very least, don't ignore the bell ringing, as abusive as it might become. And I know how ridiculously annoying and frustrating it can be, really. 
I honestly don't have any awesome magical solutions yet, as Nikko is only 6mo old right now, but we have found a few tricks and halfway solutions to at least help him to become 31 days now without any indoor accidents... and to cut back on the bell abuse. But Nikko is still unfortunately a bell abuser of sorts. We've just learned to adapt a little ourselves, to make our life a bit easier, and to somewhat cut down on his abuse.
I'll help as much as I can, if you can give me some more info.... How old is your pup? Do you have a fenced in yard? Is she already housetrained, and is just learning the bell, or is the bell training happening in tandem with housetraining? Does she have the bell by a door that is only used for potty, or is this door also used for other things (like going for walks, car rides, people entering and exiting your residence, etc.)?
Lauren & Nikko |
Thanks for your reply! She is 13 weeks old and we're housetraining her and bell training at the same time. The bell is at the front door but not attached to it, it's on the floor. This is the only place she can go out on her own 4 feet because we have a deck on the back and a garage on the side. We do not have a fenced in yard so I take her out on a leash. Usually only visitors come through this door. The funny thing is, if we try to ignore it, she waits to see if we are going to react and if we don't, she rings it longer then sits by the door and waits. She is relentless until she goes out. If I just sneak upstairs to turn the drier on, she rings the bell. I've tried peaking my head downstairs and saying"I'll be right down, Noelle" She looks up at me and I see her little paw going for the bell. It would be hysterically funny if it weren't so exasperating.
When she does it when I'm on the phone, I do take her out. At first I was amazed at how quick she caught on to it and she has very few if any accidents in the house. But wow, I'm starting to feel like Noelle's servant.