If a year is quick, OK. :D It took until he was 6 months old just for him to have any sort of bladder control. After that he tried really hard but we had a hard time communicating, hence the bells. We crate trained and trained for outside only, no confusing him with pads. We just worked very hard and we were very consistent. If he needs to go out at 2am, we take him out. If I'm eating dinner and he needs to go out, I let him out. I don't expect him to hold it all day, the most he can hold it in his crate is 4-5 hours and when he's running around at home he probably goes out every hour. He FINALLY started sleeping through the night. We try to minimize his chance for accidents and made sure that when he did have an accident it was cleaned up immediately and completely. We invested in a steam cleaner and lots of Simple Solution early on. I have white carpet and I think there is ONE puke stain I can still faintly see. And he probably peed on the carpet 50 times. And I'd say he had diarrhea 4 or 5! Love that steam cleaner! For our first dog, I think we've done pretty well. We're proud of him!

Also, Loki has been immersed in training from the beginning. He learned the bells so quickly because he learned Target training in class. He learns new things all the time so it was easy for him. He's super smart but ALL Yorkies are super smart. The hard part is being smarter than they are! If any of you have not done obedience, it's really worth it and a lot of fun! We love it because it's one evening every week that we spend with Loki teaching him new stuff. No TV, no computers, just owners and dogs and lots of treats!!!

My Shih tzu was hard to train also. My yorkie was even harder. Sometimes I wonder if its me. I was told by someone who knows alot about dogs and she always said pee pads were telling them it was okay to go in the house, after using them I believe she is right. Penny would not go no matter how long you were outside. Then she would go only if you stayed out with her, now she goes out on a run by herself and she barks to go out. It was a long haul and it takes lots of patience and persistents, lots! Started doing better my about 10 mo. she is now 1.

My problem now is pooping in the back room (linoleum floor, thank god) and where she is gated when we are gone for a lengthy time. She doesn't go in there when we are gone. I find it in the morning. She goes either in the evening after I go to bed and nobody eles watches her or in the night? (but I usually here her get up and get up and let her out) I sometimes find 2 or 3 and sometimes none. Whats up with that? :eyebrow2:

Potty Training
 

I am having a similar problem with my little man, I have tried pads, won't use them. Tried letting him the garden every hour, he goes out then walks in and does it on the floor. Nothing I try seems to work, so I would have to say I do think they are harder to train. I even hoped my older dog might teach him, to no avail.
HELP!!!!!

I'll add my nickel's worth of advice. :rolleyes: Turbo was really really hard to potty train. When he was about 8 month's old I stared in desperation at my ruined carpet. I'd composed a newpaper ad in my head the night before, "Yorkie puppy for sale, cuteness score 10+ but very high maintenance. Linoleum floors a must!" But, instead of calling the newspaper office, I grabbed my purse and headed for the local Home Depot and purchased two 8 foot pieces of lattice. I used it to 'fence' off my dining room. We could see him from the living room and kitchen and he could see us. Then I went to Babies r Us and purchased a swinging baby gate and put in the hall so Bo couldn't get back to our bedrooms. Any time we weren't actively playing with him or he wasn't napping, he was confined to the fenced off dining room. He had an extra large wire crate that he could rest in and lots and lots of toys. I was very pleasantly surprised at how quickly he took to it. I think the key was that he could see us as we went about our day. I continued to take him out every hour. Lots of praise and treats came his way when he pottied outside. Part of the success was because of his age I'm sure. I honestly don't think yorkies have much bladder control until they are 3-4 months old. But I also don't believe they should have free rein of the house until they've earned it by pottying outside 90% of the time. So, I guess like in the real estate biz it's location, location, location, my potty training mantra is confinement, confinement, confinement! Hang in there, yorkies are totally worth it!!

potty training
 

Thanks for the reply,warf25, sure glad we're not the only ones with this problem.
We have the "WIZDOG" and it's not working. We have been told to try a doggie litter box, has anyone out there tried that?

NANABANANA

I can truly feel your pain, it's like you are a your wits end, very very frustrating.

litter box training
 

i have been trying to litter box train sassi since i first got her 3 mos ago. she is now 6 mos old. she does well when she is in her play pen with the box during the day. she also does well when i baby gate her in the kitchen with the other box. she just seems to disconnect when she is playing in the living room/dining room and will go under the dining room chair. i put her in the kitchen every 1/2 hr and stay with her (no more than 10 minutes) and have a potty party whenever she goes. hopefully this will work!

My last dog (may she RIP) was a 6 lb shih tzu who was never completely housetrained. She'd do great most of the time, and certainly knew better, but it always seemed to me that at times she felt that getting my attention to take her out was just to much trouble! LOL So, I was determined when we brought Ginger home to resolve any potty issue at a young age!

I can honestly say, Ginger hasn't had an accident in the house since she was about 4 months old, and did 90% of her pottying outside by 3 months. When she first came home with me, (at 10 weeks)we followed a very strict schedule...potty time, play/snuggle time, potty time, crate time. With meals three times a day (and always outside shortly after eating) As soon as she'd start to squat outside I'd say"go potty" and as soon as she finished doing her business I'd praise her (sometimes with a treat). The longest she was ever crated (except night) was about 2 hours, and most times it was between 30 minutes and 1/2 hour. I NEVER used newspaper or pee pads, but got her outside regulary. In the beginning, she was just going outside because I was monitoring her schedule so closely. Occasionally, when she would pee inside, I would just quickly clean it up and get her outside (as a young puppy, poo seemed to follow pee pretty quickly), but I never gave her any attention (negative or positive) for peeing inside, all the attention came when she peed OUTSIDE. I kept her with me at all times, and if I had to do something that I couldn't keep a close eye on her, I'd try to time it for when she was in her crate. I even had her sleep in her crate at night so that she would be less likely to have an accident. I took her to work with me and even attached a typewritten schedule to the wall beside her crate. I scheduled appointments with clients during crate time. Occasionally I had to adjust the times a little, but I found as long as I kept the order the same potty/play/potty/crate or potty/play/potty/play/potty/crate we had no problems.


It was a lot of work for about a month, (puppies always are) but she recently had her 17 month birthday, and as I said before, hasn't had an accident in the house for over a year! I never have to crate her, she sleeps in my bed, and she goes potty on comand. (It's great when it's raining, cold or the middle of the night. We can step outside, and be back in in about a minute.

I never had any luck getting me shih tzu past 90% trained, so I don't know what to suggest to anyone with an adult dog, but for anyone with a pupply, I hope this helps!

Great and detailed info
 

:thumbup: Does she still go to work with you or does she stay at home. If she stays at home, do you keep her confined?

Again, thanks for the advice

I'm working on getting Murphy better trained (he's 5 months old).

As far as visiting other people --- he wears a belly band. I use a small folded washcloth and a diaper pin. He also wears these when he is running around the house....and they go right in with the rest of my laundry.

I am beginning to notice that he doesn't have to pee so often. Believe me, this in itself helps as far as training goes.

Carol Jean

How's the potty training going?
 

I was checking through my "subscribed threads" (didn't even know I had subscribed threads :) ), and saw that you asked me if Ginger still goes to work with me? Well, recently, my situation has changed and a couple of days a week she's home alone (well, not alone, she's got the other dog and cat brothers) I have a person come in after about 3 hours and take them for a walk and playtime in the back yard (she usually brings another dog along and they play together). I do confine her to a single room during that time, but not because of her potty habits...just because I'm afraid of anything happening to her, and that way I know she's safe. I don't know if she'd pee in the house if she had the run of the place, possibly more excercise would lead to a greater need to pee.

Let me know how it's going for you, and good luck!

I guess we are very lucky. We have had our 12 week old puppy Brie for 10 days now. She always sleeps in her crate. The first night home she cried and barked and that was to be expected. The next night we actually put her crate in the bed with us. She slept through the night without a whimper and has done so since. Also just before we got her I read here on YT about the sucess some of you have had with bells and that made a lot of sense to me so I ordered some of these immediately: http://www.poochie-pets.net/

Every time we take Brie outside without fail we say "outside" and nudge the bells with her nose (they hang next to the door down to her level). While not every time she has already begun to ring the bells on her own some, and in fact has rung them every time she needed to poop. Brie always gets a treat immediately after using the bathroom. We combine the treat with a lesson before we give the treat, and right now we are working on "sit." She has pretty much caught on already.

We do constantly keep an eye on her and take her out at regular intervals, including after naps and periods of high activity. During weekdays she is confined to a laundry area that has her crate in it. No pee pads or newspapers. My wife comes home for lunch and our daughter comes home from school about 3 hours after that so Brie is never left alone too long. But she has not yet had an "accident" while we are gone.

Having said this I do realize she is still a little puppy. There will be some accidents along the way and we will have to keep up our routine for a good while. Nevertheless I never had a Yorkie puppy before and had heard about housetraining challenges with this breed. So being the obsessive-compulsive person that I am, I was worried. Well, so far so good!

Wow it sounds like you are doing everything right! Good for you!

:( I don\'t know my little one is not easy at all... sometimes I feel very sad because I thought that at one point she actually had a grasp on it, but at 4 months old she is just as bad as she was when she was just 10 weeks old. I feel that she has trained us to know when she has to go potty... she has a specific attitude that changes when the urge approaches and she just becomes pensive and very quiet. Right then and there we know she has to go potty and we take her to her wee wee pad, but she on her own will never go to her wee wee pad.... We have bought a crate, we have placed wee wee pads in different areas of the house and lately we are encouraging her to go outside and now we will see if this has better luck for us... but its been very frausterating and sad for both her and us ...

We just got the bells yesterday and I\'m wondering how long it will take to get Precious to start ringing them. Now we are the ones trained, we let her out every hour and still we have accidents sometimes.She will not use the WIZDOG tray so now we\'re trying the bells.
Confused