Puppy tips

[Anon645]

Hi,
I have brought home my 12 week old puppy today. Despite doing my research prior I'm already feeling overwhelmed and was hoping that if anyone has any particularly good tips or advice for a first time puppy owner they could share it ? :)
Particularly anxious about toilet training.

Some puppies get it in days, others take months. There's no straightforward answer unfortunately.

You need to be with them 24/7 basically and get them out to the toilet every 20-30 minutes. It feels absolutely relentless (and this is the worst time of year for it) but it will pay off hugely down the line.

I can send my adult dog out, say "go toilet" and he will pee/poo and come back in within a minute or so.

This ^

My golden was house trained within a week with maybe 1-2 accidents after that - so 9 weeks old. But I was on his case 24/7 and I had two other dogs who have commands to toilet - which helped.

I’ve found it to be easier with bigger dogs though.

@Anon645 I have a BT pup too!
15 weeks old, he is a live wire to say the least! We've had him 6 weeks, ours has been pretty easy to toilet train, maybe too easy as I'm sure he goes out to pretend wee just to get a treat.
They are such clever little dogs, your pup will get it, as others said repetition and a full on fanfare when they do what you want.

Our pup I fear is going to be difficult to leave. He whines in the pen even when we are there and he has kongs/mats/toys.

Our boy...

Ohh how are you finding a borer terrier? 🥰🥰 Mine is pure chaos, chewing EVERYTHING and ruining my carpets with wee 😭😭😂

It's absolutely brilliant that some of you are managing toilet training ina week !!!
We are just nowhere near that !

Are you going outside too? That really is the only way.

I can’t remember how long it took but their brains aren’t developed enough to be fully reliable until 5-6 months. We had very few accidents as we were on top of her 24/7! It’s the only way. We still supervise in the garden and probably always will. Now from the house though.

Our last dog was incontinent from 5 so we got good at routine. We’ve also got the same carpets 😉 They are resilient things.

Re, leaving we didn’t attempt it until she was showing independence in the house. 8 months or so. Then adolescence hit and personal circumstances so we didn’t really try again until she was 16 months and now we’re building time really consistently with zero stress. Dogs (and humans) don’t learn when stressed. Only that you going is scary. Crying it out has long been debunked much like dominance.

@Anon645 Chaos seems too tame a word.... 🤣

We are in a pretty decent routine, thankfully he learnt to sleep all night quite quickly too although there are blips.
He's so full on, needs constant entertaining so we are trying to pare it back to learn independent play/occupying himself time.
He hasn't chewed much thankfully, I shove one of his toys in when I see him chewing anything he shouldn't. He is a ferocious chewer though, gone through more toys than I can count, thankfully he's almost at an age where he can have longer lasting chewy stuff.
It all seems so relentless at the moment, I often feel overwhelmed with it all. I know he'll be the best boy in time, I'm just not really enjoying the puppy stage.

We used puppy pads, not popular on here,nor are crates..our neighbours got a BT puppy last year,he slept through the night very quickly,much quicker than our BC (set back with 2 months COVID) but I heard a lot of "no,no,no". I don't know about the toilet training, although they're middle aged,they would probably swoon at the mention. Ours was so quick when she squatted for a wee,we never got there in time, she is fast, like previous BCs she doesn't stop for a pee,on a walk,a poo takes a couple of seconds. Our last is 8,we removed the carpets, discovered there was beige tiles underneath! If we had known that we would have removed the carpets sooner. We've got a tiny inner hall 6ft x 7ft. That's the only carpet we will be replacing it in the summer. Our pup was born in July,by September she hadn't seen rain, she was terrified and didn't want to go out in it. We have a dog flap have used them 25 years, they learn to use it quickly. Once they are trained, they can go in and out by themselves.

7 months old, very little chewing,DH has just come in and told me shes chewed up the plug (, for the hand held Dyson!! Hes forgotten about the amount of damage from the last puppy.

Chewing is management. Remove everything chewable! If you can’t remove it then supervise and redirect. We’ve had no chewing but we supervised and managed and she didn’t get in the habit of it.

We didn't get ours until 12 weeks which I think helped massively, and our breeder began toilet training them in the garden from about 6 weeks.

From memory, he had about 5-6 accidents indoors and that was it, but one of us was home with him 24-7 for about a month and then he had 24-7 supervision between home and puppy daycare.

It's so important to watch them constantly and if you can't, either put them in a crate or somewhere with easily cleanable floors. We would leave him in the kitchen if we needed to go upstairs or pop to the toilet etc.

We’ve been pretty lucky with toilet training. I not sure if it might help but we put a pen right outside the door, literally 3 sides fenced off with a small area, so we could just open door and call her to go and this meant we could get her out quickly (wouldn’t have had time to get lead on her in some cases) and she could be focussed on what she needed to do instead of being distracted. We would say ‘wee wee’ (choose your command) so now she knows that’s what she’s there for. She now takes herself to the door when she needs to go. Worth a try?

I expect puppies to chew, because they are teething. Said puppy has masses of Kong type,deer antlers,etc. amazed she could actually reach the charger. DH was chatting to said neighbour with BT today,he said he wished he had never got a puppy, I have had 7 puppies,4 rescues,never regretted a puppy. Just got back from an hour on the beach.

I have carpets too, so the stress of being on watch all the time she's awake is very wearing.
I think it's true that the more effort now, the quicker they'll get it.
I thought I was fully prepared, but it's definitely stressful and I have to keep reminding myself that this puppyhood will end. She had a fully clean day yesterday.

My pup has been sleeping in my bed since day 3, she consistently sleeps 6-7 hours at night and I love it, but obviously it's not for everyone. (She's a whippet/IG so very clean, and small)
She doesn't follow me everywhere all day, she's just 10 weeks now and I intend to do a lot flitting.
I waited until retirement to get her, so there's no massive rush to train her to be alone.
Best wishes, keep on asking and everyone will tell you it's normal and it will pass. ☺️

Reading through these threads just goes to show how much puppies, even in the same breed vary so much. My neighbours BT slept through the night very quickly. I elected to sleep in the spare room with crate at first because I worked nights for 30 years, and it was midnight,2 am 4am. Then we put her crate next to our bed. It's rotten luck we got Covid, I ended up with long COVID, under all these consultants. My neighbours BT slept through the night very quickly, but they said they wished they hadn't got a puppy. Hes fine almost a year old, they aren't "walkers". We've always walked,cycled, had dogs since I was a kid. I've just had to have surgery as well. I look back,25 years ago,we got 2 BC puppies 6 months apart,had cats,rats, chicken, huge garden,3 of my 4 DKs living at home,looked after my dogs,then my friends 4 kids after school, AND I worked ft nights. Yes, carpet everywhere and I am houseproud.

Looked after my GRANDSON, phone changed that to dogs.

Hi everyone. Sorry I've been rubbish on here. Things are not going well with our puppy. I love her and I'd never rehome her, but she has absolutely destroyed my house and my sanity. I'm really really struggling with her. She is UNDOUBTEDLY harder work than my children were as babies /toddlers.

I've attached an image of our carpet today to demonstrate where we are...

Here

I feel disgusted and this can't be normal surely . We have to wear shoes on all our carpets at the moment because of the fifth on them

@Anon645 how long was she left to do this kind of damage?

@Anon645 are you taking the pup outside every hour or so?

I feel for you. Are those wee patches? My living room floor is similar other than those, thankfully she's been great in that department.
God it's hard, eh?
Pic of my little nitwit in one of her best poses

Best wishes

Was she alone?

Is that the culmination of several weeks?

How often do you take her out?

We had to take our BT out after every nap, food, play - pretty much every half an hour, it was tiring!
But, it has paid off now, ours is 19weeks old and he's brilliant at letting us know when he needs the toilet. He'll even look at the jar of poo bags if he needs that, or shriek if he's in his crate and needs to toilet.
It really was repetition, repetition, repetition to get us where we are today. That and super high value treats when they do manage to go outside, ours loves little cubes of cheese or sausage or the JR pate, along with the most over enthusiastic praise.

It will pass, and she will get it.

How long is she being left?she must be what, less than 20 weeks old? You really can’t leave her for long.
Is she crate trained?
Every time anyone on here dares say you really can’t leave puppies and dogs are social animals that have to be taught to be left there’s always someone who pipes up and says it’s a load of old shit, yet several posts a week where puppies are causing carnage because they are being left too long too young.