We have our puppy! Picked him up on Sunday. He's 9.5 weeks, so he's very young and very new. We've been teaching him his name and playing recall games with him and he seems great at all of that.
I'm having less success with housetraining. I realise it's still early days and am prepared for it to take a while, but can I just go through what I've been doing and would you tell me if this approach is likely to work? He's a toy poodle BTW.
We have a crate, which he seems happy with. At the breeder's home he lived in a newspaper lined puppy playpen. He happily poos and wees on the newspaper in there, which is what he's used to. He's only in there now if we're all out of the room. When he's out I have a sheet of newspaper in the kitchen. When he looks like he's about to go, I take him to the paper. This appears to be his cue to pee on the floor, not the paper. Yesterday we had one success where he sought out the paper to poo. I praised him and gave him a treat immediately.
The other thing I'm doing is taking him in the back garden every hour. I play games with him, so the garden seems like a fun place to be. Mainly he sits on my feet out there. I've tried taking paper out there too, but he reckons there's no way he'll pee/poo out there. Yesterday I borrowed an older puppy to demonstrate. Georgiandog looked surprised, but took it no further.
Since it is chilly and he is tiny, we stay out for 5 mins. In theory we go back out 10 mins later, although he usually poos/pees on the floor 1 minute later. Or he holds it until back in the crate.
Any ideas for how to persuade him grass is the way forward?