[Ladylavender]

Millie is 100% housebroken and she only goes outside. I have trained her to go outside from the day we got her at 12weeks old. She was reliably housebroken by about 6 months old. She is about 1 1/2 year old now.

I used and x-pen and a crate to keep her confined, ONLY when we could not watch her 100%. The x-pen had her crate in it, a doggie bed and toys. I put her food and water bowl in there too. I was told that they would not poo or pee where they eat and sleep, so I made sure it was very evident to Millie that this was her eat and sleep space. (She never did mess in her crate or her x-pen) When she whined we let her out, she went directly outdoors to pee or poo. I never had a pee pad in there. We never did start on the peepads because I was told by a dog behavioralist to "just say no!" to peepads. She told me that it only encourages the puppy to go in the house when you are trying to establish for them that the entire house is the "den" and it's not ok to go anywhere in the house. So when we were not there I crated her and when we were there, I x-pened her or kept constant watch over her.

With Millie, I made sure that she was never, ever out of my site and we started small, from crate, to x-pen, to one room, to 2 rooms and then to the rest of the house. She never had free range of the house until she was reliably house broken. Small dogs have a different sense of space. A small dog can pee in the corner and feel proud of him/herself. In his mind he's gone as far away from his bed as a full-sized dog who has gone to the far end of the yard. Lots of small dogs have trouble grasping the concept of distance. That is why we taught Millie in stages. Her little world only expanded on her progress with any one room we were working on.

The best advise I can give is that you must be as actively (if not more) involved in the potty training business then even your dogs are. But the rewards are very great if you expend the energy up front.

So while Millie was not a "breeze to train". (she was not stubborn, she was just unconcerned or clueless) She was trainable and because of my diligence she only had 4 mistakes total in the whole 3 months we worked on potty training. Afterwards, it was just a matter of reinforcing what she had learned and was trained to do. Praising, treating and constant reminders thru out the day.

Like stated in the other threads, in the beginning, I took Millie out, a lot! About every 45 min to an hour. I made her walk to the door with me and when she went out to do her business, I went with her. I never left her unattended. I made sure that she understood that she was out there for a reason and one reason only, to go potty. Since our space was enclosed (and it was a very small space) I did not keep her on a leash, however, I would recommend a leash if you don't have a small fenced area. (I did have to put her on a leash when it was raining, because, in the begininng, she really did not want to be out there in the rain, and yes, we made sure she stayed out in the rain (me included) until she did her business. At first, I used the clicker to identify the proper behavior. I would tell her "go potty" and as soon as she squatted, I would click. But because she would hear the click and expect a treat, she sometimes would interup her pee to get the treat, so then when I knew she knew what "go potty" meant, I waited to click until after she was done going pee, but I clicked immediately when she was done, and then treated her.