How do you teach a puppy to ask to go out for a wee?

[dillite]

I have a 7-month old shih-tzu/ poodle cross (mostly shih-tzu). Housebreaking has been an ongoing battle ever since she came home. She is slowly getting better at it, but still wees and poos in the house even though she is taken out regularly (hourly) when not asleep. I know that she can hold her bladder for 5 hours, as she does that when crated- she isn't usually in there for more than 4 hours at a time, but there have been a couple of times when I was late getting home due to an accident on the roads and there being no buses and on every occasion she was fine, it has even taken a 30-min walk to then produce a result.

This is our current set-up-
7.30am up and out for a wee and a poo
8.30 food then straight into her crate whilst I take my daughter to school
9am get back from school take the dog for a 45min walk at the park, whilst there she poos and wees at least twice. rewarded with chicken and me stroking/ praising her (not sure how much of my praise works as she's deaf, but I am banking on my body language here mostly)
9.45-ish back home. She will then do a wee on the floor within 10 minutes of getting in, even though she always does one just before we get into the house
10am-ish crate till 2pm, she sleeps the whole time
2pm another 15min walk, usually a wee or two, then home and play with me/ 15min training session
3pm crate for 30min whilst I get my daughter from school
3.30pm another quick toileting walk, then playing some more. An indoor wee is guaranteed to happen within 15-20 min of being back home
4.30pm toileting walk, sometimes she does a wee, sometimes she doesn't
5.30pm food, then remains crated for an hour whilst I cook our dinner/ we eat. This also more or less guarantees that she actually goes once taken out at 6.30pm. A wee shortly after we come back in
7.30 she goes back in her crate as it's my daughter's bedtime and she is not allowed upstairs as she is guaranteed to wee/ poo up there. She also can't be left downstairs alone for the same reason, even when taken out for a wee and doing one just before going upstairs
8/8.30pm, another quick toileting run and after that we play for a bit and she just goes to sleep under my chair whilst I work. Usually she sleeps for about 3 hours, or until woken to be taken out again before being crated for the night, midnight usually.

Chicken as a reward for a successful wee/ poo is given every time she does it outside, so is praise!

So, as you can see currently she spends quite a bit of time in her crate because she can not be trusted to be out of it. We have tried extending her crate area/ allowing her to be in one room only so that it's more manageable for her but it makes no difference- she just pees there and then anyway, even if it's on her crate's doorstep, so to speak. Also, she has no signal for when she is about to go- there is no circling, sniffing, looking at the lead/ door/ Jesus- nada. She will just walk, walk, walk and then drop her ass, wee, and carry on walking as if nothing happened. Same with running. She has even managed to do a wee whilst walking up the steps to get into the house!

Also, the thing about house wees is that they are tiny amounts, more like marking her domain I would say- no idea if bitches do that though.

So yes, any advice you experienced people could give me, would be greatly appreciated.

Whoops, that's much longer than I was expecting it to be

Hiya, I had a similar problem with my shin tzu but she was a rescue dog and I got her aged 10 so no idea if she'd always been like that or it was due to her age.

She had absolutely no sense of where to wee or poo. Longest she could go was probably 4 hours, so would put her out for a wee last thing at night and then she'd bark to wake me up and I'd let her out again (not sure the barking was for a wee or just attention), but she'd happily be outside for ages, or have just gone and literally just stop wherever she was in the house and wee or poo. No signals either so if didn't catch her in the act I'd get a surprise later on! She ruined two floors and also left me with a fear of walking round in dim light with bare feet !! Such a lovely little dog though.

Your pup does sound like she's going a lot - maybe you should take her for the vets for a check up to make she's developing ok. Good luck with her :)

Thanks Sparkle!

She has been to the vet and he has said that she's absolutely fine, it's just her breed. She does drink a lot though- up 0.5l a day, so that could be it.

Other shih-tzu owners have told me to just persevere, and that it can take up to a year to toilet train them, until one day it just clicks.

At least she's great in all the other ways, except for stealing stuff from the bin and ruining my socks and leggings. Stealing my dirty underwear. Ruining my tights. Tripping me up all the time. Stealing my bacon buttie from my hand!

If she's getting food rewards it's entirely possible she's trying to earn chicken. I'd scale back the food rewards outside and replace with verbal praise, and make sure she is whisked back out to the garden at the time when you can predict another pee.

If she pees indoors don't react at all, just quietly close her in another room before you clean it up.

Also has she had a season? They'll often pee more in the run up to a season so she might be about to come on heat.

She is yet to have a season. The vet said that I shouldn't be expecting one till she's about 10 months.

The chicken was introduced last month as just praise wasn't getting me anywhere. She does expect it now as a given, so perhaps I will randomise rewarding her.

I am calm and don't make a fuss about indoor accidents, btw. As hard as it is. Her wees and poos are entirely unpredictable- she can not wee for hours or do 3 wees in under an hour, unless crated.

Mine is a shit tzu cross she is 7 months and still goes indoors
I leave the back door open all day but she will still go inside if its cold wet or just not very inviting. She does two poohs overnight usually which is always lovely to wake up to.
She also goes loads on walks but wees on entering the house! I met an owner of similar breed the other day hers was 18months and still at it he even ate his pooh so its one blessing mine doesn't!

I used a bell. here's a link

I used a flat 'fawlty towers hotel' type bell stuck to the floor. Works an absolute treat and you can teach older dogs too.

Eric's a shih tzu poodle cross too but he was a dream to house train,two weeks and about two accidents before he was faultless. I don't think he asked until after he was definitely trained though, so until he knew he had to go outside he didn't ask to go outside. We didn't teach him he'd go to the door and bark to get out. He only goes on walks now so rarely asks but he still does the same bark that he did back then.

Just a tip on the deaf side of things - I am sorry but I don't have any suggestions about training!
My dog (spaniel) has really connected with us smiling. At first I remember he obviously saw it as threatening to show him your teeth, but gradually as I made an effort to smile at him as I was petting/ giving other praise, he has really come around!

Now you just have to look him in the eyes and smile and he's runs from the other side of the room for praise! So don't worry too much about your body language not matching up with what your dog expects. They are so intelligent and adaptable that they will soon know what you're going to do before you do it!

Mine eats poo too if she can get away with it. Not just hers either. She is not allowed to walk on the grass at the park, as I can't always see what's hiding there.

Unfortunately this house doesn't have a back door, I wish it did, it would make everything so much easier. The garden is inaccessible at this time of year due to it being low maintenance- entirely covered in wood chip! When it's wet like it is now it's like walking on a rotten water bed. Plus the dog eats the woodchip, so we just stick to walking up and down the pavement in front of the house.

Charlie seems to be OK with me smiling at her, she usually tries to lick me when I smile at her, so I think she's fine. Or just turns her arse towards me.

Insanity you are so lucky! Can I have Eric please? We can do a swap? I will even throw in all of my chewed up socks to make her feel at home.

I could never part with him, he's such a big part of our lives. We have been incredibly lucky though he doesn't chew and never makes a mess and can be left without a problem and can do plenty of tricks without much effort made to teach him. He's really clever though and if he's bored he will find trouble so he has to be entertained rather than snoozing at my feet.
Charlie's still young though there's plenty of time for her to pick things up and being deaf must make it harder for her to learn.All of Eric's tricks rely on him knowing the words to prompt him, apart from dance which he'll do if you walk a couple of steps back wiggling your bum. Maybe Charlie could learn to dance too

Eric sounds like a right laugh! She does dance- when she smell chicken cooking and then she jumps all over the kitchen trying to reach the counter . Today I am slow cooking a whole chicken. She will not leave the kitchen voluntarily.

I was told to take my puppy to the same part of the garden each time, so she knew that was the toilet area.

And at the same time - before she even started peeing, do a kind of fast, high-pitch commentary "oh what a good girl, time for a pee Lucky, time for a poo, well done....

It worked for me - she was trained within 3-4 weeks.

Instead of crating when you're at home, tie her lead to your waist giving her room to move about. Go about your business but keep an eye on her. When she starts to sniff frantically or begins to squat, scoop her up and take her outside to the wee spot. I don't think I can count the times we got 'squirted' upon scooping up our puppy to take her out!

It is a good idea to return to the same spot if you can. The smell of their own wee/poo reminds them that 'this is the right place' to go.

One of the things we noticed with our current dog is that he seems to 'save up' his wee when we're walking to enable him to 'mark' multiple places. He'll wee a bit multiple times during a walk but then will always do a big wee when we get into our yard. Our female dog didn't seem to do this, don't know if it's a male trait, but you might want to stop right outside your door at the end of the walk and encourage her to wee one last time.

Hi

I have a 6 month old shih tzu x and am very thankful to the powers that be that she was toilet trained by 3 months old. Never a problem since then.

So let me think of how I did it. We got a trainer in the day she arrived who was fantastic. So, I committed two weeks (I was working from home before term began at that time) - where I took her out to the garden every 10 minutes.

Yep. Every ten minutes it was for a full fortnight. And lots of praise (no treats) every single time she went. When they are that young they do need to go every ten minutes or so sometimes. I was always told they usually wee straight after excitement, and a walk is fantastically exciting. So even now after returning from a walk she goes straight out to the garden to do her post walk pee.

The initial month of labour really really worked. She started barking to go out from three months and by 4/5 months she was absolutely ready. Now at 6 months we leave the house to her (it's fully carpeted) and she sits by the patio door and looks at us if she needs to go, and we let her out. She sometimes let's out a straining moan if we haven't hurried enough to let her out.

The crate was taken down and sold off on gumtree when she was 4 months old because she is completely trained. If there's anything that worked I'd say - no pee pads in the house, taking out every 10 minutes, preventing accidents indoors by taking out after every nap, every meal, every drink, every indoor play, every raining, every time doorbell rings, every walk, every ten minutes - you wil feel you are out the entire time. But I did that for two weeks and had a fully trained pup by three months, it does really work.

Focus that's what worked for Eric too, every twenty minutes and in between if he was sniffing and circling. No puppy pads and hard work for two weeks but he soon got the idea. No crate here either, I know he'll let us know if he has to go out and he doesn't chew so has free rein of downstairs.

When I first brought her home, I did the whole- out every 15/20 minutes when awake thing. It was exhausting. I have had to throw stuff out because all the pee and poo would no longer wash off as she would simply pee all over me. Having to run down the steps to actually get outside didn't help either as she would often finish long before we actually got out. I did that for the first 4 or 5 weeks. She has never exhibited a single sign of having to go- no circling or sniffing or anything. Shit, she has even peed whilst sitting down! It was actually the vet that recommended crating her to train her "to keep it in" for time periods, and I know she can do it. Only not in the house, I guess she doesn't see the house as her den, or whatever it is they see homes as. I also know that she is able to hold it in, as she does that when we are on a bus/ train. Just not when here.

Perhaps I need to get a trainer in, would it be your normal behaviourist or are there special poo trainers?

Eric sees the whole house and garden as his patch I think. He never toilets in the garden even because I think he sees it the same as Charlie sees her crate. I wonder whether dogs and bitches see things differently.
Eric has always sniffed and circled before he pees so it was easy to prevent any accidents and I suppose because there were no scents left he wasn't encouraged to pee over it again next time.
On walks Eric pees about thirty times, just scent marking I think he rarely stands and does a big pee ever. Do bitches not scent mark?
You might see an improvement once she's had her first season hopefully.