Here's a quick pic of our cardboard gate... it's not pretty, it's a pain to step over, but it's easy to expand your pup's area really really slowly. We expanded Nikko's area by about 6sq ft at a time. Just remember that he can never be left unsupervised in his gated area - if he's in there, you're watching him. If you're not watching him, he's gotta be on your lap or in his crate.

From when we got him at 3 months old, Nikko had a full two months of gradually diminishing accidents, with small success streaks then potty breakdowns, and back again. A horrible yo-yo of frustration for him and us. Two months of obsessively watching him, getting tiny pees inside the house even after he had just peed outside, and all those other problems with housebreaking... definitely some of the longest couple months of my life! But then at about five months old, with us constantly and carefully watching him, he hit the beginning of his current over a month long accident-free streak. Recenly now, and with the nice weather we've been having, we've begun just leaving the door open during the day. He stalks in and out whenever he wants, and even happily deposits his pee and poop outdoors when we aren't paying attention! It is awesome!

Here's the pic of our cheapie gating system:Attachment 269606

Pottie Talk
 

I think these pups are driving us nuts. Today Zipper had 1 accident. He is 18 weeks. :Let's face it ....it is us who are trained. I have it down to two hours and then take him out. First thing in am and then late at night to cover the poos. They are to small to indicate they need to go out. Zipper has done real well but there is still a long waqy to go!

Day 1, but...
 

So, we cleared day 1 yesterday, yeah! But.....today, the beginning of day 2, i found a little poo pile outside her pen as i was leaving and putting her in this morning as i left for work.:eek: So, can there be seperate counts for pee and poo?

Hi I've posted about 2 threads on this yorkie log but no one ever responds to my thread so I'm just going to go ahead and try this...

Does anyone know where I can find a divider to put in a crate. I believe my crate is to big and I can't put a cardboard box in there with my baby because she might start eating at it.

divider
 

i can't tell you where to get one because my crates both came with a divider. I will tell you that i just use a carrier for my cleo because she is so small and that seems to be working well!

I was thinking a carrier but then I would feel bad that she is in the carrier all day... I want her to start going outside and I'm having trouble because she is pooping and pee in the crate and I feel its because its to big and she is coherent that its her sleeping area as well since I take her bed out when she is left in it during the day..

i only use a carrier for sleeping at night. During the day she is in her pen with a pee pad during the day b/c i work all day and there is no way she can hold it that long. The only time she uses the pads is while i am working and she is in the pen, otherwise she does her business outside like the big dogs!

Then God Bless your little one.. Mine gets so bored she tears the pee pads up in her pen.. She use to be in a pet yard in my kitchen and I stopped because she wasn't using the pads but she was ripping them apart.. :(:(

she rips them every now and again, but for the most part leaves them alone. I do think that the cat likes to jump in and tear it up also. i want to get a tray like some others were talking about to try and prevent the cats and cleo from tearing it. I have noticed that the grass scented ones get torn up more than the arm and hammer ones...

I have to see what I can do because I'm going on vacation in 2 weeks and I'm leaving her with my dad and my dad isn't that young to be leaning over all the time. Its hard to train her my way when i'm up by 530am and my then when she goes to my dad it'll be like 8am LOL!!!!!

Another day = day 2 accident free! :happyboun

Well, one poop was off the pad, but that is because we didn't change out the pad after she had already made three spots. We KNOW she won't go where she has already been. :rolleyes:

Lauren, we did your box thing today! I made a path from my office through the dining room to the kitchen and blocked it off from there. She only gets about 4 "skips" to the kitchen over laminate flooring, so hopefully she won't decide to do anything there. :eek:

At this time, we have a pad in the office, where she has been going for two days successfully, and a pad at the end of the kitchen that she has yet to use. No accidents though!

:cool: You're stylin', baby.

Oh my goodness! Thor just cocked his leg in the hallway! :eek:

He didn't actually pee - I shrieked No and he stopped before any damage was done. That was scary! He certainly keeps me on my toes.

So my baby is getting the pee thing, but we're having problems with the #2. We have 2 days with no pee accidents. She goes on the pads while i am working and outside when i am home, but we can't get the poo thing down. I will come home from work and it is on or near her bed. I actually see her go outside atleast once or twice a day, but she still had these accidents and seems to refuse to go on her pad. Any suggestions?

lucirbc, first off, how old is your baby? It's hard to expect too much from them when they are 2-3 or four or even five months old... sometimes even older! So what I'm trying to say is if she's still pretty young, keep working hard, but don't get too frustrated. :-)

It may help you to put your girl on a very specific feeding schedule... if you know when she eats, you can learn within a few days how long it takes after eating for her to poo. Then you will be able to either adjust her feeding times to match when you are able to be there to direct her to poo, or you can just be there to redirect her at the times you learn are her poo times, when she starts doing her little poo dance before she poos somewhere inappropriate.

Either way, it is you who will be trained before she is, and that just seems to be the way it is with these little buggars. Eventually though, it will get better, so long as you keep at it.

Lauren & Nikko

PS: Way to keep your eyes glued to Thor, Quicksilver! :-)

she was 15 weeks yesterday. So, i know that she is still young. i just thought that it would be harder for her to get the pee thing down. Feeding is a little bit of another story/question. I give her about 1/4-1/2 cup kibble at about 5:30-6:00 a.m. and then what she doesn't finish i give to get to graze during the day. She eats a good amount in the morning, so do i have to leave her to free feed in the day? i think that if i don't i can have a better handle on her pooing. i come home between jobs for 30-45 minutes, so i could give her a snack at 3 and then they eat dinner at 6:30ish. What do you think....free feed while in her pen or not?:confused:

I don't know if this is why she finally started going #2 on the pad, but we took one of the poop logs and "dotted" a few pads so that the poo smell would be on the pads. (Someone in this forum suggested this.) She has not gone anywhere else since.

I must add that we are VERY diligent to watch her so that we can give her the very best treat in the world for pooping on the pad. Sometimes she circles and stands on the pad and poops off the pad, but she gets treats for that because she didn't realize she was pooping off the pad. :rolleyes::p

By the way, we have an office chair pad under the potty pad so if she misses it doesn't soil the floor. If we were not going to end up using the Pet Loo, we would probably train her to a pad in a litter box so that there would be boundaries. ;)

I forgot to mention that we have gone another day, so far, without an accident. Is this day 3?? I think it is! :woof::Puppy2:

This is not only in my office, but with the boxes lining our dining room for a pathway to the kitchen and then boxes blocking further access to the rest of the house. :D

We left her home with dad, kinda like leaving her home alone ;), and she didn't have any accidents in her 2 room area while we were gone 3+ hours. Dad checked on her a couple of times and said she was being so good she wasn't acting like a dog at all. :bravo:

Just had to report! These forums are so great, I could never have done this without all the help and advice here.

:bighug:

I feel terrible posting this, but I have to be honest.



We are back at Day 0.


Thor blatantly marked a wall that is nowhere near his potty pad and there's just no way to rationalize it.

His former owner is in town and I think that maybe it's throwing him for a loop. He's had two major behavioral incidents in the past few days. First, he got really nasty with another dog, when 99.5% of the time he's very submissive. Then today he chased some skate boarders almost out into the street. I nearly had a heart attack.

Oh well. He scared me so bad about the skate boarders, I almost don't mind he broke his streak. Here's to Day 1, tomorrow.

Aw man! Sorry about Thor. Did he not have a nice previous owner experience?

I can't keep track of Curly's days but she hasn't had another accident since the pissin on my bed incident the other day so yay for that. These buggers are stubborn aren't they!

No, he adores her. I just remember that there was a period where we sort of both owned him and he was going home with her sometimes and then going home with me. He started peeing everywhere, even right next to his bed, so I feel like he gets confused.

It could also be that MY behavior changed, and I wasn't careful about taking him to his pad. I feel like we've had a few things I chose not to call accidents over the past few weeks, so this is not a total shocker. It seems like he's been experimenting more with lifting his leg over the past week also.

Or it could be that I've been taking him to doggy daycare. I haven't asked them if he's had accidents there, so I guess I need to.

The main thing I'm bummed about is limiting him (and by extension, me) to the living room again. Well, that and the idea of watching him every single second. And the fact that he's as happy as a clam and doesn't have the slightest idea that I'm stewing over here.

Okay, it sucks, not to put too fine a point on it. But it sure was nice for those two weeks, and at least he knows what the pad is for now.

:hug: You are still an inspiration, even through the trials. ;)

It sounds like there are LOTS of distractions, I bet his learning curve will be quick the second time around. :cool:

Is Thor neutered? I have never owned a male dog, but I thought they didn't mark when they were neutered.

Thank you for the encouragement. I don't feel very inspirational right now. :| At the same time, hopefully other people will benefit from knowing how it actually went for each of our dogs. Potty training: the reality behind the glamour!

I am hopeful it'll go more quickly this time. And don't get me wrong, I prefer going two weeks at a time without an accident to going two hours!

Oh, and to answer your question about being neutered: in general, if male dogs start marking before they are neutered, they will continue to do so afterwards. Since people tend to neuter yorkies when they are a little older and bigger, they have often had a good shot of testosterone before they get snipped.

Well, as I always tell my girlfriends when they get sad and blue...CHIN UP, TITS OUT! LMAO! Hey, at least now you smiled huh.:p Don't be too hard on Thor, is IS, after all, just a man.

Yeah, for anybody who has a pee accident during a pee-free streak and has to start over, at least it IS nice to know that the dog and you are capable of doing at least the number of days up until the accident. So if you did two days, then had an accident, then at least you know that two days is possible - and hopefully next time will be three days, or more. Same for two weeks.

Before Nikko's awesomely long current streak, he had lots of shorter streaks - 3 days, a week, one was even about a week and a half, I think.

Welcome to PETaPOTTY.com

:cool: Lauren & Nikko

Hey, you can ck. online/store of Petsmart then may have dividers you can buy. Our crate actually came with a divider that we do't need because we put both puppies in it. IF you can't find it there, maybe you could just buy some chicken wire (Ithink it's called) and you can just hook it onto the crate. It kinda liiks like circles attached to each other creating something like a screen with bigger openings. Good Luck. You can prob. find the wire at a yard/garden store or sell stuff for fencing.~~~~ Sharon

Oops that last link isn't just the petapotty... it's specifically the fire hydrants I mentioned in an earlier post. It really sounds like maybe Thor could use something fun to aim at. :)

Lauren & Nikko

Aw, those are darling! And I could get colors that match my decor too.

The only thing is that I am not sure how and how often I would wash it... Thor has also started getting a few drops off the pad quite a bit too, though, so this might be just what he needs!

3 days!
 

3 days no pee accidents! Still having problems with the #2 but i will try to "mark" her pads with the poo next time, here's hoping! I know this may sound bad but i would kinda rather her have those accidents b/c i can clean them up so much easier.

Today may be hard though, it is raining in sunny south florida and she would not go outside this morning, hofully she will keep it on the pad in her pen and the rain will let up by this afternoon! Any suggestions on getting her out in the rain?:rain:

Keep your head hel high Quicksilver! Thor is on the way. There are always a few bumps along the road, but you always get there in the end!

Well, we are back to day 0. :fallen:

Penny went about 2 feet away from the pad this morning. :confused: The excuse I want to give her is that we were having a stressful situation in the home and I think she was distressed with us. Either way, she still didn't even try to do it on the pad, so we start back at 0.

Long story made short, some people we have never met before, but have done business with and they still owe us thousands of dollars, arrived at our door while we were still in bed. :eek: The man has several screws loose and we quickly sent our daughter away from home just in case things got dangerous. I think Penny sensed our anxiety.