Izzy is now 13 weeks and we have had her for 3 of those weeks. In lots of ways she has been amazing. She has her crate and a den in our small conservatory over the back door of our cottage. She has slept in her crate keeping that and her den clean and dry (with my husband taking her out for a wee/poo at 3 am) for the last 2 weeks! But she has become very happy just to poodle about from her den outside to the garden and often we find her sleeping in the shed. Which all sounds great! But if we bring her in the dining room or sitting room adjacent to the conservatory she seems to think these rooms could also be the garden too and we still seem to be watching her constantly to catch her before she wees or (once or twice) poos! Have we become too complacent and happy to let her enjoy her inside/outside life before sorting out her house training in the house? Any advice and suggestions would be welcome.
Hi and welcome from me and Nelly ! I think you have really answered your own question because yes , its almost too easy for us , as owners , when our pups have access to the great outdoors , so we then do become complacent about toilet training properly because most of the time , its not needed ! I would take her right back to basics and start house training all over again , good luck x
Hi Kate, so how do we actually go about that? We do bring her indoors in the evenings and sit with her in the sitting room. She usually has a manic few moments for an hour or so and we take her out as and when we think she needs to relieve herself. Sometimes we are too late, sometimes we succeed, it is a bit hit and miss. It is not possible to have her indoors all day long because despite being retired we both have busy lives. I am out and about and my husband works mostly in the garden and Izzy follows him about there, taking herself off to her 'toilet area' as and when required. Going back to basics isn't quite as easy as all the books tell you!!
Welcome from me and my two Labs Sky and Red. I may be wrong but I think the house and the garden need to become more distinct from each other. I crate trained my puppy last year and the crate was in the kitchen. I took her out very regularly but the task was to wee/poo. I kept her on a lead as I have an older Lab and I didn’t want her running after her. Some people have a fenced off toilet area. I think possibly your puppy has too much freedom at the moment. The time involved dedicating to toileting isn’t that long in the overall scheme of things. I too am retired but I put everything on hold for a while (slightly different to your scenario as my older Lab didn’t initially take to the puppy).