housetraining older adopted dog

Hi all,

We adopted Tedy a few months ago and he's a wonderful addition to the family. I'm just real tired of cleaning up poop and pee. He doesn't use the carpets, thankfully, but I'd like to know how to help him to let us know that he needs to go out. He never barks at the door or anything, and we just routinely take him out frequently. Is there a way to teach him at this point that when he needs to go out to bark at the door or is he too old?
Any help would be appreciated....

DawnM

Unless the dog came from a puppymill situation, where it was forced to live in it's own waste, any dog can be housetrained. All ex-racing greyhounds are housetrained regularly at 5 and 6 years old.

I don't know what you've tried in the way of training, but here's an article that may help.
http://www.perfectpaws.com/htra.html

There are two techniques that I have used that seem to work.

1) My dogs won't bark at the door either, but I started using a word when I do take them out to use the bathroom. That way they know why I am taking them outside and I can ask them if they need to "hurry up"? and if they have to, they will go to the door.

2) When we adopted our guys, they were pretty good with the house training but then we started having accidents. The accidents happened seemingly sort of randomly around the house, so at night (when the accidents were happening most), we would not let them in the certain parts of the house where they were pooping. We began to figure out that they only went in the house in areas that they aren't often in (like the laundry room, basement, etc. ). Someone suggested to me that we feed them in each spot for a few days at a time. That way they dogs will see those places as a part of the house and realize that it is not ok to poop there. It worked like a charm... I guess even dogs don't like to $%@# where they eat :)

Hopefully this helps!