Right, you clever doggy people, one last question for you re toilet training

[Dieu]

Hello. As some of you may know, I have a 5 1/2 month old male Shih Tzu pup. We absolutely adore him, but the toilet training has been getting me down. I have been trying to be really bloody proactive and get back down to the basics of taking him out every half hour or so for the toilet. He is very good and will happily do his business outside. Only problem is that he is equally happy to do it indoors. Some of his cues are obvious, but not all, and he is particularly discreet when it comes to peeing!
We always use the back door for taking him out for the toilet. It is in our living room (where we more or less always are, as our kitchen and dining area are off it) and leads directly to the garden. So in my head anyway, there should be no confusion!
His 'nighttime bladder' is pretty good and he can go for quite a few hours (he sleeps in his bed on my bedroom floor, despite snoring like a grown man ) but I guess it's different during the day.
My question to you is this: WHAT, if anything, can I do to make him go to the back door when he needs to go toilet? WHY hasn't he made the connection yet? It's not like we don't do it enough during the day! Maybe one of you has a wee gimmick or tip that you could share.
Thank you so much as always - this place is keeping me sane!

We didn't teach Eric he sort of picked it up himself once he knew he needed to go. So he was house trained by taking him out every twenty minutes or so and then he started to go and bark at the back door to be let out.
He only toilets on his walks now but if he wants to go in the garden he either still does the same bark he used to do or he does a lassie where he fetches one of us and leads us to the door.
I've no idea how you'd teach them to let you know my friend's dog used to turn circles when he wanted letting out and she didn't teach him he just started doing it when he was tiny.
I suspect that the dogs have a behaviour that we attribute to them wanting to go out and then they learn that that behaviour gets what they want and so they repeat it. Eric's bark to be let out is completely different to any other bark he does and it doesn't matter where we are in the house we all recognise that bark and go to find him at the back door.

Eric sounds like such a dude. Love him! And you are SO lucky with regards to the toilet training

I heard some use a bell by the back door at about pup's nose height and they train them to ring the bell when they go out.
I would say keep up with positive reinforcement, treat him when he goes outside and don't make a fuss when he has an accident. He will get it, shih tzu's have a reputation for taking a while.
Mine's a poodle cross shis tzu so the poodle intelligence meant she got it really quickly, I personally haven't tried the bell as she uses my cat flap and takes herself outside when she needs to go!

We took the puppy (either carrier or called him) to the door (putting him on the fl9or if we carried him) then took him straight out to toilet. Then we also taught him a command for wee and one for poop so we can tell him to go once we were in the garden

I feel your pain. Our pup (now 14 months or so) was not at all reliably housetrained til 7 months. One day the penny dropped (not the penny she'd just spent). She still doesn't scratch at the door - runs up and down if she wants a wee. Not sure how long it took for her to develop that.

Same as you, I went back to basics. Nothing seemed to work. What I did in the end was to treat her ridiculously (massive piece of chicken or whatever) whenever she peed. We had treated her but it was hard to catch her being good, to do it. I just managed to catch her being good a few times in a row - and made a huge fuss of her, and treated her. She didn't like people seeing her wee. We got her at 9 weeks and suspected the person who 'bred' her had shouted at her or worse, when she had an accident so it was something she got panicky about. That was not a problem we caused but one we were left dealing with. (She was a rescue pup).

I did everything people online and friends suggested - taking her out regularly (winter pup as well so I froze), praising/treating when she went - if I could catch her going, attaching a keyword to the act of going out to pee and poo.... not making a fuss if she had an accident but cleaning up with bio washing powder, etc etc. Nothing worked. She got there only when she was ready. Now she is very good - had an accident 2 nights ago (a few hours after having her vaccination which did seem to really throw her) and that's, touch wood, the only accident she has had in months.

A year ago and for 5 more months after we got her, I despaired of her ever getting there.

I think if it is slow to come, toilet training is probably always a bit shaky. But you will get there. Find pup's fave treat in the world and ONLY give that when weeing/pooing outside.

I always used newspaper, or a toilet tray, and once secure in that, put it directly outside the door (supervising initially).

Mine use a doggie loo, so don't use the grass to defacate/urinate on, but a box round the corner, so the DC can't accidentally run /land in it.

I've always found it to be the other way around, that the nighttime is messy for many months (just because of bladder size/bowel control), but daytime nailed from tiny (first few months).

Is she happy to go out in the cold /rain? preferring to stay in the warm/dry?

Depending on where she came from, if the litter was use to 'looing' indoors can make a huge impact on how hard the follow on training might be.

The smaller space she has to do her training in the better. If you can confine her space to that side of the room where the doors are it would play to her natural instinct to toilet away from her bed, etc.

Have you associated a word with the act? Reinforce this word when you see her toileting, and then use it each time outside and the usual pick her up and put her out as soon as she wakes/after eating, etc.