Anything wrong with what we are doing?
 

Rambo is 10 weeks old, and we have had him for almost 1 week now. Friday will be one week. He is still peeing and pooing in the apartment. I am trying to potty train him to go outside on our balcony. When we are home we let him wander around our living room with us. But when we go to sleep and when we go to work we keep him in the kitchen with pee pads. Hes locked in the kitchen with baby gates. Every morning, i have to clean up pee because he goes pee on the pads but he also goes pee on the kitchen floor. I do the routine lots of people tell me. I show him the pee, then i say "NO!" and then i bring him outside onto the balcony where we have another pee pad set up. Its practically the same routine when i get home from work. the past two days he has gone poo outside. I dunno if i got lucky and put him out at the right times or if he really was holding it till he went outside. But today he went poo in the kitchen again. I know he is locked in the kitchen all night and during most of the day, so even if he did want to go out onto the balcony he wouldnt be able to. So what i am asking is am i doing this right? Also i have to admit, it is getting a little bit frustrating. Am i expecting to much for having him just a week? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in Advance! :)

This is a VERY young puppy! Would you yell at a baby for peeing itself?

That's bad advice you are getting. Don't yell at a dog or make a big deal out of bad potty habbits. When there's an accident, ignore the pup's attention and clean it up. Don't ignore the pup per se, but don't reward this behavior with attention either. Just clean it up, and go play with the dog. Your pup isn't trying to vex you when it goes to the bathroom. It's a dog, not a human being, and it understands the world a little differently than you do. Why does your dog know what the pads are for?

You have to train your dog to go on the pad. This requires time and attention and patience. I suggest you read through the many, many, many posts on this site on the same subject. You may also consider getting some books on raising a puppy as there is a lot you should know.

I suggest "Puppies for Dummies", which helped me GREATLY in potty training my pup.

And with a yorkie you must be prepaired for a long haul, it can take up to a year before it is fully potty trained - but the place where you bought it has probably told you that along with other special things about the race :)

Good luck with your baby - you are in for a great experience being a yorkie owner :) :) :)

As some of the others have said, it will take quite some time before there are no more accidents. From my experience I think using a crate at night and during the day while you are gone works very well and they usually will hold it until you let them out because they don't want to go where they sleep. I haven't used the pads so maybe your experience will be different. It seems to me though that it would be kinda hard to teach them to go on a pad when in the house and to try to get them to go outside when you're home. Just a thought. In my case we started using the crate when Samson was 3 months old. At first I didn't want to keep him confined because I'm a softy so we put him in the bathroom with old towels on one side of the room. He started only going on the towels which was good but when he was out of the bathroom he just went wherever. We knew we wanted to train him to go outside so I eventually gave in and started with the crate. At first he had one or two poo poo accidents in the crate but after that he never had another accident in the crate. Now he is almost 7 months and occaisonally will have an accident in the house but he is definetely getting better.

I didn't mean for this to be so long but I just wanted to share what has seemed to be working for us :)

Stewie is 11 months old and is just starting to be VERY reliable with potty training.

I suggest that when he's making a mistake, say "go outside" or whatever phrase you feel like using and lead him out there. Then say "go potty outside". Even if he doesn't have to go, you want him to learn what "go potty" means and you want him to learn what the pad is. When Stewie was going on pee pads i would say "make potty on your paper" in a really high pitched voice.

Patience and consistency is the key. Remember he is just a baby.

Personally I've never been a fan of pee pads b/c you're training the dog to potty inside, regardless of the limited area you're allowing him to go in.

Just stay consistent. That's all you can do w/ a pup this age. He'll start picking it up after it becomes a habit. Don't be too hard on him...animals want to PLEASE their owners/parents. Rambo will get the hang of it!

JM

10 weeks old is young but only having had him for a week, and expecting him to be potty trained is wayyyyyy to high of an expectation. I think you may also be confusing him by trying to train him inside and outside. I think the outside will come more naturally later, but you have to kind of pick which one you want to start off with. He's ONLY 10 weeks. He doesn't understand what NO is or why your voice sounds so loud/scary. Unless you catch him in the act, it is useless to yell at him for something he won't understand. When they are older like past 1 year, they begin to understand you better but for now, you gotta just be consistent and patient. I used to sit on the floor next to Coco and her pad for hours on end. I would ignore my cell calls, the tv and everything else. I would sit there with her, at her pad forever, if that's what it took for her to understand the words "Coco do your business". She would whine and whimper and want to go play but until she would do her business we would just sit there. After about a month or a month and a half, it totallly clicked in her, that when I say those words, if she went potty, we would go and have fun and she would get treats. It will eventually click. Coco was potty trained at 4 months.

I think Nobella makes a good point. I also forgot to say that if you yell when you see him going, he may think he is getting in trouble for the act in general. Someone in my family yelled @ stewie when he was going #2 on the kitchen floor. He got so scared for a while that he would HIDE when he went. I found piles in the far end of my closet. He must have snuck in there when he realized I wasn't paying attention to him at all and went in there. I broke him of that, but it was a huge step back. You don't want your little baby to start hiding from you to do his business, so I would make sure that you're stearn, but not frightening to him when you catch him in the act.

puppy
 

Time for a reality check..YORKIES take tons of patience to train. It will not happen in one week or one month..hopefully, he will be trained by one year. Get belly bands, an x-pen and begin a long process..I may sound negative, but truthfully, Yorkies are NOT for everyone, since they are the hardest breed to train IMO..They are very self willed..and many will have accidents their entire life. Good Luck

I think you're right about that for a few but some have had no trouble at all. Coco was a complete breeze to potty train (it was the whimpering that was a pain). A few other people have gotten real lucky. But the point I am trying to make is that you won't know if your puppy will learn fast and you will be one of the lucky ones unless you are really consistent and patient. Otherwise if you don't really try hard it will just add to the stigma of yorkies being hard to train. I don't think that is it, it just depends on how consistent YOU are.

If you are strickly speaking about method, I have to agree that you are going about it all wrong. But that's not your fault, altogther. Reading up on the new methods of housebreaking a dog is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. And once you read, pick a method and follow it to a "T", no matter how inconvenient it is for you. Because it will work, but not if you go about it 1/2 a**ed. And it will be inconvenient and it will be burdomsome, but it will be worth the effort for a long rewarding relationship with your new family member.

Here are a couple of sites to help you along:

http://www.perfectpaws.com/htrp.html
http://www.perfectpaws.com/pupstuff.html
http://www.perfectpaws.com/crt.html
http://www.peteducation.com/article....&articleid=157

Don't get discouraged. Just start over like nothing has happened from this point forward and go from there. Just like a newborn, a puppy is more work in the begining with very little payback. The payback comes later, when you have a fully housebroken pet and you can learn to enjoy him for who he is, and not hate him for what he does!

I wouldn't be quite that pessimistic about it...10 weeks is WAY to young to expect anything, but Chewy went from 0 potty training to going outside on command really reliably in a month(very few accidents, mostly in new places like a friend's home). At 8 months his last accident occured and none since.

I think Yorkies train o.k...but they are a bit socially...numb...By this I mean that they don't read faces and tones as well as many other breeds...this makes them seem stuborn, when they are realy just confused. I've been working on letting Chewy know better what I expect, and he's been really happy to come along...the trick is just to make him understand. WIth PT that was easier than with some other things...but I certainly wouldn't say that Yorkies are hard to train, just different.

Realize that they might no know a smile from a growl. That realization alone cued me into why he did some of the things he was doing...I find 'whispering' and using a quiet clicker highly effective. They easily intimidate (as they are so small) but the respond with the "Freeze" and "talky" calming signals. When your yorkie has himself planted on the ground while you are calling him, and he starts looking away and yawning, licking his nose, sniffing the ground, these are signs of fear in a dog. Try yawning back, looking away, then changing the subject.

This morning I had a case of "stubborn puppy" where he wouldn't come in and get out of the sun-beam we were standing in. "Chewy...STAY!" I said happily. Then I watched him for a few minutes, holding his eye contact "Stay....Good boy, good stay!" Then "O.k!". Up he springs and comes inside the door. lol. Sucker.

training
 

I know I am pessimistic when it comes to housetraining a Yorkie. I have had many well trained ones...but it took a long time. My 14 wks old is doing very well, but she is far from being safe to let on carpets..fortunately, here in Florida we only have them in two bedrooms.

I read the posts and this is the number one problem, over and over. Until I started insisting on male neutering at 6 months, I had many puppy owners complain years later they did not have a trained male.
I must say my Katherine was 100% trained, but not until she was spayed at 5 years.
Let's face it..I am a bad mother when it comes to training Yorks...I had my Doxie pups trained at 12 weeks without fail. Same with a Min Pin I had a few years back...not my Yorks! LOL

It is really the owner that requires the training and not the yorkie!! LOL!!! Like Nobella said it takes great patience and persistence but it is really not HARD. Yokries are smart and they like to have a JOB and therefore they respond well to training and that includes a combination of obedience training nd house training.

Little yorkies cannot be expected to "hold it" successfully until they are about 6 months old as their bodies are not fully developed until that point to allow for bladder control. This is why I am opposed to crate training...that and I just don't agree with putting dogs in small cages for longer periods of time.

10 weeks is very young and at this age he needs to go potty every hour or so. He needs to be taken out after he wakes up, after he eats, after he drinks, after he plays, after he naps and every hour otherwise. I find that using an xpen outside where he is confined to a fairly small space just for going potty where he is left (with you a short distance away encouraging him to "go") until he goes and rewarded when he does is very effective. You can walk away and he will get the idea that he doesn't get out until he does his business.

I don't think it is confusing to train with pee pads and outside.All of mine picked up on it very well and since mine are not allowed outside without me due to the danger of birds of prey, I like the convenience of both.

Good luck with your training!!

LOl. Well funny that within hours of writing this:

WE had an accident...although I don't think it was accidental. We had to dig up our old hazmat gear from the bottom of the "dog box".

It just takes patience. A couple punts of the balcony should do it! :D j/k I would just recommended being patient. Don't yell at the dog, it's true, they just want to please you and make you happy. I'm typically a little firm with my dogs. If they pee, I show them their mistake, say no and put them outside. After doing this repeatedly, they learn and do well. With my new pup Timmy, he makes all kinds of mistakes, poops after he eats and he has really sharp raptor like claws that tear up the rug. But its ok, I show him where he did wrong, tell him no and we go about are business and play. He especially likes this toy squeaky computer that has a GW on it. I show him that and he spends hours playing with it. Anyway, enough about Timmy, he's a fun pup. But have patience!!!

I'd like to ask you where did you sit with her? In closed room? Thank you!

10 weeks is very young.
Princess was a year old before she caught on.
It takes time, Rambo will train, they all do.
Good Luck to you!
:)

Ok I disagree with some of this. My Lilly is 15 weeks old and she can and does hold it all night. The reason I know this is because she sleeps with me in my bed and she can not get down by herself and my bed has never been wet (at least not by her!) So she can hold it for 8+ hours. My 10 week old can not, so him we forgive. I have wee wee pads all over my house. I had to pick up all my throw rugs as I guess they seemed like wee wee pads. :rolleyes: Lilly is very good about going on the pads, but don't move them because she still goes in that same spot. :(

I just had this conversation with my neighbor, who has two yorkies (brother and sister) he said they crate trained them. (they do not work) He said they would keep the puppies in their crates and take them out to pee, bring them into the house play with them for a while and put them back in their crate. (even during the day when they were home) His dogs are trained and he says they have very little amounts of accidents. SO, I guess anything is possible. :) I have Bell trained, but that was two and a half yeras ago and I only had one to train, Now I have two babies and its VERY HARD! :eek:

potty training edgar has been a bit rough for me because all my life i've been around large dogs. they have bigger bladders and you automatically train them to go outside. (lake michigan vs puddle) yorkies have teeny bladders!

i agree he may be confused with the go here, go outside thing.
have you thought about taking a wet pad outside? he will smell the "go here" smell on it.
and right now, he will go where he happens to be b/c he just can't hold it that long.

edgar is 7mo and he still has (very few) accidents. but now, he knows.
it will get easier, just be patient :)

I'm crate training my two puppies (they're 12wks old). They hold it all night long. Before bringing my daughter to school in the morning, I bring them out. We spend a good bit of the day going in and out of the house and I bring them out just before bed. The smaller pup has more accidents than the larger pup. I should mention that I keep them on the leash with me while we're in the home, so I can keep up with them. At first, I was trying to take them both outside on the leash in the same area; however, they both wanted to "do business" in different parts of the yard. If I just take them outside, they go to "their part" of the yard and do their business. This is working for us... I think they're doing so good for their age. Proud yorkie mommy