Puppy has never peed outside

[NewMaltese]

Hi everyone,
I'll start by saying, I'm not expecting my puppy to be house trained yet, I'm just looking for a little advice in what we're doing to encourage it to happen.

So she's a Maltese, and is nearly 13 weeks. She has been with us for 13 days.

We started out without using puppy mats, but she just kept peeing on the rug. So we put a mat at the back door. She uses it more often than not (and always poops on a mat), which is fantastic.

All other times, she pees on the rug.

When we see it happen, we move her onto a mat. We then clean the rug and spray it with enzyme spray. (and we don't react in any way to her peeing on the rug).

We also use attractant spray on the puppy mat.

We take her out to the garden regularly but she has never ever peed or pooed outside. She doesn't seem anxious, she enjoys being outside. I have sprayed a patch of grass with attractant spray too. I have also rubbed a used mat over the grass.
Yesterday I wondered about our very small back garden with her on a lead, for 25 minutes. We went indoors, and she peed on the mat 3 minutes later.

The garden isn't yet puppy-proof, so we can't leave the door open. We also have a deck at the back door, and she can't yet go down the 3 steps either.

She will be able to go out for walks from Sunday.

• Is this something that will hopefully start to improve when she's out for walks?
• Or do we just keep persevering as we're doing?
• Should we try bell training (or would she not respond to that if she's not actually associating going out with peeing)?
• Do we get rid of the rug until she's trained, or would she regress when a rug reappears?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated <3

Get rid of the puppy pads - they're just teaching her that she can pee inside.

If she's not peeing when you take her out, but is when she comes back in, then that tells me she doesn't understand that peeing outside is an option.

You could try a puppy pad outside, or starting out with her until she has no choice (even if takes hours), or tethering her to you so that she can't wander off and pee.

Another vote for ditching the puppy pads. Our puppy is a couple of weeks older than yours and still has good days and bad days. It's our first puppy, so it's all a bit new for us, and we weren't sure what to expect.

I started off using puppy pads but gave up after three days. I just felt that after training him to successfully go on the pads, we'd then have to train him to go on the pad outside.

We take him out first thing in the morning as soon as he wakes, and wait with him until he goes. When he wakes up from a nap during the day we take him out again. We also take him out if we notice him sniffing intently around somewhere he's been before.

We take him out with a cheery 'wee wees' and as soon as we see the trickle we praise him in a ridiculously high pitched voice, and keep praising him until we give him a treat a bit of biscuit he'd have had at a meal time anyway.

We also feed him at specific times, to try and get him in a poop routine (not even sure that's a thing but we're giving it a go)!

He was terrible for the first three weeks we had him and I really did start to wonder whether we'd taken on too much. But now he has more good days (with no accidents) than bad days. I try to keep him in the same room as me so I can try and pre-empt his toilet needs. And what I have noticed as he's getting bigger (and his bladder is getting bigger) is that he wees less often but wees more on each occasion so it's becoming easier to manage.

We did not use puppy pads.

Though I was routine like in toilet training.

Puppy went out every 20mins until wee done.
Mega praise ensued.
Noted this is a book,
Repeat, repeat repeat repeat for about a month.

Make the gap get bigger between wees. Now our dog wees 4 times a day - morning, lunch, late afternoon, evening.

I think you have to stay outside until he wees and then lots of praise and then inside.
He think that he should wee indoors on the mat. That is what you have trained him to do.
Put a puppy pad outside and as soon as you see him crouch to poo, whisk him out to that pad.

Also, get rid of the rug, either permanently or put it in storage until he is trained, he sees it as a place ot wee.

Just observe her. Get rid of the mats. When she looks like shes about to pee grab her and put her in the garden. You have to just watch her at all times until the cycle is broken.

In addition to the great advice from others, if you take him out and he doesn't go, bring him in in your arms, keep him on your lap indoors until he starts to struggle to get down, take him out and put him down.

Thank you all, times a million. This is all just such great advice.

I guess my concern would be that we take the rug and mats away, and then she pees all over the rug when it reappears, even if shes started peeing outside. I.e. I'm worried that we change everything to suit her then she regresses when it goes back to how we'd prefer it, if that makes sense.

Dh and i are off work tomorrow so we're going to have a really intensive day of it all.

I wouldn't get rid of the rug at all - just take her out every half hour and clean up any accidents.

We have a puppy, like others, we’ve never used pads. We just took him outside every 20 minutes or so and stayed outside until he did a wee. We also used the same cue words every time. If you watch them, it’s usually fairly obvious when they start mooching that they might need to go out.

I dont use puppy pads BUT if you are already using them. Put the puppy pad outside (but do remove from inside) where you want your puppy to wee.

They will be used to the odour on the pads and this may help them to move to weeing outside.

In this weather be prepared to hang around outside. If you do come back in and they have not weed immediately come in and then go back outside again.

When the puppy has weed outside come in immediately. So reward for weeing is to get back in the warm and dry really quickly (unless they love being outside in but it doesnt sound like the do)

Get rid of the puppy pads , introduce a cue word if you’ve not already done so , take puppy out regularly , after food , when she wakes up . Can I just ask what her daily routine is like . You say you are off work tomorrow - you won’t crack this in a day .

I dont expect to crack it in a day. I said we'd do a really intensive day since both of us were off.
It's a starting point, and I'm aware that's all it is. 💓

I think you should get rid of the rugs too, to stop a habit forming

it’s possibly behaviour she learned from her breeder’s home

We pretty much did this - we called it puppy boot camp - we put a timer on our phones and then just lengthened the gap between outside breaks when we could - it definitely worked

Get rid of the puppy pads. Take your pup out every 30 mins. You signed up to be a dog owner. The responsibility for your dogs urine/defacation habit is all yours. From now on every pocket in every item clothing will contain poo bags (and treats), for the next 15 years. The decision was all yours. Good luck 🍀

We did use puppy pads with our girl. An unpopular decision on here, I know.

We put them next to the doors and were mainly used when she couldn't go out before she had had her injections.

I think we were v lucky as she is very bright, and very quickly learned not to pee and poo inside.

Now (she's three) she will not do anything in our garden, she insists on going elsewhere, outside.

When I say she's bright, she really is. I've had dogs most of my life, and she's much brighter than every other one I've had.

As an example, I was in the habit of giving her a treat after she'd eaten and been out for a poo. She tends to bark (quite high pitches and squeely) when she gets exited. I simply stopped walking towards the treats when she did this. It took two attempts before she realised that barking like that wouldn't get her a treat.

Now, if only I could do the same when the post is in the letter box or a mouse farts three doors away, she'd be the perfect dog.

She's pretty perfect, anyway, and I always start my day with a smile when she sits there waiting for her treat.

I was told not to use puppy pads as it encourages them to go indoors.

House training isn’t easy (for most of us) & it’s mainly just repetition and time. Keep taking them outside at every opportunity & eventually they will do a wee or poo outside when you heap praise on them and a food treat if they are food oriented. Don’t react if they do it indoors even if you feel like 🤦‍♀️

They get there in the end but it takes a lot of patience ( & I’ve heard it’s harder with small dogs as tiny bladders). Good Luck!

No puppy pads and keep pup outdoors until the wee has happened. If you can't bear it, bring inside but carry so they can't wee....back outside...repeat, repeat preventing an inside wee.

They will have to wee...it will be outside...lots of praise. Repeat repeat.

Yes I know it's my responsibility and i know we signed up for it. Hence asking for advice 😊

Again, thanks so much for the advice.
In the previous owner's home, they had a laminate floor and puppy pads. We've got a laminate floor and a rug plus a puppy pad. So yes, we also think she deems anywhere that isn't laminate is somewhere to pee.

She probably doesn’t know the difference between a puppy pad or a rug

I'm not sure the type of flooring is the issue - the issue is that both you and the breeder have been using pads and teaching her that it's okay to pee inside.

She won't understand the difference between peeing on the rug and on the laminate in terms of training, but it's likely that the rug is less slippy which is why she's going there.

One thing which has really helped us with going outside was buying a cheap metal pen from Amazon (think it was about 25 quid) and having that outside. My pup wouldn't go outside at all as he would just get distracted sniffing and trying to eat leaves as the yard was too exciting! We pick him up and put him in the pen and it's very boring in there so he just goes to the toilet eventually. Ours is 15 weeks now and we're still trying but slowly getting there.

There was one day early on when he'd never gone to the toilet outside and I was tearing my hair out. After advice from someone on here I spent the whole day taking him out, waiting, carrying him back inside, sitting on my lap, going in the crate, back outside and repeat. No paws on the floor inside at all. He held it for six whole hours but eventually did a pee outside and honestly I've never been so happy to see a dog piss 😂

We also bought some bells for the back door and ring them, say 'toilet' when we take him out. He is starting to get it and has booped the bells a few times recently to be let out.

We have hardwood floors and have fully removed two rugs for now as the wool rug was his toilet area of choice!

Did you have any success @NewMaltese ?

She went for her first short walk today, and we think she peed while snuffling around, but can't be sure.
But later she peed in the back garden 😍😍😍