Bell trained now what?

 He caught on in less than 24 hours, however, he also caught on that the bell meant he can always go outside.

Hate to sound snide, but this is exactly the reason I don't advocate the bell method.  Many dogs are like this, instead of the rare few people on the board post about that ONLY ring to go out to potty.

Dogs learn very quickly that you can't take the chance of them messing in the house, so you let them out.  Quite honestly, I say chuck out those darned bells, and "start over".  Go out with him and tell him to go potty.  You may be backtracking, but it's for the best.

You need to learn how to read your dog.  Dogs can be in your face "OMG TAKE ME OUT NOW!!!" like my GSD, who runs back and forth between me and the door, or spins when he really has to go, or they can be as subtle as my brother's Labrador, who comes up to you and stares at you.  If you're not paying attention, he puts his paw on your lap.

Everytime you take him outside, give him an indicator word.  Dogs DO know how to distinguish these things.  If I ask Strauss "Do you need to go potty?" If he runs to the door like an idiot and spins in front of it...he's gotta go.  I can ask the same question or "Do you want to go out?" And he may run to the door, but it's not with the same intensity as if he has to go out and do his thing.

Watch your dog's reaction when you ask him if he has to go out and potty, and once you're out there, watch his mannerisms before he pees or poops.  Some dogs just have this way of showing you what they're going to do.  When Strauss has to pee, he'll walk around with his body stretched out a bit more than usual, when he has to poop, he scrunches up a little bit while he walks around looking for a good spot, and he "steps wide" in the rear.

If we're inside training at club, and he has to go, he just starts misbehaving, and he'll yell at me (literally yell and bark at me) to take him out.  Never fails, he always go

Hi, my dog is the same way!  We trained him to use the bell, and now he uses it just because he left his kong toy outside or HE doesn't think we're done playing fetch yet.  In those cases, I simply tell him "Enough", and I'd distract him by doing some training followed by a few tosses of tennis ball.

But first of all, can I just say that it's normal for the smartest and most well potty trained puppy to have accidents in the house.  Is your dog neutered? If not, that could cause him to relieve himself in the house.

One thing you can try is to tire him out when you go outside.  Jog with him or play fetch.  I find that if I play frisbee with mine for half an hour, he just sleeps the rest of the day away, and therefore doesn't ask to go out.

This all sounds familiar.  I bell trained Misty very easily.  She was going to the door when she needed to potty, but I thought how cute and handy it would be to ring the bell.  And, ring the bell she did, all day long, a million times a day.  It made us nuts.  Down came the bells.  

With Rory, if she rang the bell just to go out, if the wind blew, a bird cawed, or whatever crazy reason I'd just close the door behind her. While I DONT believe in using outside as punishment, I figured hey she wanted out so out you will stay. Plus I never considered it TO big of a deal, I mean she likes to hang out int he back yard and she wants out so I let ehr out and leave the door open, no biggie.
But I guess if you live in a apartment or something and cant actually leave the door open for your dig to go in and out then it could be a problem.

edited due to a pm I received

My dog has been fixed. That is part of the problem. He likes to walk around when he pees. Don't know why, but when he is off his leash outside, he'll walk and pee at the same time. You don't know it unless you really look. That's what happened yesterday. I didn't know right away, until he started to act sheepish.

We are working at getting a fence up in the yard so we can just let the dog out, until then, I have to walk with him and can't just leave him outside. He chews through the rope if he is left alone. (part of his separation anxiety I think) We will have to kennel train him outside to be alone another long process.

As for why we bell trained him, that is simple. First, he would sit by the door, not make a sound, not whine, nothing. We would ask. "Do you want out?" or "Do you need to potty?" Nothing. He would flop down on the floor when he got tired of sitting. Then, when he couldn't hold it any more, he would stand up and start peeing. Of course we quickly learned that sitting by the door meant he wanted out, but he started to sit in front of the door all the time. He likes the cool air that comes in, so we had no idea if he was doing it because he needed out, or because he liked the cold air. No mater how many times we would ask him the same question. "Do you need to go out?" we would never get a response. Still to this day I ask and all I get is him starring at me. It's only when I grab the leash he understands.

Putting the bell up was nice because he would sit in front of the door all he wanted, but only rang it when he needed out. (We still asked the questions hoping he would catch on) Then he started ringing it all the time.

Today, however, is a new day for the both of us. He rings the bell, I take him out. He is happy, I'm happy. I will, try to get him off the bell so this does not happen again. We will stress "go potty" and see if we can get him to respond to this command.

Well it amy be a little confusing when you ask him "do you need to go out" because he might not know what you are asking him.
Rory learned "outside" and "potty" inadvertently.
She learned "outside" because whenever she'd try to bring a bone inside, I'd grab it, say "outside" and walk it out the door with her at my heels and when I'd hand it to her I'd say "stay outside"
She learned "go potty" because I'd take her outside and firmly say "go potty" over andover and over, once she complied I'd say "good potty" in a happy tone.
I'm not saying either is a guaranteed technique cause like I said she kind alearned all that on her own just by listeneing to me. She learned "load up" meaning get in the car because everytime I opened the door I'd say it. Now if she is off leash walking form the house to the car and is lagging I just open the door and say "load up' and she comes running! She learned "MOVE" kinda the same way. Until recently I handt even realized she knew "this way". I had never taught her heel but would say "this way" if we were taking a path, walking around a light pole or something of that nature. Obviously all of this takes time but it really makes me wonder all the things she catches and makes me mor eaware of my actions and words I use!
 
It will be much easier when you have a fenced in yard but may I ask why you said you will need to crate train him outside even after you have it fenced? I might have read it wrong though.
 

No, I don't need to crate him outside. At least I hope I won't. He likes to dig, but I hope we can fix the area he is in so he does not dig out. There is only 1 side to his yard I really have to be concerned about because it goes out front where he can run away.

I have to crate him inside when we leave, or else come home to find everything torn up and broken

I like the bell training method  but you do have to be willing to go outside every time, for a while.
 
Here's what I'd do: When he rings the bell, he goes out BUT when he does pee or poop outside he gets a really good treat (within a couple seconds of being done). If he doesn't pee or poop, no treat. This means, of course, that you can't "let" him out, but have to "take" him out, which I think you should do anyway until they are reliably trained.

Our guy learned this real quick too - then added the if I want to go out I'll just ring the bell - our situation is a little different in he has been trained to only go potty in his allocated area.  So if he rang his bell we took him there, waited and then brought him back in.  It was maddening at times but he got it.
Even better was when he discovered that if he couldn't see us that if he rang the bell one of us would appear.  It made us laugh but again was maddening - he would ring his bell when we sat down to eat too.  He's past all those things now.
In fact he has an outside bell that he rings to come in and doesn't confuse the 2.
He's 11 months old and we have had him since he was nearly 4 mos old.
He's not vocal at all so we certainly needed a system - we love the bell method.