How old was your puppy when finally potty trained?
 

Timmy will be 6 months on Sunday. I've had him for 6 weeks. He can hold his bladder for quite a while. He knows how to use the doggie door when he wants to go outside.

When I am gone I keep him in the kitchen where the doggie door is. When I'm home I take him out to go potty every few hours which sometimes he does and I give him lots of praise. He sleeps in his crate at night and does not wet in it.


But he's still having accidents about twice a day. Is he old enough to be fully potty trained?

Well, it depends on the dog of course but you have to remember that some dogs have small bladders. Also he is still young and can get distracted. Sometimes they drink a lot and the bladder gets full and they are too far from the door to get there so.......it happens.

I think most dogs at 6 months are getting the hang of it but still need a lot of reinforcement. I'd keep up with the training and watching him closely. Keep giving him lots of praise when he does do it right. They never get tired of hearing it. Gracie backslid a few times right when I thought she knew everything but I had slacked off of praising her for going where she was supposed to go. All it took was getting back to making a fuss over her when she did it right and she went right back to doing good again.

I found that putting a belly band on Charles really helped with the house breaking. I also found that putting him on a leash for his outside potty breaks really helped, otherwise he just played and got distracted. It takes time and a lot of patience.

Copper was a year old. He is about 95% potty trained. We only have rare "accidents." Usually, it is because I'm busy and don't hear the bell he rings or in the middle of the night if I'm too tired to get up. He actually does extremely well. He turned 2 in December.

I have heard and read that yorkies take a long time to be fully housebroken and then it is not 100%. I have found all this to be true.

My two are pad trained and 5 and 3 years old. They are about 98% and I don't think they will ever be 100%

Keno has been 100% I used the crate method to outside only and he had it down at 8 months. He barks to be let out. I only take him out with a leash here in Florida and he has a fenced yard in Michigan, just open the patio door.

Sophie Kate took 2.5 years (she is 3.5 years old now).

I blame myself more than her, I had to get on a strict schedule and crate training and she got it.

Callie was about 9 months old when she was potty trained. She was about 95% potty trained around 8 months but until we got the doggy door it wasent 100% then after two accidents in the house she never had another one. I would be very careful letting a yorkie go outside on his own when no one is home an animal could get him or someone could even steal him.

I think it is so important to use the leash. I have no choice since I do not have a fence, but there is a world of difference between my dog and my sister's. Her dog goes out and plays, you can't see where it is in the yard or if it went. Her dog has accidents in the house because she never knows when she went last. Mine has no accidents, partly I am sure because I know when and what she did. She is trained to use the bell, in nice weather I go out with her and use a retractable leash but don't walk around,I am not going to be a slave to following her while she sniffs everywhere. Now that it's cold I put her on a 25' tie out, and watch out the window. Even though she needs to go, sometimes she will just stand on the porch, she sees me looking and I say go potty, go potty, so then she gets off the porch and goes. When visiting my mom who has a fence I do the same thing when it is time for potty she goes out on the leash, then for play the leash comes off. This makes it easy to keep track of when she went last and control things if I know we are going to be leaving her alone. She knows the leash means business no fooling around, so things go much quicker. My sister goes out not knowing the last time the dog really went, then she wonders why she comes home to accidents. LOL I tell her she is lazy about this all the time. One time we were both staying at my moms, her yorkie was about 3 years, Lola about 6 months. We were all heading out for dinner, I take Lola out the front on the leash to potty, she lets her's loose out the back. We get home and there is a big poop in the hallway, she says that's not Lucy's her's does not look like that, I say well Lola never goes in the house. I then take Lola out on the leash, she lets Lucy out loose, not sure what Lucy did, but sure as chit, Lola did a big poop for everyone to see, so I am like, so are you going to still try to tell us that was not Lucy's back in the house, sisters, gotta love em!:p

Either my husband or I always go out in the fenced yard with him. He is never left out in the yard alone. In fact he prefers the leash, probably because I got him in Florida and that is how he was trained. Think it helped also that he is a larger yorkie, so his bladder is probably bigger.

We kept gates and boxes to keep him in the kitchen until he was trained. Then we gave him free run of the house. Then we had to go back to keeping him in the kitchen at least 2 more times because he was not "staying trained." At about 8 months, he seemed to really, really get it.
Interesting though- we have retired to a much smaller house, and the door to the outside is much more obvious to him. He caught on when we moved almost immediately. I really believe floor plans are a factor; before he would have to go through living room, dining room, kitchen, hallway, inside garage door, through the garage to the outside garage door.

Still waiting for mine to be trained ;) He knows he is supposed to go outside but doesn't give enough time to let me get to the back door and let him out. He's getting there, 6 months old now...almost 7. At this rate I think he will be 100% at about a year old :/ which is forever!
It's never taken me this long to house train a dog but, like it's been said, they do have small bladders and other areas to hold their waste ;)

I'd say by 6 months he was about 95% reliable. By one year, he was almost 100%.

He was left free roam at 5 or so months old, his accidents would always occur when I WAS home (when I'm not, all he did was sleep). At 3yrs old, I'd say he's basically 100% potty trained. He will have the very rare accident if it's terrible weather outside (like rain) but even during the hurricane, I ran outside with him real quick at 7pm and he held it until 7am the next morning. He doesn't like to go in the house... I've tried to get him to go even in the garage and stuff on rainy days and he looks at me like I'm crazy.

Gizmo is pretty good. He'll ring the bell to go out to go potty. But we're still working on when going to someone's house. So, when he's visiting Grandma's the belly band goes on.
At first he was really good with no accidents, but we always had him out on the hour every hour. As it got closer to our wedding my DH and I started to get slip shot and we got accidents. So, I know it's hard to keep an eye on them 24/7 but, sometimes in the beginning it's necessary.

Sonic will be 8 months sunday, he isn't completely house trained, he wears a belly band which helps alot, he knows when he has to go, I'll ask him sonic you need to potty, if he does he will go the door, but as far as him telling me he needs to go well he is still working on that.

Louie was 95% potty trained at 6 months....full potty trained at 7 months. He will be 2 march 6, and he has never had a accident. I always went out with him and told him go potty, always gets a treat for potty. Now if we have to leave very quickly we will tell him go potty, and he will on command, before we leave.

Taryn have you tried bringing the bell with you when you go to other places, that's works for us, not sure what type of bell you use I know some are expensive. I bought a big bag of jingle bells at a Meijer's or a craft store and threaded a bunch to form a clump at the bottom of a ribbon which I tie on the door. This way I made several and it hardly cost anything.

I hate to say it but from past experience and from what others with small dogs say, often they are never 100% housebroken. It takes a lot more work to HB a small dog, and often it is more about their temperament than their bladders. So to the OP 6 months for a yorkie is not unusual, keep the faith you will get there,

You have only had him 6 weeks that is no where near long enough to be housebroken especially sine he is only 6 months old. There are countless people who have yorkies at +3 who are not housebroken.

That said most dogs are reliable at 1 year old but I would say small breed dogs overall are not reliably housebroken til 2. I had 3 of mine since birth and I did not trust them at all until they were over a year old each. I got Cozy at 4 months and did not fully trust her til she was 18 months. Mine had very few accidents in the house because I watched them like a hawk.

I also never used pee pads. Rain, snow, etc. outside to potty we go.

Good luck with your New Baby

It's funny that you say this becasue we just started bringing the bell with us (light bulb finally went on) and he seems to be doing better.

Katie Scarlett is a little over 6 months. Before her spay surgery, I would of said she was 99% of the way there. She hadn't had an accident in weeks. I was for sure he had it almost all the way down. Since her spay on Monday, it's been almost all accidents. But I did notice this morning that she is going to the pad so far today. She has peed there twice and poopied there once. So maybe she is getting the hang of things again. I put a diaper on her last night and I think she hated it so much she made the connection that if she pees on carpet, it's a diaper. These little guys are so smart! I was hoping with her she would have it down pat at least by a year old like I had read so many. She is pad trained. She will pee outside if we are on walks, but she goes inside the majority of the time.

Id say Bevo took a good year and a half...Mack Brown learned from him and had it down flat by 4 or 5 months old (of course he grew up in our home)...Bryleigh (the only girl) is now 7 months old and also learned from Bevo and Mack...rarely ever has an accident...then theres Jaxon...Ummm, yeah....hes just a baby...we have a LONG ways to go!! lol...We also use Potty pads!

Morgan is 9 months old and he will bark at me when he needs to go but he also goes on the puppy pads in the house/ this week we got 18 inches of snow and 10 below zero so i did not make him go out

Scooter and Thor are 100 % trained, Sadie and Little Bit still have accidents. They are pad trained in the house and go outside to. Molly on the other hand has no clue what I am trying to teach her as she is blind so it makes it very hard but we are not giving up. Scooter will be two in July, Thor will be one in March and Sadie will be two in April and Little Bit the same as Thor. Molly is 5 but she is a puppy mill rescue so that explains it all.

I got Bear at 12 weeks and he came from the breeder's almost completely peepeepad trained. He has had 2 accidents since and both were my fault because he was accidentally separated from his pads. I was so lucky as this has never happened with any other dog i have owned. I kept him in an xpen when he was a baby and gradually increased his free space. By 6 months he was safe to roam the house. This Christmas at my brother's house, he only needed to see the pads one time and he went the entire 5 days without an accident. He was a breeze to train.

I got my Bear at 4 months old and he was completely potty trained. He only goes outside