Help with Puppy!!

Daisy_Daisy_2

we trained our dog to go outside in a couple of weeks, thought you might like to know how, in case any of the info is useful for you. Its reeally difficult training a puppy and looking after a small child but its a bit like potty training - a week or so of intensive effort pays dividends!
We started off with Puppy pads in the kitchen, and watched puppy like a hawk for a few days constantly, if he showed any signs of sniffing about we would whisk him in the kitchen onto the puppy pad and told him to "go wee wees", sometimes he would and sometimes he wouldn't, but you have to keep trying all the time. you can't change the puppy pad as soon as he has done something as he needs a smell to go back to. After that we moved the puppy pad just outside the back door, and left the door open all day for a few days, Still watching like a hawk and using the words "go weewees" or "Go Poos" whichever he did. Then moved the puppy pad away from the back door, closer to where we wanted him to go. Once he was going outside we took away the puppy pads. We were lucky in that we have a Jack Russell so he can use the cat flap, but now at a year old I can take him outside anywhere and ask him to "go weewees"!

foreign_correspondent

re: eating poo - please do not tell your dog off for this as it is counter productive - some dogs do it to 'clean up' especially if they associate leaving the evidence behind with being told off - if you start scolding the dog for eating poo the dog will generally think you are cross because it has pood and will try to hide the evidence faster, and start gulping it down at speed.

Instead take the dog outside on a lead, after it has pood praise it and distract it away from the poo with a fuss and a really tasty treat (tiny bit of cheese or ham works well!), treat it, straight away, as sammy-girl says, so the dog associates toileting outside with a treat and praise, then clean up afterwards whilst the dog is not there. (otherwise this can re-inforce the dogs idea that all poo must be cleared up!)

BabyKat

I have a 10 week old puppy.
I also cage my puppy...it really does help alot as they dont ppe in their beds...well they arent meant to...but it happens.
My pup is only crated when we go out or at night as we just couldnt put up with the noise she made wanting to be with my 2 year old dog.
Honestly crate training is the best thing to do with your puppy as they learn as soon as the door is open its time to go out and do their business.
I let mine out in the morning then feed her.
Then its back outside for a pee and she has a play with my other dogs.
I am also in the habbit with my 2 year old dog or letting her out every hour and it works we have only had a few accidents int he last few days.
When i take my puppy out for a pee i tell her to go get a pee and i make a big fuss when she does and tell her shes clever...i sound mad outside but it works.
I am always with it when it poos and quickly clean it up as soon as i see her doing it.
Good luck i hope you can sort out your puppy

moomin5

Everyone seems to of covered the general training, we had to housetrain our adult greyhounds as they'd never lived in a home but were generally clean in their kennel. We just had to keep an eye on them and if they were pacing then take them out but did so anyway every hour on the first day and 2hrs on the 2nd day when we'd learn't the signs. We always took them out on the lead and when they went to the loo we highly praised them and they soon picked up where they were supposed to go. Perhaps it would help to use the same spot for toileting outside and then only play with the pup outside after its been to the loo?

If they go to go inside and i see them i go "ahh ahh" "outside" and take them outside to go, even if by that time they have half gone. If i didn't see them then i just ignore it and clean up as was my fault for not being there to take them out.

Its also very important to clean up well after accidents otherwise the smell will be telling the puppy thats the place to go to the loo. If you can smell it still, then the cleaning products your using definately arent working. We used a pet enzyme cleaner spray from Pets at home which did the trick and then mopped the floor as usual with a non-ammonia cleaner.

Generally its normally recommended to take dogs out to the loo about 15 mins after dinner as it gets the gut moving, perhaps sooner if it it was a while since they last went or if its a small dog.

Dogs do eat poo and all other manner of icky stuff, its natural but avoidable. Make sure your worming using a decent wormer like drontal and de-fleaer like frontline so that you dog is worm free.

suki1964

Also if shes pooing 9 times a day - a trip to the vet is indicated to make sure shes not poorly. If shes gets a clean bill of health - you need to look at her diet - 9 poos a day is excessive by any standard

Oh and did the rescues refusing to home a dog/pup with you not tell you something? Its really not a good idea to have a pup same time as you have a child that young - unless you have eyes at the back of your head and three pairs of hands - or an awful lot of support in the shape of another adult at home to help

pboae

If your dog is pooing NINE times a day it needs to see a vet. Unless you are feeding it vast quantities of food, I am guessing it's got worms.

Once you've got that sorted, you can follow the advice above. It's pretty clear you don't like the advice you've been given, but the other posters are absolutely correct, the way to toilet train a dog is constant vigilance and praise. If you don't have the time or inclination to do that, rehome it now before these problems get any worse. At the moment your pup is still young and relatively easy to retrain. If things carry on like this, in 6 months it will have ingrained bad habits, and you'll be left trying to rehome a dog with behavioural problems.

EDIT: crating will only help as part of a wider regime of toilet training, to help ensure consistency in training. You still need to teach the dog when and where to go as well. And if the dog isn't given the chance to go outside everytime it needs to toilet, you just end up with a dog trained to toilet in it's crate, and it's no help at all.


With regards eating poo, dogs do this for a variety of reasons, but being punished for toileting in the house is the main one, and being fed junk food (like Bakers or Chum) that doesn't get properly digested is the second. Although a dog with a heavy worm burden will be very hungry, so might eat it out of desperation. It's a habit you need to stop as early as possible, by supervising the dog and clearing up poo before it gets a chance to eat it.

suki1964

Paparika wrote: »

The only suggestion i can make which did work for me and quite quickly too although some feel its cruel.

Cage training, the cage you can buy in a pet shop mine cost £25.00 and usual £35 and upwards in pets at home,

it also doubles up as the transport cage too for the boot of the car, as lil perry still gets car sick, but contained its easier to clear up, So the cage is perfect for his travel needs.

For a whole 2 weeks day and night i kept him in his cage and he only came out for walkies and food, the rest of the time (apart from cuddles on the sofa) he stayed in the cage, i made sure his bedding covered all the bottom so there was no free space to mess, as dogs don't like to mess on their bed (they do if they are desperate)
Its his personal space that he knows he is safe in. I left him 4 hours max during the day, and 8 hours at night, this also trains their bladders to hold more.

It did work for us, but may not work for others if they don't like this type of training, and yes he's had ago at my living room carpet that does need replacing but i can't afford yet, but will do when he's a lil older.

Your kitchen may smell of wee, but get something like zoflora and wash down everything, (59p). Things will get better honest.

lots of praise and treats when outside doing what pup needs to do, everytime my pup wee's and poops outside he automatically looks at me to say, well come on where's my treat.

Really hoping that this isnt so

A pups first weeks are so important for learning, they need to be socialised to all sorts of experiences - not confined to a cage.

And you cant "train a bladder to hold more",, their bladders grow as they grow hence they can hold longer as they get older .

Toilet training isnt about training the pup - its about training the humans who care for the pup into reading the signs and making sure the pup gets to the place the humans want it to use as the toilet in time

Spudnik_2

I understand your frustration - regardless of how much research you do before getting a dog, nothing can quite prepare you for the experience of owning a new puppy. However, please don't just throw in the towel - you've been given some good advice here and, if you can get over this hurdle and persist, you'll reap the rewards of having a well behaved, fully toilet trained dog.

You mention that when you first got your dog, she would only occasionally urinate in the house but that this has worsened rapidly to the point of her defecating 9 times in one day. This does seem unusual, even for a young dog, and so the very first thing that I suggest is taking her to the vet and making sure that there's nothing medically wrong with her. Is she up to date with her worming treatment? You also said that you were finding the smell of urine difficult to remove. This might indicate that the odour of her urine is unusually strong, and so perhaps your pup is ill or stressed (or just that you're using a weak cleaner!). If she's healthy, consider her diet - what is she fed, and how much? Is her weight okay? Her diet *may* explain why she's eating her own waste - this can sometimes indicate some sort of deficiency.

How old is she? You're going to need to start toilet training from scratch. Given her age, and assuming that she medically fine, this is far from impossible - but it will be difficult. I realise that you don't want her in the lounge, but the most important factor in training a dog is consistency so you really do need to watch her like a hawk at all times. She’ll probably need to go around 15 minutes after drinking and 30 minutes after eating, IMMEDIATELY after waking up and right before bed. You mentioned that you’ll take her out and all she’ll do is want to play with you… ignore her. It’s difficult, and it’s likely that she’ll whine and yap at you at first, but once she’s realised that she’s not getting your attention your trips outside should become considerably shorter. When she does relieve herself outside… treat her as though she’s just excreted a £50 note. Jump up and down, give her a fuss and a treat… young pups are eager to learn how to please their new owners, and learn much more quickly from positive than negative reinforcement. This should also distract her from what she’s done so she doesn’t want to eat it! If it doesn’t, consider taking her out on the lead – this might also limit what she can find to do outside, so further quicken the time it takes for her to go to the toilet.

You also mentioned that you can spend an hour outside with her, and she’ll then relieve herself as soon as she comes back inside. How do you usually react if you see her relieving herself in the house? Perhaps by reprimanding her in the past for going to the toilet indoors, you’ve unintentionally taught her than going to the toilet is a bad thing to do, so she’ll try to avoid doing it in front of you?

If you catch her in the act indoors, try not to make a fuss. Take her outside immediately, regardless of whether she's finished or not, and if she does finish up outside give her lots of praise. If you persevere, she'll soon learn to associate going outdoors with positive attention from you. If you don't catch her in the act but find a mess, there's no point in reprimanding her - she won't associate the act with the mess, and so won't understand what she's done wrong. Simply remove her from the room and clean it up thoroughly. As someone else is suggested, if you can't get rid of the smell, try a stronger cleaner. If you can smell it, she most definately can and this will make her more likely to repeat the act in the same place.

Routine is incredibly important – try to get up at the same time every morning to take her out, feed her at the same time every day, walk her at the same time and take her out at the same time. Dogs thrive when given a routine, and it will do wonders for her body clock, making housetraining on a physical level much easier on her. Also remember that a healthy young puppy can only hold her bladder for so long – in hours, roughly her age in months plus one.

It’s difficult to see the signs of a dog wanting to go to the toilet, particularly if the dog is now so accustomed to going indoors. However, look for circling, restlessness, sniffing and pawing at the ground. On top of this, take her out hourly for 10 minutes at a time (ignoring her, as mentioned previously). If she doesn’t do anything after this – 10 minutes is a long time for a young dog when being ignored, which is why I don’t suggest much longer than this – bring her in and try again in 50 minutes. The exception to this is right before bed, or before you're leaving the house - stay out for as long as it takes, or you'll find her later in an unhappy mess. It is difficult, but housetraining is a huge part of owning a new puppy and one that you must be prepared for. There’s really no way around watching her constantly until you’re able to judge roughly when she’ll be able to go, and until she learns to tell you that she needs to go outside, you’re going to have to try your best to work it out.

Hang in there. Of course, if you honestly feel that you cannot give this dog the time she deserves, think about giving her a home that can. However, rehoming a dog is not something that should be taken lightly (please don’t take this as a suggestion that you are taking this decision lightly!), and it would be unfortunate if the pup had to undergo such a stressful experience simply because she didn’t know where she was expected to relieve herself.

Becles

butterflylady wrote: »

Cheepskate what a wonderful suggestion, move my DS and I into the kitchen, that way when she goes with no warning I run the risk of my DS covered in it!!

I agree with the advice that has been given before, but also wanted to comment on this point.

Do you mean the puppy is in the kitchen, while you and your son are in the living room? It could be that the puppy is bored and lonely and the pooing on the floor could be just attention seeking.

You really need to be with the puppy as much as you can so you can pre-empt it needing to go, and put it outside and praise it accordingly.

I have a 15 month old baby and I'm having serious puppy urges having lost one of my dogs to a liver tumour back in February. I'm an experienced dog owner and have trained all my dogs quickly in the past, but I'm still unsure if it's too much with the baby around. I understand how you feel about it, but you really need to give the puppy as much time as you can to get this training done as quick as possible.

broadpaws

hi there,

loads of good advice on here, just thought I would add my 2p.My girl is now months we had her at 8 weeks, and just as we seemed to have her clean, she started pooping during the night, despite going before bed, also had the problems of her not "concentrating" but just wanting to play.

Ok so what did we do....

We have always fed a quality food (we use Burns) seems expensive initailly compared with teh supermarket type meals, BUT it has a much higher quality food less rubbish in it, and the volume they need to eat is FAR LESS (so actaully very cost effective!!)- less in - you know whats coming.... LESS OUT - I was overfeeding my baby, so no wonder she was pooping a bit more than she should. So mine is a bit older than yours, I know have her on 2 meals a day and she poops within 30-1hour after eating.
We got over the concentrating bit, by keeping her on the lead until she pooped then lots of praise THEN play!

So check how much you are feeding her, give her a good quality food (if you are not already!) feed her the correct amount - mine is a GSD and is supposed to be on around 200-250g a day! (not a lot in volume - a large cup or similar) How many times a day are you feeding?

Give the kitchen a really good scrub up, and start again, it may take a few days, but you will see an improvement.

Let us know how you get on!