Not sure whether this should go under Puppies, or Training, or Behavior but I'll start here. Our 4 month old was taught to go outside to do her business using a doggy door bell. We use a door bell because our house is designed such that we cannot see the back door from anywhere in the house ... except when standing right by the back door. This presented a problem for potty training when very young. The pup would run to the back door to be let out and, if no one noticed immediately (as in within 30 seconds) she would have an accident by the door. So we taught her to use the bell to get our attention faster and reduce accidents. The problem is, the pup didn't really learn that door bell = potty. She learned that door bell = door opened. So now we have a situation where she rings the bell when she just wants to go out and sniff things, pick up leaves and rocks, or do outdoor Zoomies. This can be rather frustrating because we don't want to deny her access to the yard and risk an accident. But sometimes she's ringing the bell every 5 minutes just to get another rock or leaf, or do another Mach 5 figure 8. Any suggestions on how to teach her that the bell is ONLY for when she needs to use the toilet and nothing else?
Set up a small fenced off area outside (doesn’t have to be fully enclosed, just something like a C shape with a small opening for you to get through. The main idea is for it to be a recognisable, distinct zone). When she rings the bell put her on lead and walk her to the fenced off area. Give her 5 mins to pee. No games, no interaction. If there’s no pee, go back inside. If there’s a pee give her a food reward and then go back inside (the peeing will also be rewarding in itself as it’s relieving a discomfort).
I think that is a problem many have found when trying to teach potty training. It is particularly irksome in the dark/wet/ice/snow/wind Rachael's suggestion seems to have worked a lot better than just giving free access to the garden.
Our choc pup will be a year old this month. From the very start (8 weeks old), we trained her using the words 'go potty'. At first, we'd say it when she was actually going. Eventually, when we opened the door for her to go out, we'd tell her to 'go potty'. And now, she usually goes within 10-15 seconds. We do still reward her with a training treat when she does go outside--this encourages her to come right back inside after doing her business. (Especially helpful when it's cold/rainy). We don't have any bells at our back door. After a couple months, she just started barking once at the back door to signal to us that she needed to go outside. Up until she was 5ish months, we'd reward immediately after she went 'potty' with a treat. This seemed to do wonders for us. This is our first lab puppy (my first dog ever), but my goodness is she motivated by food.
Jbarbac2 is right. Our last lab came to us fully trained. The problem is he was never trained to go potty directly. So he learned that the reward for going outside was sniffing the stuff outside. He would wait to potty until the last possible minute. With our new lab puppy, we are giving treats when he potties and so the first thing he does when he goes out is potty because that’s when he gets the reward, and then he will sniff which is less of a reward. Its been said before, but I agree that my lab puppy would sell his mother for a small piece of cheddar cheese.
