House training in a tall house with several stories.

[hellymelly]

Never had any problems house training previous dogs, but it isn't going terribly well with my pup. She is only 12 weeks so early days, but I think a big part of the problem is my house- it is tall and thin, so if we are in a bedroom or the bathroom, then it is two flights of stairs to the back garden. The sitting room is one flight up from the kitchen. Kitchen does open onto the garden but not directly, there is a sort of conservatory/lean-to affair to go through first. So not very easy to just pop a puppy out when they look as though they need to go, and not easy to say No,out, to a puppy either. i am taking her out very regularly, and we are having very few poo accidents, one or two a week, but one or two wee accidents a day. Today I took her out for a walk, it was wet, and she didn't madly enjoy it, but we were out for about 15-20 minutes, no wees at all, and then she wee-ed on the lovely warm dry rug five minutes after coming in. How does one use puppy pads? Would they help?

I would have thought dog needs to live in conservatory / maybe kitchen only until trained. I have barely left my kitchen for 3 weeks. Our kitchen is large and it's quite tricky for puppy to get to door anyway. No way would I allow her up stairs.

The conservatory is really cold at the moment. She could be in the kitchen, but I am often pottering about upstairs in the sitting rooms, so she would be alone more, also there are steep stairs up that it would tricky to get a stair gate onto, so I don't like to leave her alone in the kitchen yet, she fell down them when she first arrived, luckily was ok, but I don't want to risk it happening again. I do hang out in the kitchen with her some of the time.

I would persevere without pads otherwise you end up having to retrain to outdoors later ,the rule needs to be no wee/ poo indoors or she will get confused. Do you use a keyword and go out with her each time ? I always took mine out to the garden on a lead when training so that you could keep them focused on what they're supposed to be doing .

I sympathise.We have a four storey house and the garden is on basement level so every toilet trip involves a dash up and down stairs and through the basement.Add to that we are mad enough to have two pups.A brother and sister, also 12 weeks old.But despite the foul weather which hasn't helped either we are getting there.It's mainly the evenings that we have accidents when they have their silly hour or two and we are tired and don't spot the signals that they want to go.
We wouldn't personally ever use puppy pads as we feel it just reinforces that it's Ok to pee indoors,so it's just very regular trips in and out, and we stay with them outside at all times and use the key words ' hurry up' and have done from day one.They now practically wee to command when we say this .But there are two of us around on and off all day as we work from home otherwise we would never have contemplated two.And I must admit having previously re- homed older dogs I never really thought about the layout of our house.but I have lost weight and have a much trimmer waistline already !

My house sounds like yours Snuggle. Our kitchen is a floor below the ground floor entrance, because the back of the house is a storey lower than the front. I do take her out on a lead, partly as some of our fence has blown down in the storms and needs replacing, and I say "busy", maybe "Hurry up" is better! My Dh works from home but he is right at the top of the house, I am a SAHM at the moment so can give proper attention to a pup- you are very brave getting two at once! Agree the endless rain doesn't help, she doesn't like it and wants to come back in, so sometimes we miss the times when she needs to wee. Or I get distracted emailing or something and miss the time that way. My first dog was clueless in my first floor London flat, but I moved after having him a week or so and literally as soon as I did he was trained, I just popped him out whenever he did a wee inside, let him out really often, job done. This is going to be much more tricky. Although she did cry at the door down to the kitchen earlier as her water was down there, so hopefully she will learn. She's wet her bed the past two nights, after two weeks of dry nights, so I'm not sure why that is.

Helly - we have a 10 week old cocker, so I feel your pain. This may not be what you want to hear , but I pretty much confining myself to the kitchen until he's reliable (he's doing really well). It's an absolute PITA and I really need to get some stuff done upstairs, but it didn't last long with the 15 month old springer (ddog1).

Picking them up if they start circling sometimes breaks the urge to go until you get outside, we do this in the morning as he's so excited and desperate to go he dribbles.

I am very vigilant, DH and the DC are not so much so, then they look at him like it's his fault, which I explain it's not!!

Don't use pads you'll only delay proper toilet training.

As above, unfortunately you need to confine the puppy in a smaller space (too large a space will confuse her anyway), near the garden and stay with her. A few weeks should do it.

I found having a kitchen timer with me all the time helped - I set it for every half an hour and basically spent the first six weeks or so at home. My previous dog had been very clingy so I made sure my puppy was used to falling asleep & waking up on her own.

Definitely keep the puppy downstairs,and persevere with regular trips outside.

Don't let the puppy go elsewhere in the house till you're sure you've got it cracked.

Helpful advice thank you. Impossible to keep her just in the kitchen, unless I leave her alone, as I need to get things done in other parts of the house at times. Kitchen timer is a great idea. I am trying to remember to take her out that often but sometimes I just miss it . yesterday was her best day so far, but today less good, mainly as we have gale force winds here and she is getting scared in the garden and so runs back inside in a panic. The weather generally is terrible for puppy training. I have kept these first months absolutely free to focus on the puppy, though, which does also help. Now I need advice on biting! Will start a new post.