My older dog is bell trained, we are still working on the new one! We went to Michaels and got a large bell and used thin ribbon to hang it with. We only take the dogs out of one door, so we put the bell by that door. Basically, here is what we did...
We put a little peanut butter on the bell and waited for Jaxon to go up to it. I put him in the area and he went right to it and made it ring. After he rang it, we immediately scooped him up, told him "potty outside" and then took him out. When we came back in, we cleaned off the bell. Anytime he rang it, he went out. He quickly realized that the bell means outside. You really have to be consistent though, every time it rings for the first week or so, take them out.
There is only ONE problem with the bell, and I saw another poster wrote this. If your dog loves to be outside they'll link the bell with outside, or as mine does, link it with attention. What we do, is as soon as Jaxon rings the bell, we take him out. If he doesn't potty we bring him in and crate him. He learned that ringing the bell is for potty only.
We've had good luck so far with him, but our little girl prefers to just come tell us she has to go potty!
Good Luck!! |