Hi all, My partner and I just adopted a 12-week-old black lab puppy. He's wonderful and doing great, but we're having some trouble with potty training. We've read all the articles on Pippa's site and read her book, but we don't seem to be making any of the common errors! My apologies for the really long post, but I want to explain fully what's happening. We have a medium-sized enclosed yard (garden) in the back, part of which we've designated as his potty by laying down an artificial grass pad, because it is mostly flagstone or wooden deck back there. He sniffs the "grass", plays on it, and occasionally wees and poos there. Whenever he does successfully go potty outside, he does it on this pad, so I'm pretty confident that the pad isn't the problem. We praise him lavishly with treats and cuddles and "good boy"s whenever he does go potty there. We tell him "outside" when he does (a word that the breeder was using and that eventually we'll have to change, since we say "outside!" when we're inside all the time!). We've been taking him out frequently (at least once every two hours), and we always supervise him when he's out there or when he's inside. However, very often, after we've spent a long time (sometimes up to an hour) outside waiting for him to go, we return inside only to have him wee or poo in the house. He does so right in plain sight, as he's always supervised. We catch him in the act and take him outside immediately, silently, and bring him to his pad. We bring his soiled paper towels out to the pad and leave them there, not forcing him to sniff them, but just laying them on the pad. One of us cleans the area in the house that he soiled with non-ammonia cleaner and white vinegar before he's allowed back in, while the other one watches him. But it keeps happening! Often when we're outside, he just looks at us inquisitively, and eventually lies down at our feet or on his pee pad and goes to sleep. He's not particularly distracted outside during these times, but occasionally sniffs or plays with some leaves or sticks out of boredom. We've also made sure not to rush inside when he's done weeing or pooing, so that he doesn't associate going potty with the end of playtime. In any case, he doesn't seem to particularly like being out there for hours at a time, even with us, as it seems that he knows we expect something but doesn't know what. Often he whines while we just stand there saying "outside" and looking at him. Does anyone have any suggestions of what might work to encourage him to go outside instead of inside? Thanks so much! Kyle (and Jericho) in Toronto
Hi Kyle and Jericho (love that name!). I'm not an expert, and lots of people on this forum are. But I think you are doing everything right; and it might just be a matter of time. Pongo took two or three weeks to begin to get the idea of peeing outside, but once it clicked he was fine. (Although until he was older he didn't have enough bladder control to avoid accidents - he knew to go outside but very often didn't figure out that he was about to have a pee until it was too late!). Wiht our boy, you could almost see the moment that he realised that he got a treat for peeing outside. Then he very quickly developed the art of the "multiple-pee" (squat, pee a little, run to mum for treat, go somewhere else and squat, pee some more, run to mum for another treat, go somewhere else....etc.) We thought that was really funny and it sure meant he was learning bladder control! He even tried a few times with the "fake-pee" when he really didn't have any wee in him to deliver (make sure mum is watching, squat, put a look of intense concentration on your face, then run to mum for a treat looking hopeful). Clever boy. I think you just have to hang in there and keep doing what you are doing. It will come.
Thanks so much, Rosie! Just in the last day he has started to "get it" a bit more, I think. Now we've got him on a rigid schedule, going out every two hours. That seems to be doing the trick. It may be that we were taking him out there so often that he couldn't figure out what it was for... And he "fake peed" last night! Thanks again!
My gut feeling is that synthetic turf slows down toilet training a bit. We are in a similar situation, except part of our garden is synthetic grass and the rest is deck. For a while Chewie, now 4.5 months old, did not seem to really get the difference between the deck and grass. I guess the synthetic turf doesnt have that "grass smell?" We even went to the extent of buying one of those real grass dog potties, which confused him even more! He knows the "grass" bit is his toilet area now, but still has an accident every now and then.
