New french bulldog. Not house trained at all!!

[lolalolly]

We picked up our 12 week old french bulldog Friday morning. The breeders told us she is totally house broken but she is not at all. She literally p"sses where she wants.
We have down the puppy pads, she's going out for walks but not even attempting to wee/poo.
I need tips and advice of how to encourage her to do it outside. I have currently spent my weekend freezing in the garden on the hope she will do it. To no avail. I have let her in...... and she's pissed on the floor looking right at me 🙈
I have an older Doug de Bordeaux who she pays no interest to! Any help or advice would be highly appreciated x

[PennysPocket]

It's only 12 weeks old and you have introduced it to a brand new environment so you should probably expect accidents while it settles.

Frenchies do suffer with UTIs so maybe a trip to the vet would not go amiss.

[Disfordarkchocolate]

No dog will be accident-free at 12 weeks, especially in a new environment.

[adaline]

No dog is going to be fully toilet-trained at 12 weeks, and Frenchies in general are known to be difficult to train.

You just need to be consistent and repetitive!

[lolalolly]

Thankyou Penny's pocketed I think that's what I will do come Tuesday is she is still the same. I know very well she is in a new environment and that no 12 week is 'fully housebroken' I just thought that maybe she would use her puppy pads (maybe naively) but that is why I asked for advice as to how to encourage her outside. 🙄

[missbattenburg]

You don't encourage her outdoors as such.

Instead you make sure she just happens to be outside whenever she needs to pee. Practically this means taking her outside every 30 mins through the day plus immediately after waking, playing, eating, drinking and whenever she looks like she might want to go (circus if, pacing, panting).

If she pees outside praise her.

If she doesn't owe after a few mins bring her back indoors and try again in ten mins.

If she pees indoors don't react but clean it up with an enzyme cleaner (important).

Every time she pees outdoors she gets closer to being house clean. Every time you miss a clue or forget her and she pees indoors she gets further away again.

Expect to be following the above routine for about another 2-4 months. You may be able to stretch out the every 30mims to every hour once she's a bit older.

[lolalolly]

Thankyou missbattenburgh!!! The bring her in part after 5 minutes is deffo what I needed to hear. I have literally even put there for atleast 20/30 minutes!!

[CooperLooper]

Sorry I'm afraid I'll need to disagree with the above PP. Don't bring your pup back in after 10 mins if they've not peed outside. Puppies at that age will consistently need to pee every half hour, so you need to wait outside and don't budge until they do pee. Then lots of praise and back inside.

If you give up after 10 mins it'll just pee inside which is defeating the point.

[boilingstormyseas]

My labrador puppy chewed up the first puppy pad I put down for him so we went for plan B - regular trips outside, lots of praise if success achieved and any accidents cleared up but not commented on.

[Elieza]

Mind and get insured, I think frenchies are the top dog in the insurers list of breeds most likely to need a vet.

[missbattenburg]

Everyone had their own ways and there is more than one way to achieve the same goal but ime puppies do not all need to go every half hour. You could be out there for 30mims or more waiting which risks a set up of a lifetime of the dog thinking he has all the time in the world.

Limiting the time out there - whilst never limiting the amount of times you go out - sets up a habit of peeing quickly on going into the garden. I want routine (behaviour chain) to be:

• go into garden
• pee

Not

• go into garden
• potter about for ages
• pee

He won't pee in the house when you go in if you watch him - which, let's face it, is 90% of the job with a pup 😀

[missbattenburg]

An alternative would be to do away with praise and simply put the behaviour on cue by saying 'have a pee' in a happy voice when he did finally pee.

It's debatable whether the praise is ever really needed anyway as the relief feeling is a negatively reinforcing feeling - it feels nice not to need a wee anymore.

The cue then can be used to hurry up the dog when he's older as the behaviour order becomes:

• be in garden
• hear 'have a wee'
• wee

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Ddog (sadly gone now) was like this. I spent hours walking round the streets saying to her “do the wee wees, do the wee wees”.

After an hour and a half I returned and she pissed on the hall floor.

I think she got really confused.

She was playing out in the back garden and ran into the kitchen, pissed on the floor and ran out again

I was told to use biological washing powder diluted down to wash the floors.

Seemed to get better after that.

[Jaffacakebeast]

You need to catch the dog mid wee, pick it up at, straight outside, if any pee still happening when outside praise, mine was house trained fully within 10 days, he was a pup in the summer tho and a very intelligent breed

[Mumvskids84]

Hi first timer here. I had a French bulldog and also have a pug (both breeds apparently hard to house train) i didn't find it difficult to house train either of mine. I never used puppy pads, find them a waste of time. I agree with pp, I watched them and when they went to pee I put them outside, every time. Didn't take to long for them to get the hang of it. Be consistent with which ever method you go for and you will get him/her there.

[MrsT486]

Oh wow,

Genuinely - the breeder needs a little slap! Promising a house trained bulldog at 12 weeks?! Having bred French Bulldogs for many years and owning 7 I can guarantee you it's a physical impossibility for a puppy so young to when hold its bladder particular for a long period of time (unless sleeping and even then so as with a child they do wee in their sleep!)

What a dishonest thing to promise you, I really would be going back to them and saying why would you use this information in your "sale's pitch" I just can't believe it!

But also you as an owner should have educated yourself on this, too.

[Al170489]

If u thought a pup at 12 weeks would be house trained, then you clearly dont know dogs. You need to make going out to the toilet fun, give your dog time to settle to its new environment.

[bethandpooch]

Sounds like yet another irresponsible "breeder" 🙄

You'll probably find your new puppy won't be house trained for atleast a couple of months. It takes a little while for them to get the hang of it. Bin the puppy pads, all they do is teach the dog to go inside, not outside.

[MissPepper8]

Some great advice with the outdoors part, and the only thing I can add is you need to monitor (as someone has already mentioned all dogs are different on what they can hold with their bladders) so watch what she eats/drinks and time it.

It use to be 45 mins with our pup and then the older he got the more he could hold it.

I'm devided on puppy pads, my parents used them and their dogs are 4 and still pissing in the house. Ridiculous. I think you're better off being strict and taking pup out for a few weeks until the bladder gets strong and they get the idea.

[TeacupRex]

The breeder has fobbed you off. No puppy is going to be fully housetrained at that age (hell, some might not even be 100% by a year) and telling a new owner that crap is going to set them up for a hell of a lot of disappointment.

Unfortunately, puppies will quickly discover that it's much nicer to have a wee or a poo in the nice, warm indoors as opposed to the cold, wet garden! Toilet training in winter is especially difficult. The only thing you can do is wait around until they go, and then praise and treat them. I'd ditch the puppy pads as ideally you don't want your pup to think it's okay to mess in the house at all. Clean up any accidents with a good odor-removing spray/baking soda so your puppy doesn't go back to the same spot to wee/poo.

Take her to the same spot in the garden that she's weed on before and let her sniff around and she will eventually get the idea. It does sometimes help if you've got an older dog - take her to an area where your older dog has just been, sometimes that encourages them to go.

Best of luck, and please do have patienc e - I'm absolutely flabbergasted that a breeder would be making such claims about such a young puppy.

[BoomyBooms]

Frenchies are very smart and very stubborn! Ours took nearly a year to fully house train but I do think that was because we didn't have a garden and tried to use puppy pads and lots of walks/street time, basically the 'where to wee' message changed too much for him to keep up with. Our fault.

I second what previous posters have said about preempting and taking them out after sleeps, food, play time, and any time it feels like it has been a while. We also got to learn his signals so if be snuck off to do a secret poo we would spot and run him outside! He bloody loved a secret poo
We did find that he would hold his wees until he had done all the street sniffing he wanted to do so I also agree with not giving him ages outsode- they are smart little things!
Also another tip that helped was not to let him see me cleaning up his indoor mess. Something about them enjoying the attention. So I'd put him in another room while I cleaned up.

Enjoy your Frenchie!!

[Nettleskeins]

My tip, which is what worked for me, after a week of a 12 week old (mine arrived at 12 weeks, small breed) absolutely not getting the message, was to keep him in his very cosy crate where he could see me and had toys etc at all times, unless he was in the garden! this was in March, so freeezzzing for me, but he very quickly ended up peeing in the garden at which point, yay I love you puppy, you are so clever, reward reward. They then understand what it is you WANT. From their point of view it is much much simpler to pee indoors. And white vinegar everwhere he has peed up until now.
The other trick was to have all sleeps in the crate, so the minute they wake you whisk them out to the garden, particularily first thing in the morning, and it is very likely they will pee then, so you can again reinforce it.

Puppies are quite territorial about peeing/pooing and they will often decide they are not allowed to pee somewhere (like the pavement or park) and are allowed to pee indoors The only way to break this is to catch them peeing in the RIGHT place and positively reinforce.

[Nettleskeins]

What didnt work for us was taking him out all the time like a yo yo, and going in again after 5 mins. He just learnt to wait till we went indoors and held on... until he had an undisturbed moment and could get to his favourite corner of the room.

[Nettleskeins]

warm boots and a warm coat for you, a little coat for the dog (aquafleece), lots of gardening duties; I found that it was quite fun staying outside for a long time once I had set my mind to it. Also thermo s of hot drink and possibly a little bed for the dog. It doesn't work to leave the dog outside without you, you have to stay there!

[FreeBedForFlys]

Missbattenburg has the right idea.


A breeder claiming that a 12 week old puppy is housetrained is a massive red flag that they’re crap tbh.

[N0rnie]

You obviously aren't a real Dog Owner, someone who just wants a Designer Dog. A real Dog Owner would know a new Puppy is not House Trained and would have some idea what to do. I suggest you let the Dog go to a 'proper' Dog Lover's Home and get a new Handbag