Just a little update from us... Nikko hasn't had an accident in well over a month now - I've stopped keeping track. We're looking into doggie doors right now, but for the moment we tend to leave the door out into our tiny fenced yard cracked for him to slip in and out of during the day. If it's cold or at night, he'll ring the bell and we'll let him out. He will still abuse the bell if he just wants to go out and feel the sunshine or sniff some outdoors air, but that's part of why we're looking into a doggie door.
It's wonderful... I generally only see him actually pee/poo a couple times a day, and he still gets treats when I catch him in the act, but I know he goes out on his own fairly often to do his business when we're not paying attention. I am sooooo thankful that we were obsessive about his training in the beginning - it was so stressful and hard and time-consuming, but now I completely don't even worry about anything potty related at all! It's a huge burden lifted.
I'm not posting this to brag, but more just to show that with enough work, there IS hope. At the beginning of this thread, we were only about two weeks into an accident-free streak, and we were still watching and treating Nikko for pees all the time, completely obsessive.
I also want to mention how long it took us too, for anyone who is getting frustrated with a young pup. We got Nikko when he was three months old. He had his good days and bad days for about a month and a half after that - and most of them were bad days, unfortunately. At about the month and a half mark, I think he started to catch on, and over a period of about two weeks after that, he only had a couple accidents. But it wasn't until two whole months after we'd gotten him, when he reached 5 months old, that he finally seemed to be truly trained and the accidents stopped altogether.
Anyways, that all I guess... Good luck to everyone still in the trenches, and btw - listen to Quicksilver, she gives great advice!
You can do it, Thor!
Lauren & Nikko
FenceLaureninBackground.jpg