The YT Potty Log

[JMuedog]

Alrighty, brought our new girl home yesterday So I'm adding Gwenni and myself to the list! She held it all through her first night! So far she's poo'd only outside, even in the rain!! However, she's only pee'd outside twice. She heads for tile to pee for some reason (great for our carpet, but not so great when I'm trying to get her to use potty pads).

We use a mixture of pee pads and crate training. The pee pads, mostly for when we're at work. I always place them at the door so they associate going to the door with potty time. However, so far she's completely ignored the potty pads. I've caught her in the act with 2 of her 3 accidents and rush her to the pee pad or outside. I really don't think she gets the whole reason why we keep going outside.

I'm off to try and get her to potty outside again! Wish us luck! It took Finnigan a full year to be potty trained, and we've had to start using belly bands because he marks.

[PiePiper]

I think females are really hard to house break. Piper is now 10 months old and even though she rarely has an accident I don't consider her trained because she never asks to go out. It is up to me to make sure she goes out every couple hours and she always goes outside. She never ever poos in the house but there have been times when she is running after a ball and there is a trail of pee following her down the hall. I don't know why she can't ask to go out. I guess in a way she does, she'll does a little potty spin in front of the slider over and over, (kitchen is where she stays) but unless somebody is in the kitchen with her you're not going to notice. My male yorkie was a piece of cake to train. By 12 weeks old he was completely trained and during his 13 years never had accidents. He always barked at the slider to go out. Now, why can't Piper do that?

[QuickSilver]

Poor little piddlin' Piper.

PiePiper, this is a total shot in the dark, but I wonder if you could teach her to "Speak" and have her Speak every time you take her out to go potty. Maybe she would start barking on her own. I'd be really careful about only training her to speak right at the kitchen door, so she doesn't think that she should just bark more generally.

[PiePiper]

Originally Posted by QuickSilver

Poor little piddlin' Piper.

PiePiper, this is a total shot in the dark, but I wonder if you could teach her to "Speak" and have her Speak every time you take her out to go potty. Maybe she would start barking on her own. I'd be really careful about only training her to speak right at the kitchen door, so she doesn't think that she should just bark more generally.

That's a thought. She really isn't a barker while my male always barked at every little thing. Maybe thats it, she just isn't vocal. Thanks for the advice.

[mblab]

Originally Posted by QuickSilver

Hm. It sounds like you are close to having a full system in place.

If I understand you correctly, I think what you need to do it officially start boot camp. Don't hope for her to gradually get better on her own. It sounds like she has both a crate and an xpen? Is the xpen lined with pads?

If you want her to be a completely outdoors dog, I would start crating her on a daily schedule. If she's not in her crate, she is either sleeping or you have both eyes on her. If she starts to go in the house, correct her and take her outside to finish. If you find evidence after the act, you need to watch her more closely or confine her more.

This is a real pain to do, but I think if you are really vigilant and stick to a crating schedule, you will see a big improvement in one or two weeks. At that point, you can gradually start giving her more freedom.

Not sure what to do about the lack of signals... this is partly why I decided to go with potty pads. Thor's signal that he needs to pee is that he starts peeing. Maybe her signalling will get stronger as she learns not to go indoors? Maybe someone else can chime in with ideas.

Thanks for the thoughts! I guess you're right, it's time for BOOT CAMP!!!! to start in our house (again). It's tough to crate her because she will cry the entire time. And to not reinforce the crying getting her out I have to wait however long it'll take for her to quiet.... It's all kind of insane because when we'd crate her at night she's almost never cry. I know part of my faulty current plan stems from me doing school work in the living room. It keeps me in the room with her where I should be able to watch her. But in reality if I'm working on my laptop then I really can't be watching her....

In her x-pen it's just her, a bed, toys, her bowls and an open spare crate. There's no pee pads, I got 2 things of them when she was a puppy from my Mom but Zoe would pee on them and then rip them up. So I realized right away she'd have to be a total outside girl. (Though they'd be helpful for rainstorms but I don't want to teach her to go outside and then confuse her trying to have her go inside when it rains....)

Right now we've had a good day. She didn't have any accidents this morning and then I took her with us for the rest of the day. She was in her bag while we snuck her inside CostCo and before that she had a good old time at the dog park. So now she's EXHAUSTED and asleep on the couch. I'll tell you what, the second she wakes up and gets off it I'll have my eyes on her!

I'm afraid I'll be weak, and leave her in the living room instead of a crate when I can't watch her. Truthfully she will generally go to her bed and lay there but then again she also roams and has accidents at the same time. I just feel bad at 10 months old (7+ months with us) and I have to lock her up.... Guess I just have to be strong and try again and stick to it.

-Vicky (and sleeping Zoë)

[lemonlauren]

Originally Posted by mblab

Right now we've had a good day. She didn't have any accidents this morning and then I took her with us for the rest of the day. She was in her bag while we snuck her inside CostCo and before that she had a good old time at the dog park. So now she's EXHAUSTED and asleep on the couch. I'll tell you what, the second she wakes up and gets off it I'll have my eyes on her!

Haha! Now there's the ticket. Sleeping puppies are the best! Not only are they super cute when they're asleep, but they're also not peeing in your house when they're asleep! Seriously though, I do think that lots of exercise and therefore lots of naps does help a lot. Everything you can do to keep indoor peeing to a minimum and outdoor peeing to a maximum is totally helpful, IMO. And puppy naps are great for the sanity of us moms and dads too - they give us a break from the insanity of having to obsessively watch our constantly moving, stealthy, speed-pee machines.

Lauren & Nikko

PS: Sleepy pups are also much less likely to whine in their crate while you're crate training too. More exercise -> More sleepy -> Less whining in crate -> Less mommy guilt for crating.

[QuickSilver]

Yeah, I tried for several weeks to keep an eye on Thor while I worked on the laptop, but he is so small and so fast I would STILL find accidents, even when I could swear I had an eye on him. You seriously need both eyes, which is tough, because when do you work?

LemonLauren is right, it's really best to keep them as tired as possible, because you don't need to watch them when they are sleeping.

[Jewly]

Well Willow is doing good somewhat. She stays in her room all day long while we are at work and she uses her litter box contantly never had one accident on the floor of her room, a walk in closet we cleared out, when she is running loose while we are home she has accidents but if you pay attention she does the little dance spinning around and you say you need to go potty and walk to the room and she will jump into her litter box and go, some times we have to put her in it but as soon as we do she goes....when this acures she gets a treat and much praise. She just cant seem to figure out how to just go in there by her self. She will go where ever if we dont notice the dance. I am hoping it will just take some more time she is only 11 weeks.

[Mom-of-Tobi]

Have anyone ever used the yellow potty post from Petsmart? Ur suppose to hammer it in the ground (w/o the puppy seeing u do it) and its suppose to help with potty training.

[linz06]

I'm back to Day 0 today. We have gone about 3 weeks with no accidents, and she mainly wants to go outside to pee. Last night I thought we'd made so much progress! She barked at me to let her out when I got home from work, and she peed immediately. I brought her back in, gave her a treat, and played a bit before going on my computer. While I was on the computer she barked a bit more, but I thought it was just for attention and she wanted to play more. She ran over to me and started licking my hand and I said "Do you want to go outside?" and her ears perked up and I followed her right to the door and she went out and pooped! She did pee on her pad once last night because I didn't know she wanted to go out (still hasn't gotten used to the bells). But at least it was on the pad!
This morning she went out to pee, and she wanted in. I was in my room getting ready and I heard my roommate say "Oh Layla!!!" So I went out and she had pooped about 2 feet from her pad

[chelop555]

I think we will be on day 1 forever!!!! She is naughty when Mommy isn't home!!

[JMuedog]

We've only had ours for 4 days now. She's doing wonderful at night, whines to be let out of her crate when she needs to go and goes immediately when we let her out. During the day however she has an accident or 2 because she hasn't learned how to signal to go out yet.

[mblab]

Well we are on day 3, sort of. Sunday she was too tired to do anything. Yesterday she had no accidents inside either. I had a killer headache and was noxious most of the night though. I was so desperate to be watchful of her, even being secluded to the couch that I put her on the couch with me and moved the puppy stairs away so she'd be trapped on it with me. She did have an accident in her x-pen while I was away, but I don't count that, since I wasn't there to give her a chance to go outside. So far she's doing good today, we all slept in so a sleeping puppy, even if it's from lazines, is still good!

-Vicky
P.S. I'm totally paranoid though, I keep smelling the smell of pee and poop (rather strongly) and frantically look around the house but it's not there.

[QuickSilver]

Originally Posted by linz06

I'm back to Day 0 today. We have gone about 3 weeks with no accidents, and she mainly wants to go outside to pee. Last night I thought we'd made so much progress! She barked at me to let her out when I got home from work, and she peed immediately. I brought her back in, gave her a treat, and played a bit before going on my computer. While I was on the computer she barked a bit more, but I thought it was just for attention and she wanted to play more. She ran over to me and started licking my hand and I said "Do you want to go outside?" and her ears perked up and I followed her right to the door and she went out and pooped! She did pee on her pad once last night because I didn't know she wanted to go out (still hasn't gotten used to the bells). But at least it was on the pad!
This morning she went out to pee, and she wanted in. I was in my room getting ready and I heard my roommate say "Oh Layla!!!" So I went out and she had pooped about 2 feet from her pad

That's a big bummer. Thor had 2 1/2 weeks under his belt, and with one little lift of his leg, he broke my heart.

Do you think maybe she started on the pad and then walked off? It's up to you if you want to give her the benefit of the doubt.

On the bright side, you haven't had to clean up after her in three weeks. I'm sure she's ready to get it 100%

[linz06]

I don't think she started on the pad this time. Usually she only turns in circles while she is pooping or takes small steps so it ends up getting half on the pad and half off. This was too far away to be on the pad at all. However, it was in front of the door so maybe she was just waiting for the door to magically open and she couldn't hold it anymore. After all, I was home. Of course I would have known when it's poop time!