Layla was doing great again, even after playing on all the carpet at my parents' house on Easter weekend! My boyfriend and I would let her out of our room in the morning and she would NOT go on her pad (we kept a pad in our room for her overnight)... she would wait to go outside! When it was too rainy to go outside, she finally pooped on her pad. Last night we went to a family friend's house for supper and we were gone for about 2.5 hours. When we got home, there was a pee spot right on the living room carpet :( She was SO close to making it to the end of the weekend!

linz06, does Layla have a crate or xpen? I JUST this weekend left Thor alone for a few hours without crating him. I let him stay in the living room with the door closed. This is after 30 days of no accidents in my apartment, and I was still a little nervous about it. He did just fine, though.

Nope, I have never tried crate-training her and we don't have an xpen... she has been doing great in my house since I took the area rug away. She has free roam in my house now (except the basement which is gated off) and she is doing really good, hitting the pad about 95% of the time and barking to go outside if I'm at home. At my parents' house she had a pad right there, about 10 steps away from the carpet where she peed :(

When I started getting serious about potty training, I didn't want to use a crate either. However, once I threw it in the mix, I wished I had used it from the beginning. It really makes things a lot easier. I almost never put Thor in it now, but it is SO much help for situations like yours when you need to step out for a bit and you don't trust them 100% yet. Just my 2 cents.

I have definitely thought of doing it before, but I'm just not sure how she would take to it now that she is almost 4 years old :( After having free reign her whole life, I don't think she would like being kept in a crate for any length of time :(

A kong stuffed with cream cheese can work wonders! :) I don't know, you put a nice bed it in, put it under something so it's like a "den", where she can see everyone coming and going... it might not be so bad for her. It's also nice to know you can crate her for travelling.

Don't tell Layla I said this, I don't want her to be mad at me for suggesting the crate. ;)

lol I won't tell ;)
I did buy her a little doggy tent before, and she had her bed and toys in it, but she would NEVER go in it. Even putting treats there wasn't enough. She would play with her toys outside, sleep in her bed outside, but whatever was in there she wouldn't go near. I thought maybe she just didn't like being closed in on 3 sides :confused:

Thor's crate is wire, so he can see out in all directions. I actually put a blanket over it to make it more cozy.

I don't work for a crate company or anything, it just made such a difference for me that I'm kind of a crate zealot now. I'll stop pushing. :)

LOL! No I completely understand, I know so many dogs who are crate trained and they are just great... I just wish there was like a crate rental so we could try it out before buying one :rolleyes: Actually, I wish that existed for a lot of things!

Yaaaaaaaaaay! Thor used his pad at work twice, count 'em, twice while he was playing today! This has been this most difficult part for him, I think, because he's had such a history of peeing everywhere there, and it's a very large space, very un-den-like.

I think he's getting it, slowly but surely.

I'm almost ashamed to admit this. Kayla will be 2 in June and we are still going at it. I litterly keep Simple Solutions in business. Talk about buying in bulk. If I tryed pads with her she would just grab them up and run and think we were playing. We have tried everything. My husband still gets up about 2a.m. and takes her to potty. To make matters worse, I have a 10mo. old mini schnauzer that was housebroke when we bought her and now she thinks she can do the same as Kayla. HELP!!!!!!!!!!

No shame, Sandysbabies. Thor is two and a half! I've only officially owned him for a few months now, but it took me some time to realize he wasn't potty trained. I was patting myself on the back for training him to hold it for up to five hours at a time, and was in complete denial about the yellow puddles I was finding everywhere.

Have you tried the puppy pad holders? Those are supposed to prevent dogs from carrying them off. Are you training for inside/outside, inside only, or outside only?

I think here are the basics of potty training:

- Confine them to the smallest area you can trust them in. To begin with, this will be a crate or xpen.

- Set a schedule. I'll admit I'm not much of a schedule person, so I changed this to making a rule that Thor did not get to come out of his crate until he peed on his pad.

- Until they are going potty in the right place reliably, you must watch them AT ALL TIMES while they are not confined. This is the really tough one. They are fast and sneaky, and it takes a lot of attention to make sure they're not spilling a drop here or there.

- WHILE they are going, assign a phrase like "Potty" or "Hurry Up".

- Give them a treat RIGHT after they go and praise them like crazy.

- If you catch them in the act, clap your hands, pick them up, and put them in the right place. Emphasize the command phrase - "This is where you go POTTY". You can ONLY correct the dog if you catch him/her in the act. If you find an accident after the fact, the dog needs to be confined more closely, or you need to be watching more closely. Take it as a learning experience.

- Your dog is probably going to mess up, and you're probably going to get frustrated. That's okay, but remember the the dog is doing the best it can, all evidence to the contrary.

- Clean up any messes with an enzyme cleaner to keep the dog from being tempted to mess in that area again.

Let us know how it goes!

I have a doggie door in the laundry room they go out. She will go out with Tina and Lexi and tee tee (sometimes) and then come right back in and potty. She will run and scratch her back feet and let us know what she has done. She is a spoiled little toot. I know we are probably to blame but we have tried watching her and staying on a regular routine and nothing seems to work. My schnauzers were trained in no time. We just got Lexi in Nov. after losing my baby right before Thanksgiving to cancer and they have all trained when they were just a few weeks old. I looooove yorkies but I think they take the cake on training. Geessssh. Having a doggie door I really would hate to try anything new. It would probably just confuse her. I know the breeder used pads for Kayla's mother and her little sister. But, kleenix, paper, etc. is another story. She is like a shredding machine.

Yes, they certainly take the cake, and probably pee on it too!

When you say that you have tried watching her, what does that mean? I think for training, you have to set it up so it's impossible for the dog to fail. Because if a yorkie finds a way to fail at potty training, it will take that route. :rolleyes:

Just watching to kinda keep an eye on where she is and what she is doing and taking her out like every couple of hrs. or so. I am really at a disadvantage too because I am still recovering from a back surgery a few months ago and it is really slow going. I am still in some pain so that makes it hard too. I am not suppose to even bend over. Try cleaning up tee tee without bending. lol!!!! All we can do is just keep trying. Maybe one of these days she will get it. Hope so. It would be hard to confine her with the other two running around. SHe would probably scream her head off. She is just spoiled, bad. I know, I know, its our fault. THey look up at you with those sweet little faces and I forget all about where she has tee teed. We have created a little monster. I just hope Simple Solutions never goes out of business.

Oof, well I hope you feel better soon! Yeah, I think it will be really hard if you can't watch her with both eyes. Sometimes even two eyes isn't enough!

Can your husband watch her while you are recovering? I used the crate as a motivator. Thor does not like being locked in it very much, so once he figured out that pee was his way to freedom, he got very motivated.

You might also consider an xpen for her with a locked down potty pad. Ultimately, you are the boss, and it won't kill her to have less freedom than the other dogs for a few weeks or months. I guess you have to decide what's more important to you. Given your situation, you would probably need to get creative to figure out a workable solution. On the other hand, if she is un-training your other dogs, you might find yourself ankle-deep in pee.

I wish there was an easy solution. I had my carpets cleaned and they put a covering (for lack of a better word) on it to protect it from pet stains. Along with the Simple Solutions it looks great and thank goodness my house doesn't smell. You would never know we had 3 little dogs. Tina is 12 and she has been housebroke for years. Lexi has only pottyed (thanks to Kayla) a couple of times but has never tee teed on the floor. It just Kayla with the tee tee problem and I will have to say its better than it was. She just thinks she can come back in and potty on the floor. I don't think Lexi would have done what she did if she hadn't watched Kayla and thought it was okay. I was pretty stern with her and she minds alot better than Kayla. My husband took off a couple of weeks when I had the surgery but he is not home during the day so its just up to me. I am doing alot better but I have a steel plate in my back and screws and it takes along time to get over that type of surgery. I have good days and bad days. Hopefully this little wart won't be a senior citizen when she learns to go out to tee tee.

Well, we were on blissful day 4, I was seriously thinking things were going great and maybe this was going to be it .... yeah, turns out I was totally deluded. :rolleyes: Of course, it was severe thunderstorms all night long here. It's like when the weather gets bad she forgets :mad: and it's anyone's guess of what's going to happen. Not necessarily defending it, but she had been shaking on and off, scared of the weather (which she really hadn't done before, but then again it hadn't been this bad since the first weekend she was home with us).

Anyway, Zoe pooped on the couch!!!! :eek: She has NEVER EVER made on the couch before, EVER!

I'm not sure what to make of it exactly. I wasn't able to stop her because we were running frantically around the upstairs to close all windows to prevent any more water from getting in (I realized way after the fact that the bedroom window was open and it was practically flooded around the window/bed...) We came back and there was poop on the couch! She can't climb off it, so I'd bet if she could she would've pooped on the ground somewhere though...

Ugh! It's encouraging to see days she does well and how well others are doing. We've got her confined to small watchable areas (and crated*** whenever there is an accident we cant catch), I think maybe it's all finally working and soon it'll all come together. And then ... we start back up like we have to today, today is day one once again.....

***I cannot say enough praise (no pun intended) for crate training. I know people think it's cruel, especially with little ones like Yorkies (though I know a Labradoodle Mom that couldn't bear to crate her boy, even though he was at least 30-40 pounds, as a puppy!). But it really makes a difference. Even though we're still struggling, if look at people's success stories, 99% of them seem to have used crates! It does work, you just have to be more dedicated and stubborn than your dog!

-Vicky

P.S. I want to thank everyone for all of their kind words, support, and suggestions! I know it makes me feel better, I'd like to think everyone else feels the same too! :hug:

So, I've been back at day 1 every day... going good today so far, but its only 11am. Not only are we potty training Gwenni, but all of a sudden Finnigan thinks he can resume going #2 in the house!

I know he hates the rain and its been raining everyday, but he hadn't had an accident in the house before we got Gwenni in at least 6 months! So, now we've had both dogs in their crates.

I'm so aggravated with Finnigan! It took almost a year to get him potty trained, and now this! I think after we used his crate last night he now understands that we're not going to stand for his acting out.

We made it through day 1 yesterday. Overnight Layla needed to go so she peed on her pad. This morning she wanted out so I let her out and she peed on the pad on the deck. She didn't want in yet so I thought she might poop too. After about 10 minutes she scratched at the door to get back in, so I let her in and saw no poops. Not even 5 minutes later she had pooped on the floor beside her pad inside :(
Now we're back to 0 again.

Aw, sorry to hear about the rain interfering with your yorkies in training! That's part of why I decided to use pads for Thor, because I realized that he hates the rain so much he'd probably rather go indoors and face the consequences.

I don't know if this will help, but I think the most daunting part of potty training is the first week, when you have your eyes glued to them. What helped me a lot during this period was to get Thor a ton of exercise outside (again, tough in the rain). That made "watching" him a lot easier, because 90% of the time he was napping on my couch.

Sorry to hear about the poo on the couch. It does sound like maybe she would have picked a better spot (maybe right by the door?) if she weren't scared and in an unfamiliar situation.

Every time I think Thor is the worst dog ever when it comes to potty training, I find something to be thankful for. While he is very free with his pee, he's pretty judicious with his poop.

Need your advise on this
 

I have noticed that Bonnie will squat on the pad to poop, then before it "falls" to the pad she runs off and it falls off a few feet away. If I get to her in time, I will hold her on the pad til it lands.
What to do? I have put the poop on the pad and given her a treat:confused:
Should I be doing that? I want to praise her for squatting on the pad. She has the best intentions. Your opinions please

I give treats if Penny thinks she did it on the pad. Many times she goes on the edge of the pad and she hasn't a clue what a mess she left for me to clean up. :rolleyes:

Hm. :thinking:

I have two thoughts. First, Thor was having this problem, but he only goes 1x/day, usually around the same time, so I was able to catch him and make sure he stayed on the pad until he was finished (he's a stroller). I don't know if Bonnie is that regular, but I think that will be the most effective. Generally, a dog's back will start to hunch a lot right before it's going to poop.

Second, if you aren't catching her, I would reward her for getting it anywhere near the pad, until you are sure that she knows she's at least supposed to start there. Then raise your standards, until you only reward for a deposit on the pad. She should get the idea.

Well, I guess I spoke too soon, and Thor did exactly what ParrotLady described, not once, but twice yesterday. Oh well.

Other than that, he is doing really well! I still haven't given him completely free rein in my apartment, but we are getting there, and he hasn't had an accident here in forever. He's used the pad correctly in my office too.

We're still getting a lot of micro-pees when I'm cooking something on the stove, or I'm eating something he wants a piece of. And I'm still rewarding him for every pee. Not sure when that will stop, but probably not before I trust him everywhere in my apartment.

Well, I just made a bold, some might even say reckless, move!


I took the boxes blocking the dining room table away.


I am pretty trepidatious about providing this smorgasboard of chair and table legs practically begging to be marked... but Thor is going to have to face this challenge at some point.

:D I've had my yorkie puppy for a week and a day and she has been using the paper for two days now im so happy!!!!

I will be interested to see how it works. I sure hope Thor is up for the challenge. Penny has started leaving one "pile" a day in front of the refrigerator. This morning she even had a fresh pad, so no excuse accept that is where she wanted to go.:(

I\'m starting to thinks she\'s using the paper for the cookie not because she had to go.:( but at least she\'s using it:D