The world is my potty

[QuickSilver]

Heh. Little Niko is all about gaming the system, it seems!

[lemonlauren]

But of course! And I'm sure Thor is working on scheming fun ways to work your system too

Lauren & Nikko

[bandteachsing]

I am sooo laughing at this thread! Louie who is 13 weeks will go on the pee pad and then squirt in random places throughout the living room. He will hold his pee/poo all night: sometimes even 8 hours. We don't know what is going on.... sometimes he has one paw on the pad and hits the carpet (that we forgive) but then he will leave a little spot over by the TV. We have not tried treats for using the pad but he seemed to "get it" with just praise. Thanks for all the info and laughs: gonna try some treats.

[QuickSilver]

Glad someone got some laughs. bandteachsing, 13 weeks is really young to be potty trained. Unless Louie is a potty savant, you can probably count on a few more months of accidents. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

[QuickSilver]

Thor rang the bell tonight! By accident, and he scared himself silly, but still. I fed him his favorite treats (dehydrated lamb lung, eeeeeew), took him out, and let him sniff everything he wanted, for as long as he wanted.

We had a major debacle last night -- he deliberately marked my kitchen table. I was pissed, no pun intended. I'm putting out more pee pads, so hopefully that will help. My apartment's not that big, so I pretty much have one every ten feet.

[lemonlauren]

LOL, awesome! BTW, where on earth do you get dehydrated lamb lung?!?! I've never hear of that! Sounds totally disgustingly gross (translation in dog language: delicious!).

Sorry to hear about the marking. :-( About a week ago, we thought Nikko was marking at first, but now we think it was just a little backslide in potty training. But he is displaying more and more bits of "manly" behavior every day now, so I know the time is drawing near. A couple days ago, we saw his "lipstick" for the first time - yikes!

Lauren & Nikko

[QuickSilver]

The lamb lung is Solid Gold, L.A. Treats. I bought them online at PetCo on a whim. They are larger than I expected, but Thor goes nuts when I open the bag. I break each treat into a couple dozen pieces and use them for Special Training, as opposed to Ordinary Training treats, Flossies, and then waaaaay down at the bottom of his list, six star dog food. I guess it's easy to be picky when you weigh four pounds.

Enjoy your extra equipment while you can, Nikko!

[QuickSilver]

I cannot believe how long this is taking!

Thor rang the bell for the second time last night, again by accident, though he was not terrified this time. I started letting him out of the living room under supervision. Then today, he has had not one, but TWO accidents on the living room rug, which he has never done before. I don't get it. The only thing I can think of is that letting him back out into the rest of the apartment redefined his "den", so the living room is now a legitimate potty area.

He's been using the living room puppy pad reliably, and of course, a pristine one lies waiting for use five feet away from where he chose to toilet.

The Beatles were right, it's a long and winding road. I am getting reaaaaaaally sick of my living room.

[lemonlauren]

Oh, I feel ya. It's insanely frustrating. I can't believe how difficult this is either! I thought that if we were just really really strict with ourselves, watching him, rewarding him, taking him out, being consistent, etc. that maybe we wouldn't have as many problems as some other people seem to have. Well, I was wrong!

Nikko has recently decided that if he touches the bell and it doesn't ring or if he just walks over sort of close to the bell for a couple seconds then walks away, we should be able to read his mind that he wants to go out. And if we don't read his mind and take him out right away, it's OK then to just pee on the carpet somewhere within a 4ft radius of the bell.

Keep at it... we are too. There's no quitting now! ;-)

Lauren & Nikko

[neceedee]

"i also did the bell thingy, but that didn't work for us, milu didn't understand what it was for. maybe it will work for thor."


What is the bell training you are talking about? Never heard of it.

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by lemonlauren

Oh, I feel ya. It's insanely frustrating. I can't believe how difficult this is either! I thought that if we were just really really strict with ourselves, watching him, rewarding him, taking him out, being consistent, etc. that maybe we wouldn't have as many problems as some other people seem to have. Well, I was wrong!

Nikko has recently decided that if he touches the bell and it doesn't ring or if he just walks over sort of close to the bell for a couple seconds then walks away, we should be able to read his mind that he wants to go out. And if we don't read his mind and take him out right away, it's OK then to just pee on the carpet somewhere within a 4ft radius of the bell.

Keep at it... we are too. There's no quitting now! ;-)

Lauren & Nikko

I hope you don't mind, but this cracked me up. I can totally visualize Nikko thinking, "well, I was NEAR the bell, that's good enough right? Maybe I should actually ring the bell just to be sure, but oops, wait - aaaaaah, that feels better." It's good to know we're not alone!

I have to admit that I too thought I'd be able to housetrain Thor quickly. I have a fair amount of experience training dogs, and I was under the delusion that Thor was "mostly" trained for quite some time. I know Thor is doing the best he can because he can't enough of his nasty dehydrated lamb lung treats. We still believe in you, Nikko and Thor!

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by neceedee

"i also did the bell thingy, but that didn't work for us, milu didn't understand what it was for. maybe it will work for thor."


What is the bell training you are talking about? Never heard of it.

The idea is to give your dog a tool that helps him signal that he needs to "use the facilities." You can just hang Christmas bells on your door, or get a custom potty bell from a pet store. I'm actually using the type of bell you see at hotels for bellhops.

I decided to try it because Thor wasn't giving reliable potty signals. His previous owner took him out every two hours. I originally thought that I'd gotten him on a five hour schedule, but eventually I realized that he was just having tiny accidents in out of the way places. It's pretty much been a downward spiral from there.

The theory is that every time you take the dog outside, you ring the bell, or help him ring the bell. Your dog learns that every time the bell rings, he goes outside, so he decides to start ringing the bell himself, at which point he gets lots of praise and extra outdoors time.

In Thor's case, he still seems to have no idea what the bell is for. Sometimes he'll go over and sniff it, but I started to train him to paw at the bell for a treat. He's rung it a few times, but still doesn't it associate it with going out.

I've coupled the bell with confinement to my living room until he learns to either use the pad or the bell. Until today, he has never had an accident in the living room. One day, I hope to have access to other rooms in my apartment again. Dare to dream.