Thursday, February 19th, 2009
If you’ve had puppies, you have likely thought, while house training puppy, whether jokingly or not, “I should buy stock in paper towels”. With all the piddle spots and piles of poop.. big or little.. at some point you feel like, enough already.
I’m having a week of it. We have two italian greyhound which are notoriously difficult to house train. I did my research before deciding on this breed, so I was well aware ahead of time what we were in for. And get it we have. At 1.5 years old and 10 mos old neither can claim to be fully house trained dogs.
Both of them will go out doors to potty. Our male Enzo will, oddly enough, even go out in the rain or freezing snowy weather. But he will also still do some business in the house. Our girl, Ella, will also go out in the snow but not the bitterly freezing weather and certainly not in the rain. Cleaning up after them has usually been a daily thing. Sometimes so much as having to strip the beds (can we say UGH!?). Sometimes buying stock in urine eliminators like Nature’s Miracle (our favorite to use) has slipped through out lips too. But so far nothing surpasses our use of paper towels as of late.
It’s gotten much worse lately. Why, you ask? For some reason, we thought adding two more dogs, er pups, at one time, to our family was a good idea.
One is 3.5 months and the other is 2.5 months. They love to go outside… not caring if is cold, rainy, muddy. The weather just doesn’t matter a bit to them. Their being Australian Shepherds (well, in this case, one is a toy, one is a mini) certainly aids in their love of the outdoors. Regardless of their time spent in the wonderful outdoors, it is not uncommon to let them in and turn around 5 minutes later and find a piddle spot.
This morning, I snatched up both of the babies (it’s my love word for the puppies) and herded everyone else (besides the four I’m talking about, we have a whippet and an aussie who are older and very house trained) out the door for potty time, depositing the little ones on the top step. They spent quite a bit of time playing, checking out the frozen ground, grass, and even, yes, doing some potty business, etc… came in and I found myself still cleaning up a couple of piddle spots. Ack!
Thank goodness our house is completely hard flooring. Old wood floor, linoleum, and the basement is still cement. Makes for easy cleaning – even more so if they would keep it on the floor all the time.
If we aren’t using paper towels to clean up the mess, we use wet wipes (those are expensive too, but get poop cleaned up really well), and I hate using clothe towels.. regardless of what we use, we use a lot of it. I’ll be happy when nicer weather is here and I can make myself commit to house training more seriously than just shooing them all out the back door.
It’s not like the little dogs won’t go outdoors to do potty business.. they just don’t confine it to outdoors. They will too, at their own initiative, use the potty pads I have laid out.. again, they don’t confine to that area.
When I trained the whippets many years ago, I was totally committed. I would get up in the middle of the night, bundle up and walk them on a leash around the yard. After 3 pregnancies (one a late loss), two of which producing a couple of energetic, mom-needy boys who home school.. plus my dealing with crohn’s disease.. I just don’t have that commitment like I did. But, I will get them trained. In the mean time.. I’ve decided I won’t be buying Sparkle brand paper towels any more. I might as well use a piece of writing paper for all the soaking up they do. So, what’s the best brand and what are the prices of their stock.
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Friday, December 5th, 2008
by: Terry King
No Dog training means more to most new puppy owners than that first important lesson: Not in the House!
Teaching your Dog to go to the toilet outside the home, not in it, usually starts between six and eight weeks of age. Dogs as young as four weeks old, have been started on the house training, but at such a young age, a puppy is unlikely to have enough muscle control.
Like any dog training, the trainer’s patience is as important as the dog’s temperament. ‘Sit’, ’stay’ and other behaviours can often be learned in a few days. ‘Potty’ training can take weeks – sometimes as short as two, often a month or more.
As with other learned behaviours, you should look for signs of the impending action, then enforce and direct them with a voice command followed by praise. In this case the technique works to the trainer’s advantage, since all dogs will naturally go to the toilet. The trick is to get them to do it when and where you want!
Look for signs such as circling or squatting, then pick up the pup, say ‘outside’ and hurry outside. The puppy may circle some more, but will often squat immediately. As it begins, say “quickly” (or some other phrase) in a clear, firm (but not angry) voice. Wait until the puppy finished and give lots of praise.
You won’t always be able to catch the puppy about to begin, but don’t become angry or impatient when the dog goes to the toilet indoors. It takes time for the dog to learn to tell you it’s time to ‘go outside’. It also takes time for the muscles needed to control bladder and bowels to develop.
Young dogs need to go to the toilet every 2-3 hours, on average. If you haven’t spotted evacuation behaviour within that time, take the dog outside anyway. Issue the command ‘quickly” and wait. At first, usually, the dog will have no clue what you want.
Again, even when outside, it helps to wait and watch for the desired behaviour then issue the command. That helps the dog associate the command with the behaviour. If the dog hasn’t gone after a few minutes and a few ‘quickly’ commands, take it back inside for an hour. Of course, if you spot the pre-toilet behaviour in less time, go outside again immediately.
Dogs have a surprising ability to quickly learn what their ‘alpha’ (the leader of the pack) wants. This is almost always accomplished by associating a verbal command with behaviour, followed by praise. Punishment is usually counter-productive, and nowhere more so than in toilet training. Never rub a dog’s nose in waste.
Paper and/or crate training is preferred by some. A pup can be trained to go on a newspaper, or on one of the chemically treated puppy pads designed for the purpose. Some small breeds that live all day in the home may not need to go outside at all.
The technique has a couple of down sides however. Unlike cats, dogs will rarely go in a perfumed litter box. Newspapers (even with the top layer removed after the dog goes) will eventually create an unpleasant smell in the house.
Also, long before the odour becomes unattractive to humans, dogs can smell their own distinctive aroma. They don’t find it unattractive – quite the opposite. And that’s the problem.
Dogs that are paper trained will often prefer to eliminate indoors. Sometimes they’ll miss the paper by only an inch, creating a mess to clean up.
Once the odour is in the carpet, the dog will often seek that spot out as its proper ‘place to go’. This makes training the dog to go to the toilet outside even more difficult. Best to suffer a few accidents than to create a hard-to-overcome habit.
Patience, praise and consistency are the keys to any dog training. Elimination training is the first test for you and your dog.
About The Author
Terry King runs Parcel Pets – http://www.pets2home.co.uk/cat–Training-Aids–TRAINING_AIDS.html – a leading UK pet supplies web site and has had pets all his life. He lives with his wife Louise, dog Sam, Cat Sabrina and 5 fish!
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