Advice on puppy training please.

xcarlyx

I have a 8 week old jack russell and brought him some training pads. On sunday he did well and did his business on his training pad but now hes weein and pooing everywhere can anyone advise me please on what they did with their dog?

Jaynne

Persistence! Are you crate training - it really helps as they tend to not want to go in their crate it can be somewhere safe to stick them for a bit.

Personally I would just ignore the puppy pads. Keep taking the dog outside every half an hour and use a trigger word (ours is busy) - keep repeating it in a calm non stressed voice. Eventually they will get the idea and will learn that the word means they can go to the loo - Honey who is 11 weeks now goes on command and rarely has an accident.

It did take time though - I think it took us nearly two weeks and then one day Honey just got it and is generally accident free in the house unless she just gets too excited.

One of the key things is not to get angry or unhappy at all when your dog goes inside they will take it the wrong way and get a bit of a complex and try to sneak off to do their business! The other things are to clean up using something that will get rid of the smell like biological washing powder or their are sprays from pet shops. Also only give them free roam of a very small area at first - they will quickly take this area as their den and they don't want to pee in their den. As they get older and more confident you can expand the area but at 8 weeks more than one room is just too much territory for them to handle.

krlyr

We may know they're called training pads, but puppies don't! Assume he's a blank slate - what differentiates the pads between your hallway, the kitchen floor, the living room rug? He doesn't understand the concept of peeing on pads.
Seeing as you're going to have to train him to understand what the pads are for, I'd suggest cutting out the middleman and just teaching him straight away to go outside.
Keep a close eye on him. They may be subtle, but most of the time there are signs that a puppy needs the loo - they get fidgety, they start sniffing around, etc. - call his name to get his attention and rush outside. Once he 'goes', make a big song and dance about what a good boy he is. With a puppy in the house is it a good idea to have both a lead and a bag of really yummy treats to hand (if you want something that will keep in your pocket without making crumbs or going mouldy, I'd recommend the Natures Menu little semi-moist treats - for a teeny puppy you might actually want to buy the cat version, identical ingredients but in a smaller size so they'll go further, otherwise break the dog ones into two or three pieces) so you're always prepared to whizz him outside at 2 seconds notice.
I'd also get into the habit of routinely offering toilet breaks. At 8 weeks old I'd be tempted to offer a pee break every hour during the day if you can, and every 2 hours through the night. If you can do a rota with someone it means you can get at least 4 hours solid sleep (6 if there's a third person to go on the rota) - yeah it sucks but it's only for a few weeks, you'll soon be able to increase it to 3 hours, 4, etc. My puppy had barely any accidents indoors with this strict regime as she pretty much always had the opportunity to toilet outside, around the clock.
Make sure the toilet breaks are just that. This is why a lead can be important, but if you just go out without the lead, make sure you're not enticed into a game. Just stand or sit there being boring, so he's encouraged to sniff and toilet. I'd say give him about 5-10 minutes, if he's really too distracted or doesn't seem to need to go, go back indoors but then offer him another pee-break 5 minutes later (if the first time was just down to distractions, it won't be long before he calms down and suddenly realised his need to toilet is quite urgent - it's quite common for pups to not go outside but then have an accident indoors as soon as they come back in, they have short attention spans and weak bladder muscles!)
You might like to introduce a verbal command for toileting - I used "well done" as it wasn't obvious what I was talking about (incase neighbours overheard!) and you just repeat the word as the dog is toileting. After a while I could tell her to "do a well done" and this would basically trigger toileting on command (if she needed to go).
If he does have any accidents indoors, just ignore it. Don't tell him off for what's just a natural bodily function he can't control at the moment. Try not to even look angry, even if it's not directed at him. A dog that becomes nervous of having accidents may start to hide from you when he needs the loo (making it hard to spot the signs, or lead to him having accidents behind furniture etc. where you may not notice) and can sometimes cause dogs to eat their own poo to 'dispose of the evidence'. If there are two of you in the house, ideally have one take him out just incase he wasn't finished with his business, and the other quickly clean up the accident while pup isn't around. Remember to use a cleaner that will deal with the accident properly - you can buy sprays/liquids in petshops for this purpose, but otherwise biological washing powder can be a good one to use, vinegar is also a good natural cleaner. Many bog standard household cleaners won't break down pet urine properly and if the dog can smell that they've peed there before they can be more likely to pee there again.
I didn't bother with crate training, no room for an XL crate in the house, but we used babygates to limit the dog to half of the kitchen overnight, so similar principle. Meant she was right by the back door for those middle-of-the-night toilet breaks so we didn't quite have to wake up fully, just stumble out half-asleep in our PJs!

candjsmum

We used to take our collie Skye out every 20/30 minutes during the day and she only had 1 accident in doors. Make sure you take him out after every drink and meal. We were lucky that hubby had taken 2 weeks off work so was able to do this. Also didn't use training pads, just newspaper. Collies are easy to train though but persistence and lots of praise will get you there.

xcarlyx

is my pup allowed outside with no jabs>

Raksha

xcarlyx wrote: »

is my pup allowed outside with no jabs>

Best to ask your vet, they will know the local circumstances.

Personally, the difficulties of not taking a pup outside before vaccinations and house training outweigh the tiny risk of disease (remember they will still have some immunity inherited from their Mum). Also, how do you think people with an existing dog deal with an unvacinated pup?

krlyr

Do you have your own private garden?
Vaccinations are against diseases that, for the most part, will be transfered by other dogs. If you have a private garden, or a communal garden only shared with vaccinated dogs, you will be pretty safe to let the puppy out in it. There's no total guarantee but most people do it with no problems.
It's also worth bearing in mind the consequences of not taking a dog outside vs. the small risk of it picking up somethng contagious. You risk not just a delay in toilet training but a lifetime of behavioural issues if your puppy isn't exposed to the outside world during this vital stage.
http://www.thepuppyplan.com/?page_id=29

Jaynne

xcarlyx wrote: »

is my pup allowed outside with no jabs>

Allowed - well yes but it puts them at risk of catching the diseases that the jabs vaccinate against. But would you avoid taking a baby out though before they have all their jabs? Probably not but you would avoid taking them somewhere they might be at risk though.

The same goes for puppies - I think you'd be crazy not to take a puppy lots of places so they become used to the noise, sights and smells of the outside world. Manage the risk though - no grass at all except for your own garden where you know its pretty much risk free and no meeting any dogs that you don't know are vaccinated. If you do come across another dog then pick yours up. At least they can meet others that way without picking up any diseases.

xcarlyx

Hes having his first jab on Saturday :~)

Wellyboots6

I do believe the rules state that advice on puppy related issues should be paid for in puppy pictures...?

xcarlyx

katy721 wrote: »

I do believe the rules state that advice on puppy related issues should be paid for in puppy pictures...?

He got his own thread here https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4256911