This puppy stage is not easy!
 

Am I the only one going crazy between the teething process and potty training? Bentley has lots of toys yet I cant seem to get him to let go of my hands!! Its honestly painful, the teeth are very sharp. Then for the potty training I'm trying to teach him to use the wee wee pads the same way I taught my Chihuahuas to with positive reinforcement. As a Psychology student I was always taught that if the dog has already finished going the bathroom even if you tell him no he will have no idea what he did wrong because they are not capable of connecting the action to something he did wrong. So unless I'm catching him in the action I don't tell him no. I don't know if this is wrong or right because I'm not being consistent every time he uses the bathroom. Just want to know how you guys potty trained your yorkies? And what you guys did to cool down the teething?

for the the teething I bought nylon bones, I used to give my dogs rawhide bones but theres too many issues with swallowing pieces whole or choking and random things. they worked perfectly with the nylon bones. Have you tried the spray that shows them where to potty? that worked with my females, but my males were very stubborn. We have them on a timed training and on top of that they wear doggy diapers around the house in case they have an accident. You would get plenty more tips on the training board as well. I learned many tips and tricks there :)

Have faith Bentleys Mommie.........we have all been in your shoes. When Macy was a puppy and my hands were becomming raw meat, I sprayed some bitter apple on my hands and feet and let her bite me. After 3 times of getting a taste of bitter apple, she stopped and never tried again.

As for the potty pad training.....it took Macy until she was a year old to use her potty pad consistently. Hang in there, be consistent with the reward immediately after using the potty pad. Ignore and just clean up the mess if you don't catch him in the act. I'm sure more knowledgeable people will post with more ideas.

Just don't give up and don't lose hope!!! When they finally connect that they are supposed to use the potty pad instead of your floor it will be an awesome feeling for both you and Bentley.

Regarding the hard use of teeth during playing and rough-playing with puppies dogs and the hard-biting they do with those sharp little teeth, I just posted on another thread about hard-biting and hurting. I do rough play with dogs - especially terriers - and they love it. But I teach them boundaries for what is allowed during that play and they are smart and learn how to rough-play. One of the quickest ways to get a message through to a nipping, play-biting dog is to get up and walk away from them the moment you feel a hard bite. In time, they learn exactly what it is that caused all play to stop - a hard bite. Young dogs would rather play than eat so removing yourself and your attention from them is a huge statement from you that hard bite = stopping all play. I know it is tiresome to keep doing this but in time the puppy "gets it" and starts to connect a hard bite with your stopping all play. Amazing how fast - within weeks to a month - even a young puppy can learn to get a soft mouth. But remember, to keep teaching - dogs forget and revert to their old ways if you don't keep up the teaching until they have committed the lesson to their permanent memory. And still, because they are dogs, one will occasionally playfully hard-bite as an adult during rough play or very exciting play. Just say "no", stand up and walk off. Always remain a teacher with your dog.

Redirecting them with other toys, saying "uh oh" or "no", pushing your hand or arm further back into their mouth than is comfortable for them and takes control from them, squealing out in pain are all effective, too, with some dogs. Other dogs get excited by the squealing and bite harder - I had one of those! Tibbe loved the squeal. I personally don't recommend squirting them with water or scents, etc., as it can cause some nervous dogs to become fearful of you and/or squirted/sprayed things or water but works for others.

You're not alone! Jasper is going through the same issues. And those teeth!!! OMGosh those teeth!! Lol last night I started tapping his nose once and telling him no and immediately giving him one of his toys. I've been doing the same today. I do think it's better. Has anyone ever tried the Bully Sticks? I've thought about getting him one but wanted opinions. What do y'all think?

I've got three potty training and I feel your pain, but I must say they are all doing very well with the pads since I put up a gate and gave them limited access to the house. No more free range Yorkies for now ... :)

On the biting, Eva was the queen of mean when it came to biting on the hubs, she was relentless! He loved to play with her and for the first month or two he let her bite on him. It was so funny, at any given moment (when he was home) I would hear him shout, "OUCH! dang, Eva" . :D

To stop this behavior I finally convinced him to say, "no bite, Eva", and then it shortened to just, "no bite". It took about a week of being constant with her, but it worked!

Good luck!

I was probably bad with Joel when he was a puppy, I rather let him chew all over me and when he got about 10 months I officially taught him no biting which he learned faster since he was older, lol but it worked out fine since he only play bites when I want him to now:)

As far as the biting goes.....I play with my pups until they bite too hard. When that happens, I say ouch....then move away and not play. It has really taught them not to bite hard. Being ignored is not fun for them! Pad training Tatiana is going great here....she is now 15 weeks and going majority of the time by herself! I began by taking her after every meal, immediately upon waking and after playing. I always say "potty" and give her time. If she tries to leave without going, I repeat the process until she goes. I do watch her close and yes, she does have accidents! She is only 15 weeks and that is to be expected. I do not get upset, just clean it up and wipe the area with vinegar. Praise for good behavior with some play time is her reward. I do not use treat but others do and have good results. It will get easier with time. Hang in there!

As far as the pee pad training goes, I have quite a ways to go w/that. But, Bella mouths everything. She constantly bites my hands.. I have picked up a few pointers that I've noticed a difference now after trying them. I took a facecloth & cut it up into thick 3" long strips & soaked them w/water. I freeze them and when she's biting a lot, I give her one to chew on..I think it does comfort her gums some. Also consistency is important, I say no or no bite when she puts her mouth on my hands..I say it kinda loud but def don't yell it. If she bites me after that, I put her in time out. That's in her crate left alone.. She still bites me but honestly I am noticing a difference finally. It was nonstop before & now I see her thinking about it. So good luck & he will understand soon enough that he can't use your hands as a chew toy! :)

You are not alone. Oh Galen and his needle teeth. They hurt. I got him nylonbones and rubber squeaky toys. He is only allowed to play with under supervision. He kills them lol. I have been using the schedule from the book "How to Housebreaking your Dog I n 7 Days" it works well. Here a link with the schedules. It might help. It is working for us. Knock on wood ;)

http://www.leecharleskelley.com/imag...sebreaking.pdf

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Thank you guys!! love the freezing cloth idea!! Im trying that tonight!! Thank you guys for taking the time to help me!:):):):)

I have young children, so I taught the "no biting" thing from the beginning. I gave Joey plenty of chew toys (kong, softer plush toys, nylon) and of course he had Carley to chew on. Sweet girl, she didnt care and when he got too rough, she let him know.

HOUSEBREAKING:
This is what I did with Julie and it was a matter of time before she was housebroken. If she had an accident, the majority of the time it was due to lack of attention. Seldom it was due to her fault.
When I initially brought her home, I took her out to “get busy” at the “potty spot” outside every hour on the hour saying “time to get busy”. The treats went as follows:

#1) Exact location: Three liver treats
#2) Close to the location: Two liver treats
#3) On the grass: one liver treat
#4) Now, mostly praise and random treats

NOTE: #1 - #3 Lots of praise mixed in.

As the others have stated, if she had an accident and I did not catch it, I would just go clean the mess without saying a word. If I did catch her in the act, I would quickly pick her up and say the word "outside". When we got outside, I would say, "let's get busy".

If I got confused on the time, I would then set the alarm on my iPhone to go off every hour on the hour, so I would remember to take her out, then change the span of time on the alarm as time went on. At the beginning of her housebreaking training, this is how I started:
45 minutes
1 hour
1.5 hours
2 hours
2.5 hours
3 hours
3.5 hours

I would also take her outside to get busy under these conditions:
Waking up
After eating
After napping
After playing
If she was crated for any length of time
Driving: Before and after we reached our destination
Before going to bed

Keep in mind that this is the first time in my life I've had a dog as early as eight weeks. I have read a lot of material in reference to housebreaking. What I've read, I’ve mostly used as a guideline to train Julie.
There will be times when both you and your baby have “accidents in training.” Keep in mind that there is a learning curve for both of you so give yourselves some space and grace. I think if there was one word that I would use towards housebreaking (as others have said) it would be the word "consistency".

I will also add that when I go to my parents’ house and we leave the house, I put Julie in the bathroom with a bowl of water and a potty pad.

As for the house boundaries, I keep her on the same level where I am located. She's a wee little gal and I don't feel comfortable leaving her alone.

BITING:
I'm still working with Julie with no bite.

What I have heard to decrease biting is after their first shot. You can take them to places like Petco for puppy playtime. They will learn more about biting with their peers in one day than they will with their owner in a week.

NIGHT POTTY TRAINING:
My mother-in-law and I are learning about puppies pretty much at the same time. Julie is four months older than her first puppy, Frosty (male). I don't know where she learned this from, but she offered me a suggestion on how to train Julie at bedtime. And this is how it went for me to wake Julie up to get busy the first couple of nights:
1st night: Every two hours
2nd night: Every three hours
3rd night: Every four hours

After the fourth night, we both were doing pretty good. Then several nights later, she was able to sleep the whole night with random wake-ups. Needless to say, I was very tired that first week.

WATER BOWL:
I was trained to do this with Sabu when I initially adopted him, and I have proceeded to do the same with Julie. Put up the water bowl in the evening at 8 PM.

CUES:
Julie has also showed us by her cues when she is ready to go outside to get busy. When she sits there and looks at us and gives us a few quick barks, it is her way of saying "I need to go outside to go potty”.

BELL RINGING:
My mother-in-law has been training Frosty to ring the bells on the doorknob when he is ready to get busy. I must add, she is having some success in her training. I was told about this when we initially adopted Sabu. I tried with Sabu, but it just did not seem to work out for the both of us. Once again, I am attempting to train Julie with the bells. We are at the beginning stages of this training.

LAST NOTE: I wish training a husband was this easy! I know…another thread.

HOUSEBREAKING: @Verbena - thank you for posting that PDF. Great information!
BITING: @MomtoJasper - Julie loves her bully stick. Their awesome!!! I also highly recommend those twirly beef tendons, especially for the smaller dogs.

No advice, I am going crazy right along side you....SIGH

I agree with what Yorkietalkjilly says. She knows what motivates a dog and how to deal with it. When Gracie was a young puppy we had to deal with her almost always wanting to fight something. Her idea of play was pretending to kill things! That is pretty much true today but she now knows what she can "kill" and what is off limits. We had to make sure that when we did not want her excited we did everything to encourage calm behavior. Not moving our hands in front of her was one method that helped keep her from going into her terrier mode of attack and destroy.

I found that any thing that moved was an object of her hunting and killing tactics. We found that we could not just shake a toy and expect her to act entertained because the movement incited her hunting skills much like a cat that sees movement will naturally pounce.

We used plenty of exercise to wear off her desire to attack and bite. Teaching her to play fetch was really helpful because she could play inside or out and not hurt anyone. We had to be very careful with what we did with our hands around her. Always having a toy to replace the hand if she should attempt to bite was helpful as that is how you redirect and show them what is proper to bite.

Since all puppies usually have mouth issues due to teething we got her some bully sticks. I found that having something to chew on for periods of time throughout the day helped her to use up some of that mouth energy on something other than people.

Lots of exercise, redirecting, bully sticks, along with simple obedience training got us through it with our hands still intact.

It is true that the puppy has no idea what you are saying. They have no language skills stating out. The idea of rubbing a dog's nose in a soiled spot is conterproductive. I would suggest keeping your pup very close to the potty pad and making sure you get him on it when he signals he has to go. If you can't watch him then he needs to be in a restricted area where the pad is easily accessible until he is better able to hold his urine and recognisee where the proper place is to potty. A puppy only starts to have the ability to hold back urine at about 16 weeks of age. A small breed pup seems to often take longer. Giving him too much area to wander before he gets the concept can just cause confusion and lengthen the training process.

I hope this helps. I know I sometimes thought I had purchased some sort of killing machine when Gracie was a puppy. She used to growl and show her teeth even as a little baby! At a certain point I was really fearful that she was crazy! When I took the time to research what these dogs were bred for it became clear she was just being what her inherited genes make her. She is really a sweet and loving dog now but I hate to think what she may have become if I had not realized how to deal with it when she was young.

We used a water spray bottle on Princess Sophie for her biting out hands. She just nibbled when she was really little but the biting became harder. Oh yes, we also used the command "no bite" when she got sprayed so now all we have to say is "no bite" and she stops immediately. We really only used the water bottle on her for a couple days. She got the message really quickly.

As for potty training, you need to keep to a schedule and be consistent, that's really key. We watched Princess Sophie for a while but finally figured out when she needed to potty. We spent a lot of time taking her back and forth to the potty pad and even when we felt we were dealing with more accidents than successes, we decided to tether her to me when she was not in my lap or in her play pen. That helped a lot as well. I think it took about a month for her to figure out that the potty pad was where she needed to do that. Now she only occasionally has accidents of #2. Not often at all and usually when I'm not paying attention. LOL

Keep working with your pup, they do eventually get it, even though they can be strong willed. Consistency is really key and the effort is certainly worth it!! Good luck!!

I sincerely appreciate what has been posted here for the biting issue. This is something I'm really trying to work on with Julie. Thank you for the tip of "redirecting" Julie's biting to something else. I can see now that what I have been doing has been counterproductive to reduce the biting.

Thank you.
Starlette

Jess LOVED the bully stiks but they didnt love her...nasty runs....and I cut them and stored them after every chew and they were made in the good ole us of a

Hi, I can feel your frustration. Along side all the great tips so far, I find the nyla bones are good for teething, and not sure if you can get them in the US they are called petstages various toys that can be frozen, if not a frozen clean sock works the same, it just doesn't look as pretty lol. As for toilet training I'm outside all the way, and have done so with all 4 of mine, I'm not a fan of puppy pads in my opinion that just teaches its ok to go indoors. We all go outside at key times after food, just woken up ect and several times in between, my youngest Mickey is nearly 4 month old and already he will run to the door scratch if no one comes her runs to you then back to the door again, I praise and treat like crazy, he's so sneaky tho as now when he comes back in the house he runs over to the where the treat dish is and looks up as if to say "come on I've been a good boy, where's my treat". We still have the odd accident but he's still really young.

Have courage we've gone through it 7 times and we made it through. It does get better. We used to keep teething toys in the freezer sometimes it helps. As far as house breaking this comes with time if you work with them.

I'm with you too and the biting is just out of hand between 6-8pm every night. Our sweet guy turns wild every night. I just ordered two more teething toys to try from Amazon LOL. We yelp like another dog would and sometimes he stops but if he is too wound up he won't stop. We continue to redirect to all of his toys and then put him in his crate if it's just too much. I will try the command and ignore him for a bit to see if this might work. My 6yr old son is scared of puppy right now and also a bit jealous LOL. I have two older children 10 & 13 helping but I don't think they realized how much work a puppy was :).

Our Toby is 10wks old and I'm hoping this will get better with time... We are taking him to a puppy social on Saturday morning to see if he will get a better idea of how not to bite too hard. Maybe you might want to see if you can find one in your area too ;).

Keep us posted. I just joined here today in hopes for some answers to the same issues you're facing.

Yes Where did you find the puppy social?? He's crazy I take him to the dog park but Im scared someone will steal him Im obsessed lol he's so hyper at night I can't even sleep with him because he's pulling on my hair, chewing my face lol I have a training coming on Friday hopefully it works. :)

I know I am in the minority here about this but we broke Kyra by putting her in time out in another room for 5 minutes at a time from the biting issue. It only took a few times for her to figure out it was unacceptable they are very smart little things and it let her know I was alpha not her.

Biting is a very hard habit to break at that age because its just what they do. Pups play that way from the time they are about 4 - 5 weeks old. Plus teething on top of it make it ten times worse. If a quick verbal correction doesn't stop them from biting, some times a little flick on the nose along with their (Name & No Bite) or (Ah Ah NO) works well.

Maybe you could try taking him out for a good run in the early evening? If he has been alone all day he may have a lot of pent up energy that needs to be run off or that is just the time he needs to run.

I found the local puppy social event by googling in my area and then checked out reviews on yelp. http://www.downtowndogs.com. Check on Yelp to see if any doggie daycares host puppy socials in your area. I hope you can find one too.