AHHHH, pound puppy training! Help!

[monkey04]

Hi Everyone,

OK, my hubby and I are about at our wits end with this puppy.
Shasta is about 4-5 months right now (just started losing some puppy teeth) and was living in a pound for about 2 1/2 months meaning she was about 8 or so weeks old when they picked her up.
We took her and have had her for one month (exactly today actually!) and are having some troubles with housetraining in particular.
Are we being too impatient? It's just getting so frustrating! She was doing SO well, no accidents for a week, and then both last night and tonight she just squatted and peed, absolutely no warning (we've figured out when she needs to go plus she uses a bell fairly well).

It may be partly my fault, I hate putting her in a crate when we are at home, and I'm not working at the moment. She is fairly well crate trained, and we do have a pretty good schedule. SHe goes consistently at 8am, noon, and 4pm, but after 4pm it's anyones guess. Sometimes she has an accident within 45mins of coming back in from being outside.

Anybody's input and help would be appreciated!

[mummummum]

Congratulations on being puppy-parents and thanks for adopting a rescue.
One month and she has learned how to use a bell to signal she needs to go ??? Smart puppy!!

Yup, you are being a tad impatient. For her entire life she learned to pee in her crate at the pound and she is still getting used to her new environment, never mind the new rules and training. Give her consistent and scheduled potty breaks, praise her like crazy when she goes outside. Give her a verbal correction ONLY if you catch her in the act, otherwise ignore it, clean it up and eliminate all traces of the odour. You mention hating to crate her, she is getting lots of opportunities to get her ya-ya's out right ? The reason I ask, is that if the only time she gets your attention and playtime outside is for a potty break ~ she may be peeing in order to get your attention for playtime.

But, with all that said, accidents and puppies go hand-in-hand. If it continues though make sure to rule out a UTI with the Vet.

[rainbow]

Yes, I would say you are being a wee bit impatient. She is only 4-5 months old, you've only had her a month and look at the life she had before that.

I've had lots of puppies from 8 weeks of age and even when they have been completely house trained a month after that some of them have still (I swear on purpose ) peed or pooped in the house when they were 4-5 months old. I think it's their way of trying to think they are the alpha in the house.

Shasta sounds very intelligent so you need to just keep your patience IMO. We'd love to see pics of your little girl.

[H.P.]

Sydney is about the same age (17 wks), and we went through the same kind of thing a couple of weeks ago. She had been doing really well, no accidents in a long time, then, every night, for about a week, she would squat and pee, right in front of me! I would scoop her up, run outside with her (getting peed on as we went ), let her finish. I thought maybe it had something to do with the teething just making her not realize that she had to go in time? It only lasted about a week for us (but she has been with me since age 5 wks, so she was not still adjusting to a new home). Just give it some more time, she will be a little again.

[monkey04]

Thanks guys!
Yeah, both of us kind of knew that we may be being impatient, but at the same time, we are just getting frusturated.
It's even harder for my hubby as he's never had an indoor dog, grew up on the farm where his pups just ran around outside.
I've had experience houstraining, although it was quite awhile ago and just thought it wasn't that long!

Thanks for letting me vent and reassuring us that we really are on the right track, I think that's what we both needed to hear (or read I guess!).
We took her to puppy obedience, and the trainer there was great and really helped us out, she's still not perfect but coming along, "Pound Baggage" is what she calls it
Yes, I'll try and post a couple of pics of her!
Thanks again.

[~michelle~]

also keep in mind the pup is growing very rapidly, and not all her parts are growing at the same speed, so her bladder might be a little behind (nothing to worry about completely normal part of development) so her schedual will change everynow and then when she goes through these growth spurts

[monkey04]

Michelle,

Thanks for that tid-bit, never knew that before, but it definitely makes sense.
We figure some of her development may have been stunted anyways in the pound since they found her at such an early age and was in there for so long (3 months).

And I've got some pictures of her now in the Pet Photo forum if anyone wanted to see!