Dog Potty Training

[Tinijocaro]

Please help- new Bichon, doing pretty well, but has an occasional accident in the house. What is the best way to train him NOT to do this. So far I scolded if I catch him in the act and bring him right outside. He hasn't gone in his crate at all. Is ther more to it than this? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Jackie

 

[MinnieMe2]

Hmmmm.... Not much knowledge about bichons here. Are they known to be stubborn about housebreaking?

The crate is a useful tool -- don't stop using it! Tether the dog to you, i.e., attach his/her lead to your belt when around the house so you can really keep an eye on things. Don't trust the dog until you know you can trust the dog.

 

[Hercules10]

Nope...sounds like you're doing it right. Just takes time and patience.

 

[Aimeedyan]

To save your carpet, you can use the umbillical method - tie pup to you at all times. If you can't work with him attached to you, crate him until you can. This way, you can pick up his signals immediately and take him outside before he does his thing.

Bichons are a harder breed to housetrain, it just takes patience and lots of time.

 

[brittsmum1998]

We just got a female bichon b4 Thanksgiving. She sleeps in the crate at night and goes in when we go out. I let her out constantly!! DH would laugh at me but I was home all day and couldn't relax until I knew she had gone outside. I swear it only took about 5 days. We've actually taught her to ring the bell when she needs to go out now. It works well most of the time, sometimes I'll find her sitting by the door. I think (from what I've heard) we got really lucky but the only advice I can offer is to bring her out OFTEN at the beginning.

 

[LindaR]

If it's a puppy, please remember that a baby has a little bladder which equals frequent trips to potty or else they WILL potty in the house. It takes a while for the maturity to kick in.

Praise, praise, praise and really make a big deal when puppy potties outside. Stand with him/her and praise as soon as the potty ends. A high pitched "happy" voice will let them know they've done right and soon they will connect pottying outside with the "happy" voice and will understand that they are pleasing you.

My dogs are trained to potty on command and my youngest dog (who will be 5 in March) still comes to get love when he is done with his business!

 

[Tinijocaro]

My dogs are trained to potty on command and my youngest dog (who will be 5 in March) still comes to get love when he is done with his business!

How do you train a dog to potty on command?

Also, I have a bit of guilt with the whole crate thing. When he's sleeping, I don't mind, but when he's awake, I like to get him out- guess I'll need to get over that or have ruined carpets, huh?

Jackie

 

[tinaluis]

Jackie,
No advice on the potty training, but as far as feeling guilty about the crate -- DON'T. We had a husky who LOVED her crate. (Well, she didn't love it at first, but got used to it over time). When it was bedtime, or time for us to go to work, she would run into her crate and wait for use to close/secure it. She also went in there when there were strangers in the house and she didn't want to be bothered.
Good luck to you with your new pup!
Tina

 

[golfgal]

http://www.canismajor.com/dog/tpuppy.html

Here is a good website with lots of articles about everything dog. They have some good ideas about housetraining. We bring our puppy home this afternoon!!!

 

[LindaR]

To train them to potty on command does take a while and requires lots of patience! You need to choose a particular word or phrase (potty, or "do your business") and everyone MUST use the same word/phrase. Tell puppy "let's go outside to potty" and don't speak to him while you're outside about anything else. While he's walking around (I had mine on a leash - part of training) I would occasionally just say "potty". Once he/she is finished (and I mean, immediately) tell them "GOOD POTTY" and pet them and give them attention (don't pet while you're waiting for them to potty).

Now when we go somewhere, we take the dogs outside and tell them to potty and they will! Even if there's not much, they make the effort! This is like making your children go to the bathroom before getting in the car and going somewhere.

When we adopted our german shepherd, she was 2 years old and was used to the phrase "go do your business", but our poodle was trained with "potty", so we used both phrases with our gsd for a while and eventually phased out the first phrase and placed emphasis on the word "potty" and re-trained her.

 

[LindaR]

And about crate training............

Dogs like dens. Their own place, a safe haven. Whether its an actual crate, a spot under a table, a corner in a room, dogs want a place that's enclosed on three sides.

If you look upon a crate as a "cage", you will have a difficult time. If you look upon a crate as his "private space" and never use it as punishment, which gives it a negative association to the dog, he will love his crate. My dog has free run of the house (he's 5) and usually sleeps under the desk in the family room when we are in there. Sometimes, for whatever reason, he just wants to sleep in his crate and be left alone. It signals to our poodle that she needs to leave him alone because he is in HIS space. My dogs are in their crates if we go somewhere. It's a wonderful tool in training, it's a safe place for them when you are not there to keep an eye on them...........it's not a BAD thing unless you make it a bad thing!

 

[ahutton]

Our dog's crate was her house. She loved it, we never felt guilty about using it even when we were home. Our dog was a shelter rescue, and we had her crate with us and her in it every night, and she was in there during the day while we worked. We made sure she had plenty of exercise and always had fresh water in there. By calling it her house we felt better about her being in there. Once we had kids (she'd been with us 5 years by then) she would use that as her place to rest and get away from the little ones!