When does puppy learn to poop outside?

[ItsTheKissing]

9 week old lab puppy here. We've had him for a week and are reasonably good at picking up his cues and getting him to go outside to toilet. We take him out pretty much hourly, before/after meals etc. and he reliably goes once overnight and then early morning. However, if we weren't physically taking him out, we would have plenty of accidents and occasionally (now) we have been too slow and he's gone on the floor.

At what point will he start to 'ask' to go outside? I understand he's still so little and are expecting accidents for several months yet but just interested in others experiences of when their pup started to recognise that outside was the toilet?

[GetTheSprinkles]

Mine became reliable (99%) at about 1! Was fairly good (maybe 90%) at about 4 months. Good luck, hopefully your is a lot quicker.

[copycopypaste]

My first puppy took about 3 months after getting him before he was reliably asking to go outside to the toilet. My youngest got it almost straight away, but she did have her brother to copy and I'm a lot more relaxed this time around (wooden floors help too)

[CMOTDibbler]

In my experience, between 4 and 6 months. Are you giving him a clear and consistent way to learn to tell you though? I've had great success with using puppy bells, with some of them learning to ring the bells at 8 weeks. Some of them do find the whole thing much harder though- one of our foster pups needed following round with a mop and bucket, and took months to train

[Moondust001]

With the exception of a very occasional overnight wee (on a pad provided for the purpose, my Border Collie was house trained at 8 weeks (I got him at 7 weeks) - but he is a Border Collie and on the exceptionally smart end of even that breed. He's always picked things up almost immediately and still does (now 4.5 years).

[gatsbylove]

There's a bit of a difference between learning to poop outside and asking to. Mine was pooping outside at about ten weeks (peeing took longer) but didn't start to ask until he was closer to six months.

The asking was VERY subtle - basically just looking at me. Easily missed at first if you're not paying attention but it's important to spot it because it's the foundation upon which more obvious asking is built.

[ItsTheKissing]

@CMOTDibbler that sounds impressive. How does that work?

[ItsTheKissing]

@gatsbylove I'll look out for that. At the moment he has a certain 'walk' that he does whilst sniffing around the floor so it's not an 'ask' at the moment that we can see but will definitely watch more closely.

Is there anything I can do to help him or is it just time?

[ItsTheKissing]

I do feel quite relaxed about it (wooden floors here too) but want to ensure I'm doing the best I can for him and not miss important cues.

[CMOTDibbler]

Dog bells are very easy. You hang them on the back door (or wherever you go out with the pup for them to toilet) and then every time you take them out you jingle them. My most recent foster got the idea in a day

[ItsTheKissing]

Thanks you @CMOTDibbler I've orders some!

[Dreamersandwishers]

Sorry if this sounds rude, but are you putting him out often enough? Every time he wakes, every time he eats , each time he looks at you or finishes okay?
One of my labs I got as a puppy at 8 weeks, and he never once pooped indoors. He did pee, but he was very easy to train, and very clean. But we quickly learned to take him out frequently, and we learned what his triggers were ( basically every time he ate - one in one out 😂) .
He is still pretty reliable in that regard. As others said, he just gives me the ‘deer in headlights’ look if he needs to go outwith our normal schedule.

[Dreamersandwishers]

• finishes play !

[ItsTheKissing]

@Dreamersandwishers yes we're putting him out at least once an hour as you describe and more often if he shows he needs to. However, occasionally I have been a bit slow off the mark and missed the cue; my fault not his. My question was about him knowing that he should go outside and about what age this will happen but there is clearly variability in this.

[Girlintheframe]

Ours was 5 months old before he indicated he wanted out reliably. Up until then it was mostly that we had worked out/guessed when he might need so took him outside.

[GeraltOfRivia]

Ours was just under 4 months when he learned to "knock" at our back door to go out.

[Louise24902]

We've got a wee 4 month staffie and when he was about 12 weeks he started running to the door whenever he needed out. He still does this every time he needs out but if we don't let him out quick enough he just goes in front of the door but this is very rare now that he lets us know when he needs out.
If you use puppy pads in the house I would recommend moving these closer to the door you let him out of every time he uses it until eventually it's outside and there's none in the house.
We started to notice that our puppy was using the pads as an excuse to go in the house, as soon as we got rid of them completely is when he started letting us know he needed out by running to the door and looking at us x

[sunnyshowers]

Ours was about 4 months. The tells were v subtle.
The mess up to then was mainly at the back patio door because she was looking to go outside.
She s our first puppy, we 've always had rescues before she arrived.
I remember fondly carting this little bundle out to the grass....puppies are hard work but I found the process so bonding and rewarding

[Shitsgettingcrazy]

Our dpup is 5 months.

We have been accident free for about 8 weeks. Her cues are subtle. She will wonder out of the room and then come back into the door way and stare at us. If she is out of eye line and we don't see her, she will come and stand in front of us.

She is a busy puppy, so if she is awake and stood still, she needs the loo.

It was just weeks and weeks of consistency. We also noticed her poo schedule and stayed out longer in the garden with her. She didn't poo straight after meals. It was about an hour after waking, around 1pm and around 7pm.

So when we took her our around those times we would sit outside and wait. Which was crap in january. Also we got her at 6 weeks. We fostered her and 2 of her sisters after the breeder contacted the rescue I work with, saying if they didn't come for them they were dumping them and moving on. So there was a short period where if one of them wasn't having a piss, one of the others were.

Not really sure why its so popular to get dogs at Christmas. Training my older one was far more enjoyable in July.

[CupcakeLady06]

Hi :) we have a black lab! She was toilet trained fully by 10weeks, she always done her poo outside but there were a couple of wee accidents inside. Everytime she did have a wee inside, we didn't react we just picked her up and put her outside straight away. She very quickly learned that outside was where she was meant to toilet. She now walks up to the patio doors and sits when she needs to go out. She also never went to the toilet in her crate. Every puppy is different and will do it at different stages :)