DOG WILL NOT TOILET TRAIN

[Meowmeowwoofxo]

We have a rescue pup about five months old - we've had her for about a month.

She is not toilet trained at all as she's lived her life in a kennel before us, and it's proving so hard to toilet train her.

Has anyone got any tips for toilet training older pups/dog? Or anything that helped with their puppy?

It is getting embarrassing and our living room carpet is now ruined and sticks off piss. We're just so at our wits end with it.

I would be doing exactly the same as with a non rescue puppy. Lots of puppies live in kennels or pens until they go to new homes.

You got the puppy at four months so that's not unusual or to old to toilet train.

What's your house like. I would have cage in kitchen or next to back door if possible. Don't let puppy onto carpet until sorted if it's that bad.

Then you need a routine ASAP. They tend to go for a pee as soon as they wake up, within 15 minutes of eating, etc. Poo usually within an hour of eating. You want to be out every hour at the moment till you see puppies pattern. Lots of praise when they do go outside. Match for signals that they need, circling, sniffing for example.

There is lots of advice on kennel club website. Good luck.

OP - what are you doing currently to toilet train your puppy?

Take her outside on a lead every half hour and wait until she goes and praise her and say "wee wees". By saying wee wees when she goes you'll be able to train her to wee on demand once she's cracked toilet training.
Be especially vigilant when she wakes and after eating.

YABU for expecting a dog to be toilet trained in a month. Also depends on the breed - some breeds aren't intelligent and take months to learn. My dog (low intelligence breed) took six months to be trained. Take the dog outside regularly and make a sound or word that the dog can associate with toileting. And perhaps put a puppy pad on the carpet for indoor accidents.

Take her outside after every meal, every drink, every sleep, every play and frequently in between. Stay outside with her until she goes and then praise like mad. When she goes give a command word so she starts to associate that with toileting so you can use it to encourage her to go outside.

This is what you would do with a 8 week old puppy and it's hard but you need to keep at it. Every accident inside is a missed opportunity to cement that outside is good so the reason for taking out so frequently in the beginning is to sway the pendulum in favour of outside compared to accidents inside. If she has an accident inside use special cleaners which will remove any smell that the dog can sense which will encourage them to go there again.

With our rescue we took her out on walks excessively at the start; she had a many more (short!) walks than she needed. Every time she toileted on the walk we gave her a treat immediately. She stopped toileting in the house around a month later.

I tried something called the ‘Rascal Dog Litter Box’. A bit on the expensive side but it ended up saving my carpet! It came with a bottle of something I could spray to encourage her to pee in it. Eventually moved it out to the garden, then just reduced it to the pee mat, then just to the spray as a reminder for her to pee in that area. Brilliant!