housebreaking

[baileysmom2]

Hi all
I have a 3 mos old Golden who is housebreaking. He is doing very well . I don't need any tips on crating or gating or when to take him out etc etc etc but I WOULD appreciate tips on how to get him to 'ask' me to go. That is all lost on him. He doesn;t whine, doesn;t scratch at the door etc ...SO, unless I am anticipating it, he eventually will go on the floor if he has to go bad enough. When he does, I don't make a big deal out of it . I just say "Oh no, pee outside' or something and take him out. When he does go iut ( 99% of the time) I always treat him and use words. (He does understand pee outside) so all I need to know is how the heck can I get HIM to ask/signal ME that now is the time?!

Thanks!

[NaNa8]

Our last dog (Golden named Caila) would hit a bell that we attached on the door. To train her to do this, I hung the bell and everytime I would take her out to go, I would ring the bell. After a couple of days, I used her paw to hit the bell. Couple of days and she was doing this on her own. Our current dog Laci comes up to us and gets in our face and barks and walks to the back door. Hope this helps.

[papillonmama]

Trigs never whines or barks, when he wants to go out he yawns. I didn't catch his cue for a while, just watch your pup, maybe he is saying it, just subtly.

[SnowDancer]

My Eskie would eat a bell, so can't do that. Eskies are very hard to train - and my guy has a small bladder for a 24 lb. dog. But I started to notice that he would come and paw me frantically with one paw and have a very minor "Eskie Moment" standing in place - that is his cue. Normal Eskie Moments are not "standing in place" - major zoomies. My husband did not believe me - so he found out the hard way.

[Cathy1]

My dogs don't whine or bark but they will sit in front of me and stare. When I ask if they have to go pee, they do a little dance. I agree with papillionmama, watch for their cue.

[toby's tracy]

Originally Posted by papillonmama

Trigs never whines or barks, when he wants to go out he yawns. I didn't catch his cue for a while, just watch your pup, maybe he is saying it, just subtly.

Toby's a yawner, too!

And I agree - watch for patterns in his behaviour just before he goes and pretty soon you'll find them.

[mhass1129]

Originally Posted by papillonmama

Trigs never whines or barks, when he wants to go out he yawns. I didn't catch his cue for a while, just watch your pup, maybe he is saying it, just subtly.

OH MY GOSH! We always laugh at Hunter because he does this (what we think) over exagerating yawn.. He'll stretch his mouth wide open and make a really funny sound - now I may have to look into that.

Unfortunately I can't get him to let me know either, he's 11 wks now... maybe in a few weeks I can start trying to teach him? I dunno...

[sprayeddog]

Is he REALLY giving you any sign or are you not catching it?

What I did with Matty, when I think it's about time to go, I took him to the backyard door, ask him to sit, and then let him out and then keep saying "Pee Pee". When he pees I praise him.

So in a couple days he learned that when he needs to go, he goes over to the backyard door and just sits there.

The only tricky part is when we're upstairs he didn't know how to tells us he needs to go (no backyard door upstairs! And he couldn't quite figure out the stairs connect upstairs and downstairs at the time) so a lot of times accidents happened upstaris. Nowadays he'd just come over and sits in front of us if we're upstairs and he needs to go. We didn't know that was the sign initially ... took us a while to figure out. Initially he'd come over, sat in front of us, and we'd praise him "good dog good sit" ...


SD

[baileysmom2]

Ok, maybe Bailey is doing a 'silent signal'?!
I will LOOK. Many thanks for your replies....took me a while to figure out how to read them/sorry.

[alliekat]

I agree. In order to get your dog to communicate with you when he needs to go out, you need to teach him a command for that. Condition him and teach him a command to let you know that he wants to pee. Say "pee" as he goes outside then once he understands that make him work for it. Teach him that peeing outside gets positive rewards and that associating the word pee with the action gets good things for him. Once he knows the command to pee teach him to ask for it. For example...does he know the command to speak? If so...ask him to do it, praise him and bring him outside quickly then say pee. Soon he will associate the two together and will be conditioned to do it knowing that good rewards come from it. He will learn fairly quick if you are consistent. A standard time frame for a dog to change a behaviour is 6-8 weeks and by then it will be imprinted in their brain and they will usually not go back to their old behaviours.

Also make sure you are not cleaning with ammonia products as they enhance the ph in the urine smell and will actually encourage your dog to pee inside.

One more thing is that ruling out a urine pronblem may be to your benefit. Dogs more often then none have urinary tract infections without us knowing. A urinalysis will let you know for sure but if he has a urinary tract problem he will continue to pee in the house here and there. I do this test at the first sign of "peeing problems" regardless of what they are) in mine.