Toilet Training - everywhere but toilet area

Hi Everyone,

So my beautiful Chocolate Lab Sybil has been home for a week now, and I wanted to pick your brains regarding what has/hasn't worked for you all in the toilet training department.

We are crating her at night which is working really well, at almost 9 weeks old she woke only once last night to go to the bathroom, my problem lies with where she goes. She seems to be very particular with what surface she goes to the toilet on. I will take her to the grassed designated 'toilet area' yet she would rather sniff around or sit quietly for 10/15 minutes. Thinking she doesn't need to go, we make our way inside, only for her to toilet on the verandah, concrete paved area, or even as soon as we return inside.

It's doing my head in, as apart from this she's been an absolute dream. Has anyone ever experienced this? What have you done to fix it? It just seems as though she's not a fan of doing her business on grass. Any suggestions would be great! Thanks

 

It's been a long old time since I had a puppy, but 9 weeks old is such early days - seems like she's doing really well for such a little baby! @Boogie will probably have the best advice for you as she is the resident puppy expert around here. I'd say keep up the consistency and your little one will indeed get it with more time.

For my first puppy, I built a special potty area in the back of my garden with pea gravel and a lovely drainage system. I thought I was so clever! Then puppy came home and I dutifully followed all the books and took him out for a potty round the clock every 1.5-2 hours. We did a LOT of standing on pea gravel at 2am with him looking at me as if to say, "Really? This is your idea of fun? I don't need to pee, you know." He really preferred going wee everyplace BUT on his high-tech wee area in those early days.

After a couple of months, it was like he finally just got it. He already was good at not weeing indoors long before then (he was pretty solid at about 12 weeks), but at about five months the battle of over "where" in the garden was pretty much over and he was using the pea gravel area. Then when I started getting foster puppies, Duncan would lead them out to the special spot and show then how it was done. Adorable.

I will say that there is an advantage to a dog that WILL eliminate on multiple surfaces. My second dog thought he needed grass and when we moved to live in a city with only concrete around, it was a real battle for the first few weeks. So there may be an up side to Sybil's non-denominational wee spot choices.

 

The only way to make sure your pup uses the designated area is to fence it in. I reward mine for using it by allowing them to then play in the rest of the garden.

This works really well.

 

I don't know how large your grassy area is, but I found with my latest puppy that, when taken into the garden, she would spend her time doing anything but weeing. I bought a flimsy little guinea pig pen for the garden and popped her in that to do her thing, then she got let out to play afterwards. It worked really well at focussing the mind on the job in hand


(crossed posts with Mags)

 

Do you know if she was given time on grass at the breeder's? She may not know that it's also a place to wee, if she's only used to hard surfaces.

 

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Thanks for your advice. I should stop being so particular, because she's doing so well so far. I just didn't want her getting into bad habits, by training correctly from the start.

I will continue and persist, I know she'll get it. Thanks

 

Thank you. Sounds as though the trick will be a fenced in toilet area on the grass.

 

I know the breeders had a grassed area which they're used to. But my understanding is that their toilet area was in their welping box which was on concrete. Will persist with the grass area, I know she'll get it eventually

 

Just to mention, if it's on the grass, you might want to use something you can move, because the wee will scorch the grass, and the puppy walking round in circles in a small area will also thin it out. I moved the pen I had every day to prevent too much damage.

 

I was just going to suggest would you not prefer her to go on the concrete area?

My grass is ruined now and if I could do it again I would get him to go on concrete and clean it off that

 

Fake grass. It's the way forwards. With Luna, I started off at my sister's house, and she has a large fake grass lawn. It was BRILLIANT for the puppy! No mud, no scorching, no smell. It's ideal