 House training
It might be more helpful to get a professional dog trainer if the dog is 4 years + old now. However, until you get to that point, you can try these suggestions if you have not already tried them.
1).Using a treat and a word that you would like to represent peeing or pottying or those very words, take your dog for a walk. When she is in the act of using the bathroom repeat the "magic" word continually so that she can hear them distinctly. When she finishes, say Good Pee, (or your word for it) and give her a treat! Repeat this every time she goes pee or potty!
Continue this until the dog "gets it" . Before you leave for work in the morning, and again when you get home from work when you let her out of the crate, first thing, outside to use the bathroom and use the magic words!.
Clean up accidents with out fussing out loud at the dog.
It will depend on the dog and continuing practice as to how long this will take to learn.
Also, I would limit the food and water late at night. If she is not too small and you don't have to worry about hypoglycemia, she dosn't need food until morning anyway.
When you are at home, keep her in the crate while you are doing things that don't involve her, then let her out to pee and potty first then play. Make sure the crate is clean before you put her back in, every time. So she dosn't associate the crate with bathroom activity.
2) I have heard of some folks having great success with using clicker training with house training too.
you can look up Karen Pryor's website and there are others too. If you watch enough of the free videos, you can get some ideas on how to train your dog to go outside to pee using a clicker. It still depends on the dog and whether they "get it" or not. I have not used any clicker methods yet, but they look very interesting and I want to try using the clicker to train my dog doing something!
I forget who suggested it, but someone here on the Yorkie talk forum suggested the clicker training.
Good luck! |