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Hi Everyone,
We are having a hard time with Casper, our 8 week old puppy. (I posted on the intro section yesterday). During the day we are letting him have access to the downstairs portion of the house (it's not that big and we are able to watch him). We have his bed in the living room and have his crate in the laundry area that is behind the kitchen. When we go out or at night we put him in the crate. We are also putting him in there at random times during the day when we can't watch him. We have a pee pad set up by the patio door and for the most part he's been doing well with that. Our problem is with the crate. Whenever we put him in there, he will poop (unless he's just gone and we have to put him back in). Yesterday for example, we put him in the crate before dinner so that the kids could go upstairs to take showers. One minute after he went in he pooped. We cleaned it up and put him back in. Yesterday morning a little while after his breakfast he went to the crate and was circling/sniffing all around. Luckily we were watching him and picked him up in time to put him on the pad so he could poop. At night he usually goes into his crate at about 10pm and will whine/cry for a bit before settling down. Last night at 2 am he started crying again so I came down and let him out to potty on the pad. I put him back in and went back to bed. When my husband left for work at 4:30 am he had already pooped. We feed him 3 days a day at the same time each day but he doesn't always poop right after. He's also eating very little, less than an 1/8 of a cup. We ordered a litter pan and will be starting that today. Any advice is appreciatted.
At 8 weeks old he's not physically capable of holding his urine or his bowel movements. You're expecting way too much from a very tiny baby. I never considered any of my dogs 'housebroken' until they were at least 6 months old, and some haven't matured until a year and a half old. Give him time; he's just a baby!
Do a search on here - unless someone beats me to it - for the housebreaking instruction sheet. I'll see if I can find it. I think Viral posted it? It's great and if you follow it to the letter your dog will be housebroken as soon as his body is capable of controlling it.
Ok, I can't find it on here but I knew I had it on my website:
Housetraining your dog (puppy or adult!)
The first thing you need to do is to remember that you’re trying to reinforce a new behavior. That means that the rewards for this behavior must be WONDERFUL. NOT crap from the store. Wonderful treats are poached chicken breast/turkey breast, cheese and steak. And you don’t have to use big pieces. Tiny pieces (about 3mm cubes) are just fine! I poach a whole turkey breast every few weeks, cut it into hunks when it’s cool enough to handle, wrap them well and store them in the freezer. When I need some, I’ll thaw a hunk overnight and cut off pieces and dice finely, storing them in a plastic bag in the fridge. One hunk will last about five days. Cheese is also popular, so variety is fine.
I carry these plastic bags in my jacket pockets in the winter and in a fanny pack in warmer weather. You HAVE to have these with you, or this method won’t work, because you need to reward as soon as the dog finishes pooping or peeing. It’s not going to work if the rewards are in the house.
Remember that you’re trying to change a very ingrained behavior. Some dogs like to feel certain things under their feet when they eliminate, like fabric, or newspaper. This is called a ‘substrate preference.’ What you’re trying to do is change this substrate preference, and to do that you have to make the treats SO wonderful that the dog will change this very well-entrenched behavior. Thus the chicken, cheese, steak.
I love clicker training, but this can be done without clickers. You just need a way to ‘mark’ the behavior you want to reinforce. Use the word ‘YESSSSS!!!!’ very enthusiastically – that works for some.
You’re going to need to GO OUTSIDE WITH your dog and the dog needs to be on a leash. Yes, even in winter. If you don’t reward IMMEDIATELY after the event (when dog immediately finishes pooping or peeing) and wait inside, the dog is going to be reinforced for coming inside, not for doing its business. So, leash up your dog. STAND IN ONE PLACE. Be boring. Bring a book or magazine for yourself.
Eventually, the dog will do what you’re waiting for. The NANOSECOND that the dog is finished, HAVE A PARTY – lots of loud, high-pitched praise, treats and running around. You want to make this memorable for your dog! You’ll find that once the first event is achieved, the others will come more quickly. Keep on treating (you don’t have to throw a party except for milestones – a milestone = if he only pooped outside but now peed, too, or something equivalent to that) until he’s good and used to peeing/pooping outside. Before you know it, you have a trained dog.
Regarding accidents in the house: NO SCOLDING. Just clean them up. If you scold you’ll get the dog to think it’s bad to pee or poop and he’ll do it in places you won’t see. Until you step in it. Invest in a big bottle of Nature’s Miracle or Simple Solution and use it liberally on accidents.
To quote Patricia McConnell, author of “The Other End of the Leash” and co-author of “Way to Go” (a booklet on housetraining), “Once you face the fact that you just have take your dog out every time you turn around, give them the treat immeditely after they potty, and prevent accidents in the house… well, it usually goes so smoothly.”
With young puppies, remember they have little control of the muscle that holds the bladder closed. This is something they grow into. Just as it’s not expected that a human baby is toilet trained at six months, don’t expect much from a puppy. Patience, patience, patience!!!! The nervous system in a puppy has to mature, and it won’t have much control over the sphincter (closing muscle) at the neck of the bladder until six or seven months. The same goes for the anal sphincter. Until control is achieved, both of these muscles operate on reflex: there are stretch receptors in the bladder wall. When the bladder is full, it sends impulses to the spinal cord and these, in turn, send signals to the sphincter to open and the dog pees.
In the stomach wall, there are also stretch receptors. So when the dog eats and the stomach is stretched, the impulses again go to the spinal cord, but this time the reflex, outgoing, nerve signals are sent to the anal sphincter, so the dog defecates. This operates in people, too – which is why some people rush to the ‘reading room’ after a meal – especially breakfast.
i swear.... viralmd's post needs to be stickied forever at the top of this forum..... it is common sense that not everybody thinks of when they are in the throes of housetraining......
I found the post you are talking about and wanted to copy it to this thread but didn't think through the process carefully so wound up more or less bumping it instead.
Thank you. I will try that today. Can someone explain how the clicker training works? I'm also wondering if it could be that he isn't eating that much food? We feed him 3 times a day but he only eats about half of a 1/8 of a cup.
Thank you. I will try that today. Can someone explain how the clicker training works? I'm also wondering if it could be that he isn't eating that much food? We feed him 3 times a day but he only eats about half of a 1/8 of a cup.
I'm assuming it's a small breed of poodle and not standard? Think of how small their tummies are! Ours are the size of two fists or so? That's about 50 times larger than that of a poodle puppy. A sixteenth of a cup is probably more than enough for each meal. And three meals a day is perfect. I've got an adult teacup poodle that only eats about that much.
Yes, he's a toy not a standard. Glad to hear that what he's eating seems to be adequate. Our last dog was a 100 pound lab and would gobble up food like there was no tomorrow and he also loved his crate. I got Casper a litter pan and put it outside. I took him outside twice and told him to go potty which he did. He seems to understands that potty means "pee" but it's just the issue with pooping inside his crate. He did this twice. This am I put him in his crate while a repair man was here and within 10 minutes he had screamed. I took out the tray, hosed it down with soap, and then soaked it in the miracle solution. This afternoon we had to run to Target for less than an hour. When we came back, he did it again. It's like he really seems to think that he goes into the crate to poop.
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