Toilet training

[Lookingforadoggo]

Tomorrow we are getting an 18 week old west highland terrier. He isn’t toilet trained yet (it’s complicated). Is it too late? What’s the best method? I’ve read so much and now I don’t know whose advice to follow. Please help.

Not too late. I've successfully toilet trained an 8 month old dog. You will need a lot of patience and persistence. Take them out every hour, use a command ie. Peepee! And spend as long as it takes wandering round the garden. At least it's the summer! Lots of praise when they go. No harsh words if they go inside, just ignore and take outside. Good luck!

i'm a long time dog owner.

1. puppy proof, keep the pup in area's which are easy to clean up. so that there are more positive experiences than negative.
2. every 30 minutes, carry the little fellow to the farthest edge of the outside area where he will toilet (partially because sometimes they dart back inside) stay calm no playing but stay in the general area and hopefully he toilets. tons of praise. leave a poop or two in the area same with urine don't wash it away at this time. don't wake a sleeping pup but take him out immediately upon waking. if i tried to get the pup to walk out with me he would squat between sleep spot and the door, hence why i carried him. i could NOT bring treats with me, his sense of smell would pick that out and distract. there's a lot of trial and error, be honest as to what you did that maybe gave the pup conflicting ideas.

SandyDog was 8 months old when we got her. I just picked a spot where I wanted her to go and after each meal, every time she wanted to go out and other times, I would put her in the patch and just gently keep her there until she did her business. Congratulations, a pat and then she got the run of the garden.

I can’t remember how long it took but we got her in winter so I just remember the sitting around there at all times of the day feeling more miserable than she did.

SandyDog was a BT so eager to please and not hard to train so I can’t imagine it took a long time. I think it was just the imprinting on the spot in the garden I was most concerned about. She was very good about doing poos where she was supposed to but her wees did eventually go everywhere so we had to invest in dog rocks to save the lawn.

Also, practice recall! Every time he's outside or you call him, give him a treat. Do it religiosity and in a few weeks it will be ingrained and you'll only need a few reminders here and there!

What worked for us
No puppy pads in the house (I think they give mixed signals)
Take out every 20 mins or so
Loads and loads of praise when puppy does go
Say "do wee/do poo" when they do go. This means at bed time we can go out and tell them to do a wee.

Good news is at 18 weeks their bladder will be a bit stronger, so should be able to hold it longer.

And yes no punishing accidents, just ignore. Can recommend simple solutions for cleaning wee if needed.

We got our puppy at 16/18 weeks old and we don’t think he had been in a house before , we just treated him exactly like you would an eight week old puppy .

No definitely not too late!

Theres some fantastic advice on here so I won’t add to it other than be INCREDIBLY consistent (set hourly timers for taking to the toilet) and do it as if they were 8/10 weeks old.

Congratulations, Westies are AMAZING dogs!