[JadeD]

My puppies are house trained for most part. I went the route of doing both pee pad and outdoor training, which I think is more complicated than doing one or the other. I wanted them to have pad's available in case I forget to take them outside, or if the weather is just terrible. I have 4 dogs and the large dog goes strictly outside of course, so no matter the weather he goes outside. My 10 year old Yorkie was never pad trained before I got him so he goes outside. That is 2 trips outside in bad weather. I did not wan to have to puppies out as well when it is pouring down rain, bitter cold, deep snow, etc.

It has worked out well as they rarely have an accident. My male puppy is better pad and outdoor trained than the girl is. He rarely ever goes anywhere except outside or on a pad. The girl will sometimes just go wherever she is standing in the house. They both go fairly well when I take them out. She likes to go out in the morning and pee and then ask to come in and poop on a pad within 5 minutes of coming in. He usually will do both outside unless he already pooped. A lot of mornings he has already pooped on the pad before I have even woke up. He gets up well during the night and does his thing and comes back to bed and curls up with me and goes back to sleep.

It was frustrating for a while. I think house training 2 at once was a lot of work compared to just 1 puppy. Sometimes you don't know who did the mess in the house with 2 of them. Sometimes my older Yorkie has an accident in the house too, making it even harder to know who did what. I do not ever punish my dogs for mistakes in the house, but if I know who did it, I might look at them and say "no, we go potty on the pee pad." I never yell at them for accidents and I don't hit them for anything they do. The only time I raise my voice is if they are barking non stop and it is the only way they will hear me over them. LOL They stop and look at me and I say calmly "Thank you, that is so much better."

They are so worth the work though. They play and cuddle and are great companions. I love having 2 of them and in the future when I am down to 1 dog (probably my current male puppy) and I want new dogs, I think I will get sibling puppies again. Usually we limit our house to 2 dogs, but we currently have 4 because of how circumstances turned out. The female puppy will move out with my daughter though. She adores that puppy! My 10 year old will hopefully be around for a few more years and the big dog is 6, so he has another 1-4 years probably, maybe more. I worry about when my puppy is an only child, but I will see what happens when he is in that situation, he might be fine and love the extra attention, although he is my most spoiled dog. LOL