How often did your 8 week old puppy wee?

[Duckbill794]

Ours is going every 20 minutes. If I take him out every 20 mins her wees straight away. Much longer and he has an accident. Is this normal? He seems to be drinking lots too.

[Girliefriendlikespuppies]

How big is your puppy?

Fairly normal in a small breed I'd say.

[Duckbill794]

Yes he’s really small, the runt of a terrier litter. That’s good to know it’s normal, I’d read something about an hour for every month. He’s brilliant as weeing everytime he goes out.

So should I just take him out less often as the days go on? I think he’s a long way off being able to tell me when he needs to go.

Maybe if I try 5 minutes longer each week or is that too much of a jump?

[Girliefriendlikespuppies]

How old is he?

Mine (also small terrier) went every 30 mins or so until 11 weeks ish. Would go 5-6 hours over night though.

Does yours hold on better at night?

[fivedogstofeed]

I'd say that's about right - 20/30 mins, I have two eight week old pups here at the moment. They do also sleep in bursts of two hours which is great!

[SirVixofVixHall]

All the time ! Another terrier, although a larger one. Yes I agree every twenty minutes to half an hour through the day.

[Duckbill794]

And at what age (if anyone can remember!) could they go for an hour or more? We’re confined to the kitchen as the rest of the house is carpeted. I’m just wondering when I might be able to take him into the living room for an hour after he’s weed.

[SirVixofVixHall]

Certainly by twelve weeks.

[namechanged984630]

My dog (retriever) slowly built up by maybe ten minutes per week. She's 17 weeks now and goes about 2 hours between wees. Was every twenty minutes to half an hour at first - very wearing but the second week was 30-40, etc etc. Hold on!

[Duckbill794]

Thanks for the reassurance! How do you know when they can go longer? Do you just leave it longer to see if they have an accident? He doesn’t give any sign that he’s about to go, just suddenly drops and wees. I can tell when he needs to poo cause he starts frantically sniffing around as if he’s looking for something.

[TokyoSushi]

Literally all the time! He's 17 weeks now and much, much better, can easily go a couple of hours and always dry overnight.

[namechanged984630]

You get to know the signs. Watch what he does before he goes when he's outside. Sniffing and circling. We have a cat and our dog was always scenting the cat's footprints though so we got some bells on the door. We opened the door when she touched the bells with her nose and she now always rings them to go out. I was surprised how fast she learnt it (and she's mostly a delinquent). I'd recommend it as you have to watch them much less, just listen!

[Motorina]

That sounds about right. On the plus side, sooo many opportunities to tell him he’s awesome for going in the right place.

[Duckbill794]

And when do they make that association between ‘I need a wee so I’ll ask to go out’. That’s true toilet training isn’t? What kind of age do they start to ask?

[namechanged984630]

Mine started asking at about 12 weeks. Reliable from about 14/15. So far!

[Girlintheframe]

Ours was about 5 months before he was reliably toilet trained and would indicate when he needed. We had very few accidents from around 4 months onwards but he wasn't 100% until then.

[pigsDOfly]

Sounds about right to me.

An hour for every mouth? At 8 weeks that would be roughly every 2 hours, that wouldn't work, far too long to expect a baby animal to be able to hold on during the day.

It'll be some time before he can tell you he want to go out so watch for him tracking on the floor: he'll put his nose down and sniff along the floor and often circle, that's a good indication he's looking for somewhere to wee or poo.

As well as every 20 minutes he should be taken out after waking and eating.