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House Breaking the New Puppy (now with puppy video)
jotate
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So last week, my roommate got a dog. 5 months old, female, half black lab - half Australian Shepherd. She's absolutely adorable. Not so adorable are the presents she leaves all over our house.
We've been doing research on the internet and we're getting frustrated, despite it only being a week. We've gotten her to poop and pee outside. But the ratio of outside to inside defecation is probably 1:2 at this point.
We've been doing all that we can based on the information we've found and my memory of house breaking my dog 18 years ago when I was 5. We've been doing positive reinforcement when she goes outside. Negative reinforcement when she goes inside. She's been crated and pooped on her own blanket. We're taking her out as often as possible.
She's crapped in her own bed, in the dining room, in the living room, in the hallway upstairs. Sometimes within the hour after having been taken out just to have her run around and do nothing.
What else can we do here besides just persisting?
Edit: Pictures! That's my roommate and Saltie.
Edit: And puppy video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtHStLOCorU
We've been doing research on the internet and we're getting frustrated, despite it only being a week. We've gotten her to poop and pee outside. But the ratio of outside to inside defecation is probably 1:2 at this point.
We've been doing all that we can based on the information we've found and my memory of house breaking my dog 18 years ago when I was 5. We've been doing positive reinforcement when she goes outside. Negative reinforcement when she goes inside. She's been crated and pooped on her own blanket. We're taking her out as often as possible.
She's crapped in her own bed, in the dining room, in the living room, in the hallway upstairs. Sometimes within the hour after having been taken out just to have her run around and do nothing.
What else can we do here besides just persisting?
Edit: Pictures! That's my roommate and Saltie.
Edit: And puppy video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtHStLOCorU
jotate on
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One thing we have done with our dogs when we get them is emphasize they can only come in once they have gone to the bathroom (our dogs are inside dogs).
Where was the dog from? If she's from an animal shelter and was there a while, then she may have gotten used to not being taken out often and having to sit near her mess. If she's from a pet shop, you might have real problems because pet shop puppies are usually left sitting in or near their excrement from day one in the puppy mill, which makes some of them incredibly hard to housetrain. ("Dirty dog syndrome.")
But even if the dog wasn't from either of those places, she may take a while to adjust to your home. Getting some high value treats that are ONLY given when the puppy poops/pees outside will probably speed up the process, though. 8-)
One other tip . . . clean the spots where she pees and poops (ESPECIALLY pees) with Nature's Miracle. (You can find it at Petco or Petsmart.) Regular cleaners may make the carpet APPEAR clean, but your doggy's nose will detect the scent of the previous pee . . . and that will make her more likely to pee there again.
If you do catch the dog in the act, instead of yelling, it's much better to just swoop in pick the dog up (even if it's still peeing; yes, this is messy) and immediately take it outside. When the dog finishes its business outside, basically throw a party over it and act like Dog Pooping Outside = OMG Best Thing Evar. When you take the dog outside to poop, make sure its on a short lead, and be absolutely boring until the pooping happens: no play, no running around, nothing, until pooping happens. After pooping, then you praise the dog like crazy and play with it, but if it doesn't poop, just take it back in and go back out in a half-hour or so. Like young kids, a lot of dogs get so excited to play outside that they forget they have to go, and then poop inside when they're more bored.
The other possibility is that her crate is too big; it should be basically just big enough to hold the dog lying down and that's it.
Also, you can't start a puppy thread without pictures...
If it's just in one area, where she sleeps, the way I housetrained my lab might work quite well. My puppy (starting at 12weeks, when I brought her home) slept in a tiled room. I completely covered the floor in newspaper, and left it completely covered for a week or two until she got used the idea that she was do do her business on the paper. Every morning after that, when I was cleaning up her messes, I would take away one piece of newspaper (making sure to leave paper in the areas where she commonly went to the toilet). Over about 2/3 weeks, I got the newspaper down to one or two sheets, and she still only went on the newspaper. Once we reached this stage, I made sure there was a piece of newspaper in the garden, so she would make the connection and switch.
I kept a piece of newspaper in her sleeping room until she was around 6-8 months old, because it wasn't until then that she could hold it all night. After that, she would be fine (and would just go when I let her out in the morning).
It also helped that we had older dogs and she imitated them in where she pooed outside.
The best thing about the newspaper trick is that it makes cleaning up so much easier. There's no actual poo on the ground, so you can just wrap up the newspaper and throw it away, but you may have to mop up a bit of urine (make sure you wipe the tiles, even if they're not visibly wet).
This may be the case. Both my pitbull (who was crate trained) and my 3 month old black lab (she was "rescued") never made a mess in their crate. There is just enough room for a bowl of food and water and sleeping space.
While some people disagree with keeping food and water in there, I find that it helps ensure she is going to do her business when I take her outside in the morning. It is also useful for when she decides to skip either urinating or defecating, as she is put in the crate within fifteen minutes after coming in after failing to do either. She'll take a nap and eat or drink, and after she gets up I'll take her outside and let her get back on schedule. If I didn't do this she would try to make a mess somewhere on the floor when I'm not paying attention ;-)
Although as a side note, negative reinforcement and punishment are two different things. Punishment is adding an aversive stimulus or removing something that is a reward to decrease a behavior . Negative reinforcement is removing an aversive stimulus to increase a future behavior.
This is 100% the most accurate advice I've seen on housetraining. People who rub the dog's nose in it are fucking retards.
PSN: TheScrublet
Obviously, we know it's only been a week. We understand talking her into doing her thing outside is a process and that she's only a puppy. I just want to make sure we're doing everything we can to get it working as quickly as possible. Only so much Google and the memories of a 5 year old can do for you.
She came from another house. They were moving somewhere that wouldn't allow dogs, so they had to get rid of her.
Most of the inside poops have been in the tiny room we've been keeping her. That being said, there may be merit in your advice that the crate is too big. Even though she poops directly on her blanket in said tiny room.
The negative reinforcement (or punishment if you rather) is only done if, like you said, we pretty much caught her right after she did it. Walking in on her as she pinches it off. Or the time the urine was steaming hot on the carpet.
Anyway, ya'll are right. It was mean of me to start this with no pictures. I'll edit the OP as such as soon as imageshack stops dropping the ball.
I'll record and upload some video to youtube tonight if I have some time.
Again, this doesn't really help. If you see her in the act of pooping or peeing, take her outside as she's doing it. If you see her just after, there's not a lot you can do. You don't want her to associate you knowing she just pooped with punishment, because you want her to poop in front of you outside.
What we started of doing is, we would crate her all night long. The crate is big enough for her to get comfy, but not so big that she feels safe pooping and sleeping far away from the mess. At 6:00am I take her for a walk, then she gets play for 20 minutes, then food for 30, then back in the crate. Three hours later, play, food, crate. Three hours later play, food crate. Then at 11:00 at night one last walk.
Ya. She ends up going to pee and poo about 6-8 times per day.
At first the messes were constant, but we haven't had one for weeks. The key is to be observant and look for the "I GOTTA GO!" behavior: Walking around at a brisk clip sniffing the ground and moving in tight circles (when you see this, you've got maybe two seconds to stop 'em).
The key is to keep the dog in a crate small enough they won't want to mess in it, and to keep them there long enough that they learn to control their elimination. You feel like a total dick for days because your poor dog is whining and pleading to get out of the crate but, believe me, it is worth it to tough it out for all involved.
Edit: puppy picture not appearing. Sigh. Well, here's a link: http://bp0.blogger.com/_GQGHTgM44t8/R4Wdv5h2xcI/AAAAAAAAA2w/kpmmc1MZ_mo/s1600-h/sophie.jpg
As promised, here's some puppy video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtHStLOCorU
This will help a lot. Not only for when you are away, but even when you're at home and occupied and not able to watch puppy. When buying a crate do consider going one size up on the adult size of the animal and use a divider. I got the 70 lbs size crate, and this guy is about 40-45 lbs now and he will probably outgrow it before he gets to full size. If you're going to leave your dog in overnight, then you want him/her to at least be able to get up, turn around, and lie back down. Eventhough he will likely be 65-70 lbs full grown he's going to need the 90 lbs crate.
If your dog starts whining/barking when you crate it, ignore it. Don't glare, or look at him sympathetically, or make soothing noises or any of that: it will just prolong the whining. Leave some indestructible toys in with him. Get some Kongs.
Also, giving the dog routine will help. Take him out to do his business 15-20 minutes after eating, and also 15-20 minutes after any extended horseplay session. If you take him out on a lead to the place where he does his business you will get the chance to observe the signs of impending poo/pee. If you see him do that inside you can give a little yell ("Hey!) to distract him and it he may stop and you can grab him and take him out to do his thing.
It's like...she's totally brilliant awesome.
another thing is if you take it outside regularly and she gpes, make a huge deal out if it
again 1 week is nothing, give it some time
If I leave the crate door unlatched, my puppy will settle down and sleep about half way through the night - and then discover the open door around 3 or so. This results in a very excited little dog up in the bed, licking my face and rolling over, submissive, until he's sure he gets to stay in the bed (or go back to the crate with a treat).
I
spoken from experience of a 60lb dog with boney elbows. fight the urge man fight the urge.
now we havea kitten who likes to lay on our face to that as well.