Another housebreaking question

[joeysmama]

I have a 3 month old puppy---a shih tzu. I've never had a puppy before and I'm trying to crate train, but he still goes in the crate. I've only had him for 6 days. (Did I mention that he's adorable? He's adorable !) We had one day of no accidents at all. He's good about going when he's outside but he also goes inside.

I take him out about every hour to hour and a half. I've read that it should be 45 minutes and I've read that it should be 2-3 hours. What would you recommend?

Also, I was told that you should get up and take them out in the night. Is that true?

I'm very anxious to do this correctly.

[rivers]

Hi joeymama. Congrats on your new puppy. I have a 12 week old (schnuazer) puppy too. So here's my 2 cents worth

I am at home all day with the puppy, so for the first week, I took her outside every 20 minutes. This way I could monitor what she was doing and at what time. I learnt at what times she needs to do a no.2 and so the accidents in the house stopped. She is pretty regular with 2 times in the morning, lunchtime, afternoon, and after dinner. (too much information? ). I also reward her with a biscuit after every successful 'delivery' lol

After one week she started to catch onto the idea of housetraining, and she now tells me when she wants to go outside, but if not, I still keep an eye on her, and let her outside every 40 minutes or so. At night time, the last thing I do, before climbing into bed, is let her out one more time. She sleeps next to my bed, on the floor in her bed, with the area cordoned off, so she can't roam around at night. She wakes me up at 6am to go out, then we go back to bed, and she has learnt to snooze too! At 8am we are up, and she goes out again.

If your pup doesn't sleep through, then I guess you should set the alarm and let him out, until he is older and can hold it in longer.

Does this help?

[RaYne]

I agree with the points rivers made. Take him out often. I took my pup out every 20-30 minutes. It will seem like you are outside more than you are inside but it will pay off in the long run.

As for going in the crate. How big is the crate? He just needs enough room to be able to turn around and lay down. Any bigger and some pups will designate a potty area.

[jessi76]

Originally Posted by joeysmama

I take him out about every hour to hour and a half. I've read that it should be 45 minutes and I've read that it should be 2-3 hours. What would you recommend?

Also, I was told that you should get up and take them out in the night. Is that true?

congrats on the pup!

crate training takes a little time, so don't get discouraged. Make sure the crate is the right size - big enough for your pup to turn around and lie down, but not big enough for him to pee on one end, and sleep at the other. also, clean the crate with the right type of cleaner (i.e. Nature's Miracle) to get the scent out - even if you can't smell it, your pup can, and may think that is where he is supposed to pee.

we got our pup at 8wks, and it took a bit over a month to crate train him. we took ours out constantly, every hour, and after any play times, eating, drinking, etc... we also limited his water a few hours before bed (to minimize accidents and night time potty outings) I prefered to have our pup in a crate, but right next to our bed, so when he whined to go out, I heard him, and could scoop him up and go out. the first month I was up 2-3 times a night. It was exhausting, but he never had an accident at night, so it was worth it.

good luck!

[PetFriendly]

Here's what worked for us.

Charley came home around 7-8 weeks. He had an exercise pen in the kitchen with a small crate without a door in that. There were also papers at the other end of the pen as he had been paper trained before I got him.

I would take him out every hour or so, use the 'Do your business' command if he looked like he was going to go and treat once he had. If I saw him looking for a spot int he house we'd say 'No, Outside' and whisk him off outside.

When he was in his pen during the day he'd use the paper if he had to (he wasn't alone for more than 4 hours at a time) but slowly learned to wait for me to come home (if he could). He would cry in the night to go out, usually around 3 am, and I didn't have an alarm, I'd just wake up when he cried and take him out (no point working 3 am into a realistic schedule ). He stopped crying in the night arond 7-8 months but still wakes at 6 reguardless. Something that really helped was pulling his water dish up around 7 pm.

He's 10 months old now and there haven't been accidents in months (its a milestone when you can count in months instead of weeks! )

[joeysmama]

Thank you so much for all your advice. It's been very helpful ! We really didn't know WHAT we were doing. I have to say that he's doing much better. I think he really gets the idea that outside is for potty. We had one day where he just wanted to play with leaves when he was out there, that was a bit of a chalenge. We kept removing the leaves from his mouth and then ignoring him, hoping he would go. But then the weather got rainy and he didn't want to be outside as much and that was a HUGE step forward. We would take him out and put him down and he was pretty efficient about getting the job done. And once I went out the door without him for some reason and he came to the door wanting to come with. So I was happy that he would come to the door like that, and twice after that when I saw him sniffing near the door I scooped him up and took him out.

I've been making sure we always take him out through the same door every time. Since I spend more time in the kitchen than any other room, and there is no carpeting in there, I thought I owuld like him to get used to that door--I'll be more likely to notice him if he's waiting there--and if he gets excited and let's out a "preview" before I can get him out, there's less damage.


His crate is divided to be pretty small so we thought that he probably just can not hold it the entire night, so we've started setting the alarm and taking him out in the very early morning about 5:00.

We're on the way to a great dog. His temperament is really wonderful. He's playful and affectionate. Very easy going. He just doesn't have a name yet. But we're down to a short list so that's progress.