[bertuseng]

Hi there,

I have read through this forum and a few books and picked up lots of strategies for potty training a puppy, but I must say after 1 and a half month we are on the verge of giving up hope with this one. It seems that Yorkies are just impossible to potty train. Even some of our friends with older yorkies, just sigh and says its impossible. But we don't want to give up with our first puppy.

I will explain our our surcumstances and I hope that someone would be able to give me a realistic strategy that we can follow.

Here we go:

We have an almost 3 month old Yorkie female, Lucy. Me and my wife got her when it was 8 weeks old. We live in a 1 bedroom house with a study. My wife is at work until about 3PM, but I am working at home the whole day in my study.

We didn't want to give the dog access to the outside area, because she was so little, but she can have free access to outside now. THe thing is - she doesn't associate outside with potty. She sees it as a chance to explore and have fun. First we tried to watch for her signs and take her outside to do her business, but this doesnt work, as she just wants to play. Then when we come inside, she pees. Because I am also working the whole time, it is difficult for me to watch for her signs, even though she is in my study most of the time, while I work. So the outside pee doesnt work. We try take her outside when its pee time, like after meals, after waking up etc, but this hardly works. She just pees inside when she comes in.

Then we started getting doggy pads and now have 3 pads in our house. 1 Just outside our bedroom and study door. One in the front of our living room and one on other side of living room, where the dining room table is. (this is where she use do her business most of the times.)

The pads are scented and she pees and poos by herself on (or close to) the pads about 60% of the time. But we have 3 pads, and she still can't get it that she needs to pee on the pad. We want to reduce the number of pads, but I am not too sure it will work. The times I do catch her doing her business on the pad, I reward her with a treat and "good", but this happens only once or twice a day, so it isnt a big incentive for her.

We don't want to keep her in a crate, as she cries too much when not close to us, and we don't know how else we are going to train her. It is not feasible for me to watch her constently for her signs when I work during the day. And when my wife comes home, she still has free roam of the small house and although we spot her sometimes, we cannot watch her all the time. You keep watching him and then just suddenly he sneaked away for a quick poo or pee.

What are we supposed to do? How are we going to reward him for peeing on his pads if he never does it while we are looking? Also, we want him to pee outside. How are we going to transition this?

If anyone can taylor made a plan of action for our household that is realistic, or give us good advice for a dog that just doesn't seem to care where she does her business, we will appreciate it so much.

Thank you,

Bertus and Dorita