Puppy Advice (merged)

kaznelson

When our 11 year old was a pup we would put him in the dining/kitchent at night but his howling was so bad we had to ask the advice of a dog shrink!! They said it was a seperation issue and gave us 2 options - take him to bed with us or use a cage.

He has slept on the landing for the last 11 years!

Ani-Mate_67

It is entirely your choice whether or not you let your dog sleep in your bedroom. The dominance theory has been discredited - as a previous poster has said all your dog needs is consistent rules and boundaries. At 9 months old your dog is not a puppy so will take longer than a puppy to get over night time howling. He is howling for a couple of reasons - firstly he is trying to communivate to you that he wants you to come back (he is a dog and can only use dog language) and secondly he is unsettled because his family have left him. Do not feel sorry for him because he is a rescue dog (or feel sorry just don't act as though you're feeling sorry). He needs a routine and he needs to feel safe. A crate is the best idea. You say that you don't want to shut him in but by saying that you are guilty of giving him human emotions. He won't look on it as prison - he will look at it as a safe den. Get a large crate that you can get his bed and a bowl of water in. Feed him in there and encourage him in after a good/tiring play session. When he is tired he will want to settle down. Don't shut the door to keep him in. If he seems happy in there then close the door. Stay with him. Extend the time he is happy in there (with you in the room - watching TV or reading a book) and then leave the room for a couple of minutes. If he is OK then go for longer. Depending on the dog you may achieve this in a morning or it may take a couple of days. Do not get annoyed with him (or the crate) as he will pick up on this and do not attempt to 'comfort' him to encourage him to stay in the crate as he will just learn that making a fuss in his crate gets your attention. When it is time for bed you need to take him into the garden for a final visit and then put him in his crate. I have always said to my dogs "bedtime - in the garden" after turning the TV off last thing at night and they trundle off and when they come in they go straight to their beds. It will, obviously, take a while for him to learn your bedtime routine but routines make dogs feel safe - they know what is expected of them and they know what you are going to do. Don't make a fuss when you close the crate up just say something like "'night - see you in the morning". Then go to bed and don't get back up until your alarm goes off in the morning. It might be an idea to tell your neighbours what's going on and apologise for the noise but reassure them that it will stop shortly. It won't take him long to learn that he is safe and that you are coming back. I assume he is OK being left during the day - if not then he has got separation issues and a longer response would be needed to cover that.

LillyJ

Our dog is a rescue dog and gets annoyed if we shut him in the kitchen when we are still up in the living room (if people who are scared of him come round, or we are eating a takeaway or whatever) but at night we let him out to the toilet, tell him to get in his bed, ask him to lay down, pat him on the head, give him a kiss, then turn out the lights. He knows it is his bed time then and knows we will be back in the morning and he doesn't have to worry. We also got in to the habit of him sleeping in the kitchen rather than the lounge as there was less to destroy when we first got him, as we weren't sure if he was destructive (which he isn't) but we kept him in there at night as it is small (he is a big dog so it is not much bigger than his basket) so he feels safe in there.

You can try a blanket over the crate with one side free for him to see out, it helps them feel safe. Try putting his food in there with the door open and let him see that nice things happen in the crate.

Once he knows you are coming back in the morning he will settle down. If you want him in your room for good then it is fine to let him up but if you don't then it may be hard to get him out again! We personally don't have the dog upstairs at all as it sets off my asthma and I prefer to have part of my house dog hair free all the time!

Charlie1986

My dog is 4 now and has a night time routine (he made this routine up himself :rotfl: ), where he goes out to the toilet, comes in and has a treat which he takes to his play mat, then we tell him its bedtime and 9 times out of 10 he's fine.
He will sit at the bottom of the stairs and cry when he's either scared or not feeling well but this only happens about once a month, if that. I do let him upstairs in my bedroom if he does this because I know he has a reason and it's not a regular thing. The only reason he doesn't have his bed in the bedroom is because he snores so loud he keeps me awake even when he's downstairs :rolleyes:

trampyblonde

Hi,

I have a bullmastiff puppy who is 13 weeks old. I am just wondering how long it should be taking to fully toilet train him. We've had him for one month.

He's been pretty good over the last few days as the weather has been nice so hes been able to go outside when he wants. He has the odd little accident, mainly when we leave him on his own or when hes overly excited.

Any advice greatly apprciated!

Sus :A

orlao

Hi

Boy dogs (in particular!) tend to dribble when excited......mine did it for at least 18 months:eek: I used to make sure I didn't make a huge fuss of him when I came in until he'd settled down IYSWIM but lots of people used to get wet feet if I couldn't warn them in time, only his favourite people tho:D
It sounds like you've pretty much got the basics right, I wouldn't expect most dogs to be reliably house trained until 6 months or so just make sure you don't punish him and clean up properly (I used bio washing powder on carpets) so they don't have a marker smell left.

I found a crate really useful in housetraining as you could get him out really quickly when you came in and as most dogs won't dirty their bed area they never learn that the house is the place to go....also when he starts chewing it does protect the house but IMO 2-3 hours is the absolute max a pup that age could be left during the day

HTH

supermezzo

Are you leaving the exit he uses to go outside open 'cos the weathers nice, I wonder? I only ask because we did that with the last puppy and had problems when the weather turned because she'd forgotten how to 'ask' to go out, so beware of that one for the future. Our door is open at the moment of course but he has to go past me to get to it, so I still go out with him and re-inforce the command and then praise and treat him ( He's 7 weeks and clearly very canny as he does now slow down to make sure that I've spotted him on his way out so that he doesn't miss out on a treat).
But as well as letting him make his own decision about needing to go out, I do keep an eye on the time and tend to 'take' him out about an hour after hes last been as sometimes, like kids, they do get far too engrossed in what they're doing and simply forget that they need to go until it's far too late and you have a puddle to mop up.
But at 3 months, the occasional accident is not so bad I don't think personally.

Ani-Mate_67

It depends what method you are using to house train. My puppy was essentially trained in two days and everyone I know that crate trained their puppy had them clean within a week. I currently have a 9 week old puppy staying with me for a week and she is now trained. Obviously they can't hang on for long - if they need to go then they need to go so you need to be quicker to the door when they are younger. Also you need to be around all the time with a puppy. Every time they go indoors they are teaching themselves that it is an OK place to go - it is your mistake not theirs. They should be in a crate at any time that you are not actively supervising them. (Their crate is a den not a prison and should be somewhere that they willingly go to sleep.). If you aren't around all the time or if you aren't using a crate then house training can be quite a long procedure cos in the pup's mind you aren't being consistent i.e. sometimes going inside is OK (like when you aren't there to see him) and sometimes going outside is the thing to do. He will get there eventually though.

Shambler

It should not take long and consistency is the key.

Take him out at regular times each day to do his business.

I used to say 'quickies' to my dog when I wanted him to go, initially I would only say it when he started to go himself so he would associate the word with the deed

If you need him to go inside in a certain place you can get puppy training pads which have a certain smell to them and you put them down with the paper or you can also get an iodine spray which makes the dog think another one has already weed in that area

Chicken_Samosa

I took a far too cautious approach with my pup, paper trained in the house first then started getting them used to going outside.

It might sound a bit strange but keep an eye on your pup just before they go, they usually give a tell tale sign such as circling around and sniffing the same area again and again, thats the hint Mr. Bob gave us and then we'd usher him outside to do his stuff.

After a while you can pre-empt the strike and things get better (and cleaner too!)