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