Dog Community

Frustrations

Posted : 8/29/2006 12:49:16 PM

My husband and I have a 5 ½ month old female Puggle (Pug/Beagle mix) Puppy. She is our little baby but we are having major problems with housetraining. I would just like to be even a little bit closer to having her trained. There are several positives and several problems:

POSITIVES:
1.) She is crate trained. We can leave her at home while we work or need to be out without worrying about her soiling her crate.
2.) She always pees immediately when we take her outside to her spot. She understands that when we go outside, she should pee.
3.) She is easily trained. She understands that she needs to sit to wait if she wants something (food, treat, to visit another dog, etc.). She takes treats beautifully (“Take it very nice”). She sits, shakes, waits, and more. We#%92ve even been able to train her to stop begging at the table. All of this without any real hard work.

PROBLEMS:
1.) She doesn#%92t seem to be on any sort of schedule. She goes three hours without an accident and then will have three within 20 minutes of one another.
2.) We don#%92t have many problems getting her to pee outside (although she still has inside accidents) as I mentioned above, but getting her to poop outside is like pulling teeth. Even if I can tell she is thinking about going, she stops herself a lot of the time because she gets distracted (see below). As soon as I give up (after 30 to 40 minutes) we come back inside and she goes immediately!
3.) We live on the second floor of a very large apartment complex. This poses two problems. Number 1: It takes about 2 minutes from the time that I see she is thinking of going (sniffing, turning circles, etc) to get my shoes on, get her leash, get out the door and get down to her spot (I timed it). Also, we take her to the closest spot are allowed to let her relieve herself at (must be across the parking lot to be courteous of the other residents). Number 2: There is plenty of room for her to get exercise but there are also A LOT of other dogs using the area. She tends to be intimidated by the other big dogs and even their smell. And we can#%92t always have quiet and privacy when we are trying to go potty. She gets very distracted.
4.) This is hard for me to admit, but my dog is a poop eater. We#%92ve tried home remedies, prescriptions, distracting her, picking her up, EVERYTHING! She can barely get it out before she is spinning around trying to get to it. Also, because I tend to be right on top of her trying to get to it before she does when I see that she is going, she doesn#%92t finish her business the first time. She tends to stop in the middle and then continue to go 2 or 3 more times within the next few minutes.

I feel like we can#%92t handle this anymore. We don#%92t have a lot of expendable income (he is in medical school, I am in the arts). We would like to be able to have a nice little dog and begin to have guests over again, without me worrying about always having to scrub the carpets before people show up. I am very embarrassed that she has really begun to get the better of us and we just are running out of energy.

I would like to try a new approach in hopes that something out there has GOT to work!

Thank you in advance for all of your advice.

amstaffy

Posted : 8/29/2006 1:49:02 PM

PROBLEMS:
1.) She doesn#%92t seem to be on any sort of schedule. She goes three hours without an accident and then will have three within 20 minutes of one another.
Then you should keep this in mind and let her out prior to the time you seem to think is her limit. At her age she should be holding it for several hours but when not confined to her crate might not show you the signs of needing to go or be too busy to pay attention.
2.) We don#%92t have many problems getting her to pee outside (although she still has inside accidents) as I mentioned above, but getting her to poop outside is like pulling teeth. Even if I can tell she is thinking about going, she stops herself a lot of the time because she gets distracted (see below). As soon as I give up (after 30 to 40 minutes) we come back inside and she goes immediately!
Many times pups of this age are too busy with the sights, sounds and smells of the "outdoors" when it is time to do their business. I've found that when I go out I limit my range of movement to a certain place and always give a command like "go potty", "Do your business" "lets go" helps in the long run as the dog learns that this is the potty spot and the command means to go. Some times it will take longer and some dogs need to use more energy to go. I gave a girl who won't poop till she runs in about 6 circles really fast..it all depends on your dog.
3.) We live on the second floor of a very large apartment complex. This poses two problems. Number 1: It takes about 2 minutes from the time that I see she is thinking of going (sniffing, turning circles, etc) to get my shoes on, get her leash, get out the door and get down to her spot (I timed it). Also, we take her to the closest spot are allowed to let her relieve herself at (must be across the parking lot to be courteous of the other residents). Number 2: There is plenty of room for her to get exercise but there are also A LOT of other dogs using the area. She tends to be intimidated by the other big dogs and even their smell. And we can#%92t always have quiet and privacy when we are trying to go potty. She gets very distracted.
If I were you, I'd ask for permission to put up an X-Pen for your dog closer to your door until your dog is house broken and more reliable. I would request this as to better house break so there is less chance of the carpets being ruined and just until you dog understands...other then that limiting the area and getting out quicker is your options.
4.) This is hard for me to admit, but my dog is a poop eater. We#%92ve tried home remedies, prescriptions, distracting her, picking her up, EVERYTHING! She can barely get it out before she is spinning around trying to get to it. Also, because I tend to be right on top of her trying to get to it before she does when I see that she is going, she doesn#%92t finish her business the first time. She tends to stop in the middle and then continue to go 2 or 3 more times within the next few minutes
Don't be afraid to admit it...I've had to deal with this myself as well as other here too. Although I'm sure you're not ready for this type of feeding yet but feeding a RAW diet helps to eliminate the eating of feeces, that and being consistant with diverting attention and picking up..atleast that has worked for us.

Your dog is still pretty young and with a smaller breed they can sometimes be harder to house break. Consistancy is the key. You also have to be the one to make the schedule, she will conform to it as long as you are consistant with it

jones

Posted : 8/29/2006 3:34:35 PM

I hear you on the lack of schedule. That can be very frustrating. My guess is she probably actually has a schedule, but since she's a bit of a nervous potty-er, she's not finishing her business and that's why she sometimes has to go again after 20 minutes.

During those times that you are outside for 30min waiting for her to poop and she just won't go - bring her back in but crate her right away. Then try her again in a little while, taking her straight back out to potty.

Another idea, I know this runs a little bit counter to the idea of the dog learning where exactly to go, but since it takes you so long to get her out to the potty spot, you may want to just scoop her up and carry her out - at least for those times when elimination seems imminent. (Oh, and - flipflops! Slide on shoes are the key to housetraining [

].)

Since the potty area is so full of distractions, how about taking her down the street for a walk? Sometimes this helps get things moving if you catch my drift. Just be sure to keep her walking and not just sniffing around exploring or playing - until she goes, and THEN she can play and sniff and dawdle all she wants.

I hope at least one of those ideas helps. It seemed to take me forever to housetrain my dog so I feel your pain. Then suddenly one day he hadn't had an accident in a week, then two weeks, and finally finally I could call him housetrained... it kind of sneaks up on you. [

]

Sue and Buddy

Posted : 8/29/2006 9:44:53 PM

I completely agree with Jones about the slip on shoes. I have a pair of hard soled slippers that stay at the door for easy slip on. Will have to think of something different for winter though! lol
Also, working on a command for peeing/pooping is invaluable IMO. I use "hurry up" for peeing and "go now" for pooping. But, anything will work. While the pup is going say the command and then praise afterwards, "good hurry up".

Sue