# New Puppy Baby Potty Training



## Guest (Feb 20, 2008)

Ok,

I am a planner...which can sometimes get me into trouble.....as I forcast the pros and cons of everything I do or may do well in advance of the possiblities of it even happening. 

So before we even have a Havanese yet, I am picturing the potty training process....any ideas or things that worked for you would be helpful.

I read through the potty threads that I could find and found Tom Kings "expen 1st steps" idea and found that a useful tool. It made sense that we need to potty train the pup before we can housetrain it.

All of my other dogs were all trained to go outside all the time, even as puppies, carry them out, every hour or two, after eating, etc. But do they even understand this?

Ok...rambling on. We have two children at home (which I never had while training a pup) So I have a feeling that my eyes won't have the option to be fully on that pup when it needs me to be. So I can see accidents happening.

We have an lino area we can block off...but I think I like the expen idea better, so the kids can still get to the bathroom/kitchen, etc without taking down the gates, etc. 

Our open concept house makes corraling a small section harder. So I have decided, expen. I do plan on crating at night either in our bedroom or leave in the expen downstairs. 

I plan on crating, hopefully, when we are out for short errands once dog is older. Hopefully it likes its crate ;-) 

So, if one wants to potty train to go outside, but yet the puppy is so little and won't understand walking over to the door etc, is it a bad idea to train them to newspaper/pad/box for inhouse pottying until they are understanding that they only have a certain area to pee/poop on. Then when around 4 months, start transitioning them to go outside?

Does anyone have an outside trained dog, still use/have to use a potty pad/box indoors? Do they get confused?

This is the hardest part of owning an inside dog, and if they are harder to potty train than other breeds (larger breeds), I just don't want to screw it up to start with and confuse the heck out of them.

I just can't get the idea that a dog can understand that it needs to go outside only to go potty, but if he has too, he can use the inside pad. Doesn't that lead to messes around the house, like the carpet?

Just preparing for the worst I guess. 

Signed,
Confused in Wisconsin

** oh ya, we live in Wisconsin so some weather (especially winter) is down right nasty and cold. I think the high here today is 0. maybe we can hit a single digit ;-). Do I force them to go out there with the -30 wind chill and can't come in until they potty? Otherwise, they will do it in the house. **

Ok, I am done now, promise.


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## Havtahava (Aug 20, 2006)

My dogs are all trained for outdoors and pee pads indoors. Since I keep all of my dogs in full show coats, I don't let them go outside when it is raining, so they use pee pads on those days.

You need to decide what your ultimate goal is. Many people who live in cold weather (even farther north of you) still take their dogs outside to eliminate. If you are always going to take your dog out, then I don't think you should even bother with the pee pad training. However, the pee pads can be useful for potty training.

There is a huge difference between potty training and house training. You need to do potty training first. Tom has several good posts on both of them and the difference.


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2008)

ok,

that helped a little.

So inside for potty training, to understand there is only a certain places to eliminate. Then once potty trained, eliminate the pads when want to go outside potty all the time from then on.

For those who are going to be gone for more than a few hours and can't have someone come to let them out, do you crate them then? Vs, letting them occassionally use a peepad/box.

My guess would be either one or the other, I don't want to have to tag along a litter box, pee pads, when visiting /traveling. So outside training it is.

Or so I think? :ear:


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## casperkeep (May 16, 2007)

This is what we did when we got Jillee..I am a stay at home housewife with no children. I know it was probably a little easier for me because of my situation. We got Jillee at eight weeks old. Not a fan of potty pads because we have to other dogs in the house. What we did was just take her outside after playing,eating sleeping and when we thought she needed to. I put a tarp outside so that she would not be in the grass untill she got all her shots...it was hard but we made it. We crated her at night right next to my side of the bed. I think a couple of times I had to let her out but for the most she did just fine. We have an expen still set up now that is on linolium. I would always say you want to go potty outside and the other two would get excited so I think she picked that up. I would only let her out when I could watch her then I would put her in the expen if I was busy cooking dinner or when we ate dinner. As long as she could see she was fine. I hope all this makes since to you. She will be a year old this April and we still keep her in her expen when we leave but she is housetrained now...she will whine when she has to go out even at other people's house. If you have any other questions just let me know. Just know there will be accidents and they are not sure on what is going on....just be glad those are not Big dog accidents...trust me!!!!


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## Tom King (Aug 2, 2006)

Transitions from outside to paper to pads to litter are no problem. The pup doesn't get confused although sometimes it seems like the trainer does.

As soon as we have a pup by itself when the last littermate leaves I teach it to "go potty" on command. I've done a bunch and the last one, who is now 13 weeks old and has the run of the house with Zero accidents, took not quite 2 days. 2 days might seem like a long time but they sleep most of the time.

Once they understand "go potty" it makes everything else so much easier. I catch them as soon as they wake up in the expen and stand on the end where the litter box is and say "go potty" with much praise after the job is finished and getting out to run wild is the reward.

Of course ours are set up to succeed from the time they are able to toddle around with their eyes open so I have to believe this makes a difference too.

We let pups sleep in our room in a crate. As soon as they wimper early in the morning they are taken out, placed in the litter box, and told to "go potty". Teaching potty on command requires that they actually need to go.


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## ivyagogo (Sep 11, 2007)

Tom - your cream colored puppy is way too cute.


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## Tom King (Aug 2, 2006)

Thanks. I haven't found the motivation to work on our site even though it needs a lot of work. We ended up keeping the cream female. She'll be 14 weeks Sunday and is quite spectacular as well as being a real pleasure to have around. She's the first female we've had who has movement like Posh's and her conformation leaves nothing to be desired. She will be compatible to breed to Posh in a couple of years so we are anxiously awaiting the possibilities there. She's already a show puppy. She trots right beside us and free stacks when we stop. Still playing with names.


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## Tom King (Aug 2, 2006)

Ha! I went to look at our site and the cream puppy there is from a previous litter. The one we have now is very similar but had all dark pigment early and has all black pads on her feet. This one was born around Thanksgiving.


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