We picked our 8 week old puppy up on Thursday. She has been doing brilliantly at pooing outside, however, we haven’t been very successful with weeing outdoors. Any toilet training advice for weeing outside would be great please
Hi @Clare Sexton Put your pup on lead and take her to the same spot in garden.give her a treat when she urinates/defecates. Start to capture that behavior with a cue. Yes and treat.Repeat and Repeat. Puppies can roughly hold their bladder one hour for each month of life. So you need to be making regular visits to the same spot in the garden alll day long including night. Don't come in until she urinates. When she wakes up from a nap out to the same spot. Clean the areas she has spotted inside with an appropriate cleaner designed to eliminate the enzymes in urine. Dont use an ammonia cleaner. When you are not supervising her, have her in a crate, big enough just for her to stretch out.
Hi Clare, Buddy was really good with the poos as well so that’s a good start! It’s a bit of a waiting game at first if you have the time. Wait outside and then treat and praise like mad every time, they soon pick it up..... I knew that dogs could wee on demand but I hadn’t expected it so soon. I would stand outside with buddy and say in a bit of a silly voice ‘wee wee wee wee wee’ and before I knew it, the time he roughly needs it, he will do it to this command. Super helpful for his bedtime and night time wee, or if we are going in the car etc. It’s the late/bedtime one I found the most annoying, whilst he sniffs out everything that’s going on and getting distracted whilst you’re stood there freezing cold in the dark ha ha! So inadvertently I was using my phone torch to check for slugs whilst doing the wee chant and he picked it up really quickly, I use the torch still now as I think this is also a trigger. It’s all little things that condition our pups to do certain behaviours. One last thing, we fenced off an area, just a small barrier really, to avoid the distractions that were making the learning a bit more difficult, hope that helps.
Hi @Browneyedhandsomebuddy Mobile phones and cues. Made me laugh. Iinteresting equipment used there for number 1. I wouldn't advise using a light. if the lumination is the cue rather than fiddling with the phone, then one has lost the cued behaviour during daylight hours.
The light thing was just an accident really, well, they both were ha ha! Just observations really, I get what you say about the light, I still use it to check for slugs and things, just thought it probably doubled as a cue as I did psychology at college and there was a lot about dogs and that kind of thing. Either way the most important thing first and foremost is the house training itself, the cue was a bit of a side note.... patience and praise I guess!
Hi @Browneyedhandsomebuddy I totally agree with your sentiment. I was just amused about how you get there. And I wanted to avoid a new dog owner from inadvertently teaching a cue that only worked at night. I would be interested to know whether it is the fiddling or the lumination that is a cue or maybe both are irrelevant. What happens if you don't light up the slugs but just pretend your going to. No other cues. Does your dog still urinate?
Yes, there have been times he’s gone out and urinated when I haven’t used the light, and I normally flick the light on ready before I let him out, so I suppose if it was anything, it would be the light, but the vocal cue still definitely works. I think at night time he probably needs neither to be honest, he can’t wait to get back to bed now so he just gets on with it as quick as he can and runs back in ha ha!
Kyko is 13 weeks old tomorrow & I've had him for just over 2 weeks now. He's never had a poo in the house but we still have accidents in the house especially on an evening. To be fair I know they are my fault as he has the most subtle cue that he needs a wee, plus he seems to pee every 10-30 mins on an evening. I just ignore the fact he's done it inside & straight away take him outside & he will always have a another wee straight away which he gets massive praise for. It's easier now he's sleeping right through the night though I have to say. It's fine at home but I worry he piddles on my floor at work and my boss won't like that, so I tend to take him at least every hour when we're at work. He's had 2 wees at work so far but luckily not on the carpet so could clean them really easily. Sometimes I do feel a fool when there's people walking past & I'm almost singing wee wee or poopy at him
Often bladder control comes after bowel control, so it's pretty normal for a pup to be more aware of their bowels and be able to get most of those numbers outside, and for the bladder control to follow later. Just keep being consistent and taking the pup out to the same place and waiting for a pee, reinforcing, and coming in again.
