Bell on Door Success!

Ah, I remember the first time Rory rung the bell. It was 3 am, I was drunk and tripped running to the door but I was so excited, ha ha! I called my mom, she thought I'd lost my mind waking her up for that, ha ha! CONGRATS!!

You guys are nuts! []

We just managed to teach our 16-week old puppy to ring a bell on the back door whenever she goes out. It was a cinch and took only about a week!

We just hung the bell at nose-level from an old chewed-up leash wrapped around the doorknob. At first we rang the bell just before opening the door, while saying "outside" (her cue that it's time to go out). Then we progressed to having her ring the bell, pushing her nose up against it before going out. Every time we would praise her and open the door to go out when the bell rang (even if we did it for her).

Now, pretty much every time we go out, I'll be saying "outside" while standing with her at the back door. I'll wait and not open the door until she rings the bell. It only took her a few tries to catch on and she's pretty reliable about it now.

Now we just need to see if she ever rings the bell on her own to let us know it's time to go out. That one's going to take some patience

Oh that's so exciting !   I've been trying to get my 8 month old poodle mix to do this .... for WEEKS ! LOL    She rang it ONCE - and I'm positive that it was by accident.
Sometimes she actually backs up when I ring the bell (and I'm not ringing it loudly).  She backs up when she's excited and wants to play, so I don't think the sound of the bell is upsetting her, but she's just not "getting it" yet.
I hope someday to call MY mom at 3am to tell her that Prancer rang the bell LOL

How do you get puppies to learn to tug on a bell without destroying whatever the bell is hung on? I really want to try this with my new little Cocker but I already can see that if she can grab hold of anything hanging, she's going to attempt to destroy it. And my 100 lb Shiloh Shepherd just loves new things to chew and would probably also go after it for that. I have no doubts both "could" learn what it's for but how do you keep them from destroying it before they learn?
 
While talking about puppies, I do have to say I'm quite proud of two things with my new puppy. One is that she was very quick to learn to stay in her crate and not wet in it. She isn't fully housebroken yet but she doesn't mess in her crate.
 
The other thing is that we have a 100 lb Shiloh Shepherd. I knew she would be happy to have a puppy in the house (she's afraid of dogs but not puppies). I kind of thought she might be a little motherly toward it too. In fact, the under 4 lb Cocker Spaniel puppy was immedialy okay with THE GIANT. And as soon as the giant,  realized the teeny tiny new dog was a puppy, she was immediately happy to have her in the home and she has been incredibly gentle and tender toward her, and careful with her when they play "rough." She is so utterly wonderful with her that is almost makes me cry with pride. They are totally great together.
 
Akaya is my Shiloh Shepherd and Pixel is the Cocker. Pixel also loves and is loved by our incredibly tolerant cat, Pikasso.
 
 

ORIGINAL: myshiloh
How do you get puppies to learn to tug on a bell without destroying whatever the bell is hung on?

Juneau doesn't actually tug on the bell - she bumps it with her nose to make it ring. We have it just above eye level for her. Also, this is a fairly large bell (maybe 2-3 inches in diameter) that we found at the pet store, apparently meant for larger dogs to wear around their collar so you can hear where they are (not sure on this however). It's hanging from an old nylon leash which is pretty sturdy, wrapped around the door handle a bunch of times to get it to be the right height. Not pretty, but it works for now.

And as soon as the giant, realized the teeny tiny new dog was a puppy, she was immediately happy to have her in the home and she has been incredibly gentle and tender toward her, and careful with her when they play "rough." She is so utterly wonderful with her that is almost makes me cry with pride. They are totally great together.

That is fantastic! Congrats.

we adopted our dog when he was about 3.5 mos old and someone suggested the bell idea because to this day he does not bark. He was already great about going out to do his business but if we didn't happen to be looking at the door we wouldn't know he needed to go out. luckily he never just pee'd or pooped by the door.
Anyway we got a large bell from Michael's and hung it with ribbon.  We would lift his paw to hit the bell and then take him out.  Then after a few days he went to the door, looked at us (we resisted getting up and taking him out) and then he ever so slightly touched the bell with his nose.  we praised him and took him out.  He then tranferred the idea and as soon as he couldn't see us he would ring the bell and his people would appear - this is great.
He still more often than not just slightly touches the bell but there are times when he bangs the crap out of it, which always makes us laugh - oh and open the door []

We taught Mora to ring the bell also.  It didn't take long at all and it is loud so we never have to worry about knowing when she needs to go out.  Mora even rings it for her sister, because we got Ahki as a shelter dog and she doesn't seem to understand.  It's really cute and effective.
 
I also trained them to go to the potty in a certain part of the yard behind the garage so now whenever we go to someone's house they always go to the bathroom behind their garage and it doesn't matter whose house we go to. 
 
We were a little worried about Mora for a while because she wouldn't go to the bathroom unless there was a place behind a garage, which can be hard on trips.  But she got over that when she realized not everyone has a garage.[]

we taught him the go in one spot thing and he was great about it for ages (too good about it when travelling) and then something spooked him and now he poops in various places on the lawn. Big bummer!

How did you all get your dog to ring the bell...My puppy is terrified of it, even if I ring it softly. I tried to get her to play with me with it...I even tied it to her favorite toy...no dice...she avoids it like the plague. Any advice?

Bugsy was pretty scared of it too, we tied it to the door knob with a ribbon and then each time he went to the door to go out or we were taking him out to do his business we would put is paw to it, softly.  We just kept at it and praised him if he made a motion to touch it.  Interestingly he uses his head on it not his paw, but hey he rings it when he wants out.  We did go through a phase where he rang it if he couldn't see anyone or if he just wanted to follow someone out or just wanted to go out and play.  

Hmm, that's weird. Could you try a different kind of bell? How old is your pup? Juneau was scared of the strangest things during her fear stage...

We use positive reinforcement for everything so one approach would be to have the pup ring the bell (using paw or nose) and give a big yummy treat just after. Repeat, repeat, repeat ... bell = good things happen!

Juneau uses her nose to ring the bell, which is pretty cute.

Izzy has a bell on the front and back door and she rings it to let us know she wants out.  She will abuse it sometimes too, mostly when I am in the kitchen cooking dinner for some reason, but for the most part she uses it when she needs to go out.  It has worked well for us and been a great way for her to tell us she needs to go out instead of using her littler box.  We just got an old bell off of a Christmas door ornament and tied it to a string.