We cleared Day 5! :) Aaaah, I can open my living room door again. I have a feeling we're going to make it through the month. Granted, I felt that last month too, but this time I'm sure!

starting day 1 again
 

So since the last time i wrote, we have started day 1 three times (including today). Yesterday was not her fault though, we went to my boyfriends house and she peed on his bathroom floor. What do you guys do when you bring your dog to someone's house. DO you just show them the pad a few times? We bought some washable pee pads, but my questions is...does that confuse them with carpet since they are fabric? Anyone have a guess? Or maybe they work becuae their "scent" is in them once they have used them. They seem to be working great b/c Cleo has even pooed on them (which she didn't do on the disposable ones!)

Day 1...here we go again! All because of a dime sized spot while I was changing the pad in the living room! About 20 min. before bed time too!
She went all day too. Better luck today!

Back to day one here too. My vet told me that I should get Marley a play pen and I found this one on e-bay. Hope he doesn't chew it up...LOL

Oh, how cute! Do you mind sharing how much it cost? I would like to get something like this for when we go to other people's houses.

Hi! I love finding threads like these! you guys are great with all the comments!:teeth: I was wondering if anyone has any advice for me. I have a 4 year old yorkie who has been litter trained. He goes potty in a closet on a potty pad and has been doing it since we bought him as a puppy. He has accidents some times in the house when we are not home and when people are in the room where he goes, he wont go in there. We bought him a friend about a month ago and as soon as he is finished with his shots we want to train them both to go potty outside. We are going to make a small gated area outside our back door so we can watch them and so they they dont wander! I think what I am going to do is put a pad outside in the beginning so they both know that is what they need to do out there. Also at the door to maybe bring them TO the door if they need to go. My question is if anyone has any advice on if this is a good idea or what a good way to start would be.

It was 59.99 and free shipping.

We've just started using washables and WE LOVE THEM! The puppy can smell her pee scent even after a washing and even though they don't smell to us humans. So they always go back to their "spot". Curly hasn't missed a beat since we got them out. Oh, I am using the pads I used for my granny (she passed last year) on her bed, wherever she'd sit, etc so that she wouldn't "leak" on anything. I'm not sure what the real washable pads are made of but these work GREAT! VERY absorbent so Curly's feet are never wet anymore either!

Day 1...again!

ugh, im also back at day one. my husband and i were on vacation and when we came back p-nut went a good day and a half with no accidents. this morning he used his litter box twice, i put in a new pad and when i came home from work there was poop and pee on the floor :( better luck tomorrow i guess

Just a little update from us... Nikko hasn't had an accident in well over a month now - I've stopped keeping track. We're looking into doggie doors right now, but for the moment we tend to leave the door out into our tiny fenced yard cracked for him to slip in and out of during the day. If it's cold or at night, he'll ring the bell and we'll let him out. He will still abuse the bell if he just wants to go out and feel the sunshine or sniff some outdoors air, but that's part of why we're looking into a doggie door.

It's wonderful... I generally only see him actually pee/poo a couple times a day, and he still gets treats when I catch him in the act, but I know he goes out on his own fairly often to do his business when we're not paying attention. I am sooooo thankful that we were obsessive about his training in the beginning - it was so stressful and hard and time-consuming, but now I completely don't even worry about anything potty related at all! It's a huge burden lifted.

I'm not posting this to brag, but more just to show that with enough work, there IS hope. At the beginning of this thread, we were only about two weeks into an accident-free streak, and we were still watching and treating Nikko for pees all the time, completely obsessive.

I also want to mention how long it took us too, for anyone who is getting frustrated with a young pup. We got Nikko when he was three months old. He had his good days and bad days for about a month and a half after that - and most of them were bad days, unfortunately. At about the month and a half mark, I think he started to catch on, and over a period of about two weeks after that, he only had a couple accidents. But it wasn't until two whole months after we'd gotten him, when he reached 5 months old, that he finally seemed to be truly trained and the accidents stopped altogether.

Anyways, that all I guess... Good luck to everyone still in the trenches, and btw - listen to Quicksilver, she gives great advice! :thumbup::) You can do it, Thor!

Lauren & Nikko

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Thanks for the encouragement! I come back and read this thread all the time for encouragement.

Penny is now just going on one pad in the Kitchen and she has not had an accident in the office for two days. She has gone off the pad in the kitchen, even as of this morning, so we are still at day 0 but still encouraged.

When I think about where we were when we started reading and participating in the thread, we have really come a long, long way and it is because of the encouragement and help in this forum. :):D:thumbup:

Thor is away with some friends this weekend (I'm going on a business trip tomorrow). They said he's doing really well there, except that he peed on another dog's blanket pretty much the second he got in the door.

Thankfully I've already decided that these days won't count towards what my friend called "his thirty day quest for potty perfection."

Well I feel as if Zoë and I need to add ourselves to this thread. :(

When we first brought Zoë home (3 months old) I didn't expect anything really because she was too young to hold it in or understand. As she got older (5-6 months) she got better. Her MO though tends to be weeks of really good and then a period of accidents non stop and then back to normal.

First I tried bells, I made my own bells for the front door, she never understood that. (I think she's afraid of it, even with me making it a slow process and always giving treats.) Very slowly she started waiting at the door (not making a peep) to tell us she had to go. :) Sometimes she'd wait a minute or two and sometimes she'd make it to the door and then that was that. :( So we became very vigalent of her being at the door. Unfortunately she now loves the rug by the front door (she tracks in too much mud and leaves otherwise) and will just lay on the carpet simply because. (Our house is all hardwood/tile which has been AMAZING for cleaning up accident but she prefers, even with comfy beds and couches at her disposal, carpets.) :rolleyes: She had realized that being by the front door gets her attention so sometimes just when she wants attention she'll wait at the front door. I'll reinforce it with a walk but clearly it doesn't do anything. Very little, but still sometimes, she'll bark at the door. I reward that with TONS of treats and a walk (and treats if she makes outside then). But that happens very very rarely...

Zoë is almost 10 months old and in the past 2 days she's had 7-8 accidents. :( While they were obviously her fault, it was partly due to the weather as we've had really severe thunderstorms and she won't go out in that weather (won't even tell us she has to make when it's that bad out). I guess the wind and the rain is too much for her... it never helped much but putting a rain jacket helped a bit but unfortunately since she's so big now (she's 5.75 pounds as opposed to 2.5 when we brought her home) she doesn't have a rain jacket that fits her anymore.

She had been mostly fine and then my parents brought their two dogs for a weekend visit and all hell broke loose. Didn't always know if it was Zoe or their puppy but there were more accidents then I could count! Ever since then Zoe has continued the crazy number of accidents.... (Though interestingly, my parents puppy has had only 1 accident since then!) In the past month or two when she's gotten bad like this I've gone back to crating her (go for a walk, if she doesn't make crate for 30 minutes, walk, if she doesn't same, but if she does play for a while.....) and after one or two 30 minute sessions in the crate (where she cries the ENTIRE time) she's back to normal.

I'm just not sure what to do. When I walk her she gets TONS of verbal praise and I ALWAYS have a treat or two in hand for when she actually makes outside. But it's like she doesn't even get the association that making inside is bad and making outside is good. In fact sometimes she has more accidents now then she did when we first brought her home! :eek: She shows no remorse when she's had an accident inside, which all my other dogs have done, almost like she doesn't realize it's a bad thing.

If she's left alone when we leave the house, she's left in her x-pen with a bed, an open crate, toys, food and water. 98% of the time, regardless of how long we're gone, she will not have an accident inside her crate. While at home she can't hold it in for more than an hour-hour and a half. So we try to keep up with that and walk her even if she doesn't seem to need to go out, around that time. However she's a TOTAL lazy bum and sleeps ALL THE TIME. So we run in to trouble when she sleeps, because that hour and a half passes by and she's sleeping. And then she wakes up and we walk her and sometimes she makes and sometimes she doesn't.

I'm totally persistent. With too many accidents and too much freedom she's been boxed for the past few months with supervision to ONLY the entry way and the living room (or the x-pen). I've waited with her outside so long that my boyfriend didn't realize we were still out there!

When we go out she knows to walk off the grass and back to the front door when we're all done. But there are times she clearly still has to make but has no intentions of doing so, she will run straight back to the door, not even entertaining the thought of staying on the grass or making.... :mad:

The little angel is sleeping now. :rolleyes: I took her out when she woke up and she peed, she refused to poop and promptly ran to the door. So I've kept a guarded eye on her, she's ate and is now alseep. But I'm fearful I'll turn my head and find poop somewhere!

-Vicky

P.S. I have to move in a month or two and most places that are available don't seem to have any (or much) tile, so I'm freaking out about having a mostly or all carpeted home and Zoë keeping up her accidents.... I've been saying she's house trained, because on the average she mostly is (that and no one would rent to me if I said otherwise) but I'm fearful of how it'll actually be once we move!

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.

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.

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?

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.

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. :rolleyes: 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)

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! :rolleyes: 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. :thumbup:

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.

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.

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 :(

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

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.

Well we are on day 3, sort of. Sunday she was too tired to do anything. :cool: 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. :rolleyes:

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%

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! :rolleyes: