House training?

[chinesetakeaway]

Looking for advice on house training puppy please and whether we should have made more progress at this stage or not. I've never had dogs before but DH has. We got puppy at 8 weeks and she is now 11 weeks. Don't feel like we've made any progress with house training as she's still pooing and weeing inside. Should we be further along or is this normal? Advice and help appreciated.

Every puppy is different so I don't think it's helpful to compare yourself to others.

Also I find the definition of toilet trained for some people just means that they recognise the signs so they take them out rather than in my eyes a toilet trained dog is one that will hold it (within reason) and ask to go out every single time.

If you read some internet articles then you would think you have failed if you haven't toilet trained them in 1 week when the more realistic ones say really a dog won't be 'fully' toilet trained (asks to go out every single time rather than people letting them out) before around 6 months of age.

Your puppy is still very very small. Think of every opportunity to pee and poo outside an oppprtunity to reinforce where you want them to go. Whilst every accident is a missed opportunity. You want to sway the balance for the former.

Take the puppy out after it wakes, after feeds, drinks, play and frequently (say every 30 mins) in between. Stay out with your puppy and praise praise praise (if the neighbours don't think you have lost your mind you aren't praising enough ). Use a key word when they go so when you use it again they will start to understand you want them to toilet.

If you find they pee or poo after coming inside stay out next time for longer (I have stood outside for an hour before).

Are you feeding at set times? Keep a note of when they poo as they will get into a routine which will give you a clue on when to take them out and stay out.

If you spot them mid pee or poo pick them up and run outside and then praise like mad when they finish.

Don't be hard on yourself. If you look at the puppy survival threads on here you will find that lots of puppies take many weeks/months to be toilet trained.

Our puppy is 16 weeks and most toileting is now achieved outside but this is not because puppy asks to go out but because I have got the hang of when he needs to go and how to create the optimal toilet environment). Accidents still happen once or twice a week because our routine gets messed with or I forget to take him out. We started with having him restricted to one room of the house during the day - the conservatory with it's lovely laminate. I set up my office in there and took him out every 20 minutes and stood outside for 5 mins and then if he did nothing went back in and I restarted the 20 min timer (I don't wake him if he is sleeping to pee but the instant he woke I carried him outside). I praised wees and poos outside (I used a clicker and treats). It was still really hit and miss. For a short while eating seemed to magically produce an instant poop but that has let up now and he had little/no control on waking but again that has improved. I let him in the living room in the evening but I sat on the floor with him and continued to take him out every 20 mins. He still peed on the carpet a few times but as long as he was the 100% focus of my attention I could see the wee / poo signs and run him to the door.

I'll be honest it was hellish. It was freezing in Feb, I felt like my entire life was spent stood in a cold garden bent over trying to see under a dog to know if he was peeing. It seemed as if he waited to come back in and then peed on the floor. For the first couple of weeks I had a success rate of about 50%. Then it seemed to click. If he was outside at the right time he did his business. We could extend the interval to close about 1hr between toilet visits. Then we got into the problem of distractions. If we go out and he is playing or busy he won't do his business, we come back in and he gets bored 5 mins later and pees on the floor. This means I now have to stand outside for longer waiting for him to have his fun and then get bored. I also let him into the wider house - although always in the room I am in (currently asleep on my office carpet). So about weeks 11 - 14 was once per hour but I stood outside for closer to 15 mins. Still needed out after food and nap.

He is now 16 weeks and once every 2 hours is good enough but still 15 mins per time to give him time to get bored. He now SOMETIMES indicates a need to go by hovering near the door to the kitchen. He can hold for longer if he is in his crate in the car or overnight. Today he want at 7:30am (pee and poo), 9:30am (pee only) and is now asleep so will go when he wakes up. He will likely only poo 2 or 3 times per day not the 500 he did when he was first here.

However he pee'd on the caravan sofa on the weekend. Combination of a long car journey, a difficulty with him knowing he needs to pee on his lead, too much distraction outside the caravan, his excitement and my need to get on with things meaning I didn't stand outside long enough. He was in disgrace but really it was my bad!

He doesn't go if left outside on his own. Sometimes he gets involved with digging up my strawberry plants and is happy to stay outside on his own. You'd imagine after 30mins in the garden he'd have gone pee. Nope - the moment he is finished destroying my flower beds he comes and asks to come back in, then 2 mins later pees on the carpet. This means I now know to go back out with him instead of letting him straight back in so that he has a chance to do his pee now he is bored of digging.

If you pick mine up and run out mid-doings he stops and will need to go again in about 10mins. If he hasn't been overnight he sometimes needs to go twice in reasonably quick succession in the morning.

Thank you so much for all your advice. It's a really really hard job and sounds like you're both doing great! It takes such a lot of time, good thing I don't work!! I will take your advice and start to get onto it, I feel like my whole day is taken up watching for puppy to wee or poo 😩

OP, mine took until about 15 weeks old before we had any sign that he was trying to hold it in the house. It was probably another month or so until he had a semi-reliable 'ask' to go out.

All dogs are different, taking anything from a couple weeks to several months to get there and, ime, it doesn't look like it is working until suddenly, it is. I found having a big sign up "days since last accident" helped as it felt like I was always resetting to zero but each time we got to a slightly higher number: one day I was celebrating a big fat 3 DAYS, back to zero, then it was 4 days, back to zero, before I knew it, it was double figures. It was a visual reminder that we were getting there.