# Need Advice



## Lori (Mar 1, 2012)

OK...so Shamus is 16 weeks old. We have had him since he was 7 weeks old. He does very well going potty outside when we take him out. We have him in our gated laundry room with a potty pad when we are gone. He either holds it till we get home or uses the potty pad. When we can't keep an eye on him when we are home, we put him in a playpen by our kitchen. If we let him roam for any length of time...either 10 min. or an hour...he will pee on the kitchen floor. Not one particular spot...just anywhere. He gives us no warning...he just pees. When he is in the playpen, we will not go potty there and he will bark if he needs anything...like food, water or to go potty. When we are watching tv, we put a blanket on the ottoman and let him wander from the couch to the ottoman. He does not pee there either and will go to the edge of the ottoman and bark if he needs to go potty or is thirsty.

So...he is showing all the signs of getting the potty training thing...until he gets let loose in the kitchen. My question is....I was thinking of getting an expen instead of the playpen and putting it in the kitchen by the door that we take him out to go potty. Was also thinking of putty a potty pad in with him. I thought I would start out with a small area and gradually get bigger.

Since he does well in confined areas, do you think this would help him to understand that he is not to pee on the kitchen floor? 

I even would not mind if he just used the pad all the time...or maybe a combo of both pad and outside. We live in Iowa and the winters can be cold and snowy so having him know to use the pad would be helpful then.

Thanks for any advice you can give me.

Lori


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## Kathie (Jul 31, 2008)

Gee, I'm no expert but it sounds like Shamus is doing quite well. I think your idea is a good one. Obviously he is not yet ready for full run of the house and since he is going well confined I would keep it that way for a while yet. Otherwise, you will have to watch him EVERY second!!!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

I agree with Kathie... He's still VERY young!


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## Blue_Persuasion (Jan 4, 2012)

We trained with a jingle bell at the front door at 11 weeks of age, and he was trained completely in 36 hours.


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## Evil-Twin-Tobias (May 15, 2012)

Blue_Persuasion said:


> We trained with a jingle bell at the front door at 11 weeks of age, and he was trained completely in 36 hours.


How were you able to bell train him? I've been trying to get my Toby to ring the bell but he won't do it on his own. I ring it every time we go out, and I even say, "outside, let's go potty" but he won't ring it on his own. I've tried treating him but I'm afraid he will associate it with getting a treat, not going out to go potty. Any advice would be appreciated.


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## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

You could always do the sprinkle of some kibble on the floor. Dogs do not like to potty where they eat. Your pup is very young. Little bladders.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Evil-Twin-Tobias said:


> How were you able to bell train him? I've been trying to get my Toby to ring the bell but he won't do it on his own. I ring it every time we go out, and I even say, "outside, let's go potty" but he won't ring it on his own. I've tried treating him but I'm afraid he will associate it with getting a treat, not going out to go potty. Any advice would be appreciated.


While bell training works well for some dogs, there are some that it just DOESN'T work for. Kodi, in general, is a very quick learner, and very well trained. But he NEVER got the hang of the bells. After 6 months of religiously tapping the bell with his foot EVERY time we took him out to potty, he had never ONCE done it on his own, even by mistake. I finally took the bells down because they were scratching my woodwork, and he never used them anyway.

It took a while, but he eventually developed his own signal to tell us he needs to go out. He'll come to us and give a single, low pitched "woof" that he uses for nothing else. But it did take until he was almost two for him to start doing this. Until then, he didn't have accidents, but it was because WE were well trained, knew his schedule, and took him out when we knew he would need to go. He is also litter box trained, so if he had to go at an odd time, and we didn't recognize his VERY subtle early signals, he could go and use the litter box by himself. I am convinced that the litter box saved us from a LOT of accidents!


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## Blue_Persuasion (Jan 4, 2012)

Karen brings up a good point -- what one dog takes to easily, another might not do so well. We did exactly what she did in tapping the bell or using his own foot to hit it when we'd go out AND come in (while using words like "potty" and "outside"), and he just started learning. He never taps the bell with his foot -- he literally brushes his body against it and then sits and waits for one of us. But every time we hear the bells, we respond so that he knows that he's doing what we want. Granted, we're at that stage right now where he even does it just to go outside and wander around (we don't have fenced-in yards, so it requires one of us be with him), so only recently I've been telling him to knock it off if I know he's just pottied.


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