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Originally Posted by Wallee  We did pretty good all day. I managed to keep his pad dry for the entire day by taking him out as soon as he went anywhere near it or every half hour during play time....but....now we have a very nasty rain storm with high cold winds and he takes one look outside and runs away from the door...sigh...so, he used the pad twice already tonight...He is napping now so will try him outside again when he wakes before we go to bed for the night. |
Oh, I hated bad rain during housebreaking! But believe it or not, once he's really all attuned to going outside and wants to mark out there, he'll go out in the worst of the worst storms. It can be just flooding and the rain coming down so hard Tibbe gets drenched inside 15 seconds and though he'll balk at the door from the sheets coming off the porch, eventually he'll pick his way around the thickest of streams and go on out! I feel so sorry for him but he WILL NOT use a pee pad inside in cases like that. I've tried, taken him to it, said all the right things and even put one on the front porch and taken him out there and he won't use them. He'll just wait until the urge is so bad he can't hold it any more and then out the goes. So he gets big, big praises and a kibble treat or two when he comes back in soaked to the skin. I keep a hair dryer on the Utility Porch to dry him off. But that 30 minute habituation training is what did it when I first got him. He was 9 mos. old and kennel-crazy and all he knew was pottying in his kennel so I just took him out so often he couldn't help but eventually go outside, get big rewards and praises for it and kept being taken out all the time. He finally decided outside peeing and pottying was IT with a capital "I" and boy, he'll sure pester me to go out now when he needs to even when I don't want to move off the couch. He'll bark me out until I get up and let him out.
So hang in there and even during rainy times when you lose a little ground, you can pick up your schedule when the weather is nicer again. It's nice to have a dog with tidy house habits but I do put pads down for him when I leave. The only time he's used one though was when I was in the hospital that night. I'd really feel better if he would use one when I'm gone for over 4 hours! He just won't though. He's definitely an outside kind of guy in the pee/potty department!