Yeah, so the bell abuse... Like I said, I haven't really found any perfect solutions, but here's what I'm doing so far:
First, putting the bell next to a door that is ONLY used for potty is best. We made the mistake of having it by our front door which we just use for everything, including potty trips in the beginning. Nikko's little puppy brain, ever trying to make connections in his new puppy world, decided that the bell might get him taken outside for a walk, or to see our crazy neighbor and his dog, or maybe over to the other side of our house to pee. Ringing the bell might even make the mailman come, and it might get Nikko picked up into our arms for happy lovins (or really, because we were tired of hearing him ring it!).
When we take Nikko for a walk, we now go out the front door, then come back in through the front door. Then we stop by at his water dish quickly, and then we walk on to the potty door where we take him outside to see if he's worked up any poop on his walk. This extreme separation between what different doors are used for has helped Nikko's abuse a little bit, actually.
Also, and this takes time, and can really only happen after your pup is better potty trained, but I can tell a little bit now (sometimes) when Nikko is just abusing the bell versus when he actually wants to go out to pee. If he's just abusing it, the second he hears me stand up from my computer, he runs over to meet me. If he actually wants to pee, he stays over by the door and waits for me.
I've also been tossing around the idea that bell training would maybe be best after a dog is a little older and more calm and a little less clingy... I'm not sure about that though - I could be thinking that just because I'm frustrated with the bell abuse too.
After your baby starts getting the hang of being housebroken, and has at least a couple weeks with NO accidents, then I suggest getting a fence, even if it's just a cheapie. Here's a thread about a fence I bought and we installed in just about a half hour:
http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/yor...eap-fence.html I bought it kind of on a whim, and it was sooooooo worth it. Now, if Nikko is abusing the bell, I can just leave the door cracked open enough for him to slip out - he may ring the bell still, but the door's already open, so I don't get up. Or sometimes if he rings the bell and I'm right there, I just crack the door open for him to slip out if he wants, then ignore him. I'm hoping he'll start getting it out of his head that ringing the bell means getting my undivided attention, the way it did back when we had to put the leash on him every time. But like I said, I don't think you can start doing this with a fenced-in yard until the pup is really becoming consistent with potty training, because until then you have to be on top of them all the time and knowing exactly when they peed or poo'd last.
Well, that was a lot of rambling. I hope you can find something useful in all of that... Like I said, we still have problems, but it seems to be ever-so-slowly getting better.
Lauren & Nikko