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Originally Posted by lucky22895 We've had Lily since Christmas and decided to pad train since it was very cold here. She did ok at first, but would never poop on the pad and soon began confusing scatter rugs for the pads and eventually went wherever she wanted. I've decided to train her outside since. She sleeps with us all night and holds it when we get up I take her out and she usually pees (this is the last few days), but does not poop after eating. It's like she holds it and doesn't want to go outside the few times she's gone I think she just couldn't hold it anymore. When we leave I put her in the crate and she does fine. When we are home I've been keeping her on a leash next to me because if she's loose she'll go wherever. She doesn't bark to go outside it's just that I happen to take her out so she goes. When, if ever will she tell me she needs to go out? I feel bad leaving her on the leash, but I have no intentions of letting her go wherever. Any suggestions/ ideas? I'm concerned that because she's so old these bad habits are cemented and she'll never get it. |
Welcome to YT.
It's never too late, some just take a long time. A year or better. Keep doing what you are doing and she will eventually get the idea.
Watch her for signs that she is about to go, sniffing circling, squattring, then say potty, or whatever, take her out. As she is going, say pee or poop or potty so she begins to associate the word with the action, then reward her.
When she is not on the leash keep her in a crate or a very small area, like an ex-pen, with just her bed and food and a pee pad.
In the morning, mine get up and go out immediately and they pee. They come in and I give them soft food for breakfast, which they gobble down, and immediately afterwards they go back out to poop. Eating stimulates the need to poop.
Just because a dog is trained in one room of the house does not mean they will be trained in all rooms. Each room might require a separate lesson.
What I did, if they had a favorite place on the floor that they wanted to relieve themselves on, is to set their bed or toybox over that spot for a while. That worked very well.
Some times feeding them at regular times, rather then free feeding, helps you to know when they might need to go.
Keep trying, don't give up on her, it just takes time and patience. They really do want to please you. And she might even be telling you that she needs to go out, but you aren't picking up on her signal.
They work as hard at trying to communicate with us, as we do with them.