Tips for house training new 5mth puppy please!

[Amandoh]

We're due to collect a male 5 month old Dogue De Bordeaux puppy tomorrow evening and I'm worried about house training him.

I already have three dogs and they're all house trained but I've only had one of them as a puppy and that was 11 years ago!

He was great. I put newspaper down by the doors to the garden and he seemed to know instinctively that that was where he had to pee. After a while when I saw him on the paper I would pick him up and put him outside and praise him when he went to the toilet. I took the newspaper up and he just used to wait by the doors to be let out when he needed to go.

I realise that I was incredibly lucky to have a dog that was so quick to train. One of my dogs is a Cavalier and he was 2 when I got him and not house trained at all. I just had to catch him in the act, clap and shout to get him to stop and then put him outside. It has taken such a long time for him to learn not to pee in the house.

Does anyone have any tried and trusted tips and tricks I can use to get him trained as quickly as possible?

Congratulations!

You can speed up the training dramatically by cutting out the newspaper. Otherwise your training them twice - once to go on the paper, and then again to go outside. It can also get very confusing for the pup, so it's best to keep it simple with outside = good and inside = bad.

A crate will also speed things up no end - he won't mess in his bed, so he'll gradually learn to hold it a bit longer until he's dry all night. Obviously you'll need to have the crate within hearing distance and will need to get up to take him out during the night (carry him from crate to garden so there can be no accidents) but it's worth it, and he'll catch on very quickly. It also gives you a safe place to put him during the day if you go out or he needs a nap. Make sure the crate isn't too big otherwise he'll just pee in the far corner away from his bed - you can buy an adult-size one and partition it off, if you don't want to end up buying two.

Word association is great for toilet training - always take him to the same spot in the garden and when he pees or poos say "go toilet" or whatever else takes your fancy, and then make a big fuss when he does it. The idea is you'll get to the stage where you can say "go toilet" and he will. Clicker training is also great, I'm sure minimu can give you some tips for that - it really is the best training technique you can use (for anything, not just toilet training).

Most importantly, if he pees or poos inside don't shout at him or punish him, just ignore it and take him straight outside, then praise him lots when he goes. If he has had an accident in the house, it's because you didn't spot the signs and take him out quick enough, he can't help it and shouting at him will make him anxious and he'll be more likely to have accidents. Don't let him see you clean it up either, just completely ignore the mess until he's in the garden or in another room, and then clean it up with a good pet odour remover from the pet shop (this is crucial otherwise the smell will keep drawing him back - even if you can't smell it, he can). Being very consistant about taking him out really is the key - every half an hour, plus straight after food and naps. Then there'll be no chance for accidents.

Hope this helps, I'm sure there'll be lots of other tips given! And I look forward to seeing pictures

are you sure he's not already trained? 5 months is quite old. they key thing is pre-emption. when dp was little I took him into the garden about every half-hour and if he weed or pooed said a chosen phrase (do wee, in our case) and praised and rewarded him massively.becuase he got taken out so often he very rarely had any accidents inside. it really was very easy.

we didn;t use a crate - we put newspaper by the door overnight - we had a few mornings of having to clear up but really not many. imo for house-training purposes using a crate or not is like chosing between getting up in the midde of the night to let him out, or clearning up in the morning. Personally I prefered the latter. I don;t think it makes much difference training wise.

Thanks for the advice

I know he isn't toilet trained as the seller told me herself on the phone this afternoon. Like you I thought that him being 5 months may have meant that he was but sadly not. I'm hoping that him being an older puppy will make the toilet training stage quicker (Famous last words perhaps). Any ideas as to how long a 5 month old pup can go without needing to pee? We go to bed at roughly 1am so let all the dogs out then and then DP is up at around 6am. Could he reasonably be expected to be dry for five hours?

I do have a crate. I bought it to put the Cavalier in at night while we were going through house training with him but I wonder if it'll be big enough for a 5 month old Dogue De Bordeaux. We didn't have much success in using it with the Cavalier as he cried terribly and I found it very upsetting so would let him out after 5 minutes or so. I don't know if the DDB puppy is used to a crate, it didn't occur to me to ask, but I will tomorrow.

We do use word association for getting the dogs to go out. Embarrassingly it's "Woowoos". I'll use that with the new dog too every time I see him pee. I'm not sure what to do about the paper. It worked well with my Staffordshire Bull Terrier when he was a pup but can see that it's a bit like training them twice. I wonder if putting a couple of sheets of newspaper outside would lessen confusion? I think I'll have to play it by ear.

Thank you again for your help.

If you are getting a 5 month old that is not housetrained I guess we can assume that he has been in a kennel or outside environment.

You may find that you have quite a lot of socialisation issues to deal with as well as house training. He may not be used to washing machine, phones, hoovers etc etc .

Re housetraining definately do not use paper.
Take out every half hour - you must go do to say "woowoos" treat and praise the minute he ddoes it.

If you do this regularly you will be surprised how quick they learn. It may take hhim a little longer as he it a bit older. I would ask where he does his wees at the moments eg the surface grass, or concrete as yyou will find him mote eager to use the same surface which may or may not be what you want him to use!

To use the crate first of all feed the dog in the crate leave the door open , put a few ttreats in the crate for the dog to find, he will start to wander in on his own as he discovers this is a great place to be.

Yes a five month old can easily go 5 hours without needing a wee.

Can I ask where the dog has been for the last 5 months?

I didn't realise he was five months, my brain seemed to skip that part, I was thinking of a tiny pup

I get the impression it's not a breeder that's selling him, but rather a private seller? Have you met the dog yet? As others have said, five months is quite old for him not to be toilet trained - do you know his background and why they are selling him? I can't imagine he's been living outside with all the freezing weather we've had, so presumably he's at least been living in a kennel - in which case I'd still expect him to be toilet trained by this age. Otherwise it means he's been peeing and pooing in his kitchen / the owner's kitchen for the last five months, so training will be much harder (which could be why they're selling him). He's going to be very big, so I would worry about lack of training in other areas too. If the current owner hasn't bothered to toilet train him, I doubt they've bothered to socialise him or teach him basic commands and good manners - all of which are essential for larger breeds.

lol I meant his kennel, not his kitchen - not unless he's got a really posh pad

DP went to see him tonight ( I would have gone along too but DS3 is unwell and I didn't want to leave him with DS1 ) and he and his brother and sister live in a barn as it's a farm he's coming from. There is hay and sawdust on the ground so DP assumes they go to the toilet on that. So, I wonder if a liberal scattering of hay/sawdust in the garden would be helpful in toilet training him?

The owner did say on the phone that the reason they haven't sold sooner is because they had been very choosy about who they sold them to and they'd been let down by a couple of prospective buyers. The mother dog is their family pet and lives in their home and they want the puppies to be pets too.

Putting food in the crate is a brilliant idea as I doubt he's ever been in a crate before.

DP is collecting him tomorrow evening so I'll add a photo of him to my profile.

Thank you again for your help.

Don't want to concern you but do be careful with his socilasing. I would question the reason they give for not having sold earlier. Sometimes some breeders keep a dog to see if it is right to breed from and then change their mind and get rid of it at a later date. Sometimes puppies are returned to breeders by their first owners. I would only take on this dog if there was a clause that you are to have it checked out by a vet first and if any issues arrive you will get your money back.

I may be way of track here but this is quite common practice.

Getting a 5 month old dog that has only lived in a kennel or barn will require intensive socialisation and the dog will need to be treated with care initially.
I do hope it all goes well.

I have to admit, warning bells are ringing for me. If they only have three puppies left and they want them to be family pets, I would have expected any good breeder to have brought them indoors by now (even if it is just for part of the day) so they could get used to a busy house and all the scary things that go along with it, including children. This would require some degree of toilet training to avoid mess in the house, so to me it sounds like they have been left in the barn all the time (or the owners don't care about three large dogs peeing on their carpets!). If it's just the toilet training that's gone astray, that is fixable with hard work. But if other areas of training have been neglected too, you could have a large unruly puppy to deal with, who might not even have been exposed to children. Did any of your children go to see him last night so your DP could see how he behaved around them? And do you know if he's been socialised with other dogs, or been to any kind of puppy classes? By his age (actually, younger) both of my dogs were absolutely toilet trained, very well socialised with other dogs, and could sit, stay, lie down, leave, drop, walk to heel, had good recall etc. Which was a good job, given their size! This is a picture of a 6 month puppy next to a 4 year old adult and there's not much difference size wise, but there'll be a lot of difference mentally. Large breed dogs are funny things because they grow bigger faster and stay younger longer - not always a great combination, even when they have been trained! Don't get me wrong, it's not too late to teach him these things, but if it was me I'd be seriously asking myself if I could handle the hassle and responsibility, especially if I wasn't 100% sure of his background.

Yes, have been thinking things over this morning as regards to 5 months being quite a long time to keep the pups.

I phoned this dog training school this morning as they're in easy walking distance. The owner was with a client but is going to call me back. It was his wife that answered so I had a brief chat with her and she asked if the dog was a rescue dog due to his age. I said no but that I realised 5 and a half months was quite late for puppies to be sold but she said they sometimes don't sell their puppies till later. So it's not completely unheard of.

The dog is used to children as the children at the farm play with them all the time. My DP took a couple of photos on his phone of the puppy and in both he's being cuddled by a child. I think the dogs are exercised outside of the barn too though as the seller said they were great with people, other dogs and chickens! She did say she just couldn't keep them in the house all the time as she has three other dogs and they're extremely boisterous. DP said they were all very friendly and cuddly and playful. They were running around destroying cardboard boxes so we'll buy lots of chew toys for him. I did ask if he was housetrained and she said no as it was difficult with three of them so it sounds like she may have tried which is good.

I had hoped that DS3 would be better today so that I could have gone along to pick the dog up but he still has a temperature (This is the 5th day so am also waiting for the Dr to ring back!) so I don't want to leave him. I'm racking my brain trying to think of questions that DP should ask. So far I've got Q: What food does he eat? What times and what quantities? I know he's been wormed and that he comes with insurance for 6 weeks but she didn't say he'd been vaccinated so I assume not but will ask DP to ask.

I'm sure there's lots more we should be asking but have had very little sleep and worrying that perhaps DS3 has swine flu so brain is a bit fuzzy today. Glad it's the weekend so I won't be on my own with the new pup for a few days.

Also have to come up with a name for him. He's currently called Bolt, which is fine but I'd imagine it's very popular so could cause confusion when out and about. DS3 wants to call him "Toothpaste" or "Noodles". Of the two I prefer the latter. Will wait for him to arrive and then see what name we all think will suit him.

I would find it very strange had he not been vaccinated. My pup had had 3 rounds of vax by 4 months - the first at 7 wks before he left the breeder.