Background: Milo is 1.5 years old. He was pee pad trained, but I've since transitioned him to pee outside (crate training) because I don't want to deal with pee pads anymore
So I've been teaching Milo to ring a bell to go pee using the steps listed here:
How to Train Your Dog to Ring a Bell to Go Out | eHow.com
but I'm kind of stuck. He'll ring the bell if I'm standing by it (without me saying anything), but he never rings it completely on his own when I'm just watching TV or whatever....it defeats the purpose of a bell. How do I get him to ring it to tell me he needs to pee?
Also, he hasn't had any pee accidents in the house, but that's because I take him out every 4-5 hours and crate him when I can't watch him....but he poops inside the house
he does poop on walks, but for some reason he doesn't let it all out. How do I fix this?
And a final question about crate training: when can I stop crating him completely? I've let him have free range of the apartment a couple times this week while I'm gone for a couple hours just as a test and both times I came home to find poop on the carpet