Serious problems with potty training, please help!

[GentleLake]

 

if I need to get a baby gate and add that to our potty-training ritual, I will. (I didn't see one on Freecycle and when I went to the pet store yesterday they had them for 79 dollars, jeez!)

 

You can post wanted ads on Freecycle, too. So there may well be someone who just hasn't gotten around to posting theirs yet who'll see your ad and respond. If not this week, maybe later. Just keep posting the ads and you'll find one sooner or later.

 

Ditto w/ Craigslist.

 

$79 is a lot for a gate. I'm sure you could find one for less than that at Target, K-Mart or Wal-Mart. But if you don't need one right away, I'm sure you can find one for free.

 

It sounds like you're making progress, though, in figuring out her schedule. That's great! Be really careful w/ that night time one, though so she doesn't have a chance to make a mistake. It sounds like she's on her way, though!

 

ETA: I should've said you can probably get a gate free or cheaply if you wait and work Freecycle or CL. You might have to pay a little for one on CL.

[GentleLake]

You're the first people I've encountered who seem to understand my dog's brain.

 

I know it was on another thread (the BC Snob one, mebbe?) that someone said they didn't understand it, but this is what's meant by saying "After a border collie, anything else is just a dog."

[Sue R]

 

 

Thanks. I had posted saying I felt bad about the crate but I was asking for reassurance that it wasn't cruel as long as she was getting interaction and exercise when she's not crated. She's needing the crate less and less, but if I need to get a baby gate and add that to our potty-training ritual, I will. (I didn't see one on Freecycle and when I went to the pet store yesterday they had them for 79 dollars, jeez!) So I'll get one if I have to, but the system we have now is working out okay. I just wanted somebody to reassure me that it wasn't horrible to crate-train her for now. I guess I was miscommunicating what I needed, because people offered suggestions for alternatives to crating and I really just wanted somebody to reassure me that it was okay and that she'd be fine.

 

Maggie's biggest problem right now seems to be her evening poop. I think I've figured out her body's schedule...

 

-Peeing and pooping first thing in the morning, outside.

-No peeing or pooping, inside or outside, until at least 3 pm-- this is her safe period to be in the house without crating or direct supervision.

-A 3-4 pm pee, which usually happens outside if she's taken out between 3 and 4.

-Absolute refusal to pee or poop, even if we spend the whole day outside, from 4-7 pm.

-Peeing some time betweeen 7 and 9 pm. (If she's not outdoors, crated, or taken out hourly during this period, she pees indoors.)

-Pooping inside at 10 pm. This is the one thing that we're having the most trouble with. She will NOT poop outside at night no matter how much time we spend outside at night. There have been times I've taken her out for loooong walks from 7-11 pm and she hasn't pooped, but she does it if she's inside at night.

 

For the last few days, I've been very, very strict about crating or directly supervising her in the evenings so she doesn't get to have her evening poop on the floor, which was the biggest problem, so she holds it and then ends up pooping a huge amount in the morning. I think a few more days of this might convince her that it's worth it to poop outside at night.

 

It sounds like you are making a lot of progress - figuring out your problem and non-problem times, using the crate even if you know she's going to do a big one in the morning, etc. It sounds to me like you are on the right track in a number of ways now.

 

Very best wishes working this all out. There is nothing more frustrating than messes that keep on coming. As you can see, your efforts are producing results and hopefully you both will continue to progress.

 

PS - I wondered if my Dan would ever "get it". He was just about six months old and I was still having to take him out no less than every hour in the evening (and darn close to that during the day) or risk an accident. Then one day - bingo! He was absolutely frantic at the sliding doors and I took him outside - he had to go and he *did not want* to mess inside. And he's been a totally clean dog in the house ever since. He was a very late-maturing boy and I think he just had to get to the point where it mattered enough to him to recognize that he had to go and he wanted to go outside, not inside.

 

He was a pup that never, ever made a mess of any sort in the large crate/xpen combo that was his confinement from 7 am until 2:30 pm (when the neighbor boy got off the bus and took him outside to potty and play) on days I had to work, from 9 weeks of age on. He has always wanted to be clean in his own "home" but he had nothing against going in the family room because he was too busy (I believe) to stop and remember it was time to go outside - and, besides, it was a bigger area. Until that magic day when it all clicked for him and I could breathe a sigh of relief...

[ziggzmom]

 

This is probably why people seem astonished that I can easily get all three of my dogs to pose together, looking directly at the camera. They are way more impressed by that simple feat than by anything I've done with a dog in the obedience or agility ring,

LOL! Unable to figure out how I got all 4 of my dogs to pose together in a picture, a co-worker asked me how I got them to do that? 'I told them to stay' was my answer.

 

I like the look on non dog show folks faces at an obedience trial watching the handlers walking out of the ring on the out of sight sits and downs. They are very impressed=)

 

Janet

[maggiesmommy]

Four days, no accidents, and we've graduated from crating when she hasn't pottied to keeping her in a room with a baby gate (which was indeed way cheaper at Walmart, and which it only took a few stern "No"s to teach her to respect.)

I can't thank you guys enough for all the help. I know I can't assumed she's fully housetrained yet,but the amount of progress we've made has been nothing short of astonishing!

[GentleLake]

That's great news!

 

Happy to hear things are going well.

[Elko]

I am having problems as well. My puppy basically stays in my kitchen and is crated a lot of the time. When I leave she has the run of the kitchen as I can't leave her crated for many hours. How do I teach her not to go on the kitchen floor anymore? I've allowed it for a month now as I got her at 8 weeks and of course you cannot leave a puppy crated for many hours. Thanks!

[Cass C]

Make sure you are using an enzyme cleaner that completely removes the scent. Also if at all possible try to get home or have someone stop by every 4 hours to let the puppy out for a potty break. The more often you let the puppy out the less opportunity the puppy will have to have an accident.

[GentleLake]

The more room she has the more likely she is to soil as well. She needs to be confined to a smaller space that she won't want to make dirty, and let out often enough so that she won't have to. For young puppies that means pretty frequently. If you have to be gone longer than she can hold it, then you need to make arrangements for someone to let her out.

 

Failure to do this while she's young pretty much guarantees you won't have a house trained dog.

[geonni banner]

Dear OP,

 

I've scanned this whole thread - albeit quickly - and there is one thing I saw no mention of: fearfulness.

 

I'm having my own housebreaking trials and tribulations with a dog that is, in some ways, as brave as a lion. In other ways she's as brave as a mouse.

 

In all ways, she is very, very sensitive.

 

Your earlier posts mentioned chastising the dog when you caught her peeing/pooping.

 

My dog, Maid, clearly had some negative experiences around eliminating. I can tell because she would not pee or poop for the first two weeks I had her if she could see me. And she would only go in my back yard. (She was too stressed by the outside world to go anywhere else.)

 

After two weeks I could be in sight, as long as I stayed inside the screen door. This lasted another two weeks. After that, I could open the door, but she wasn't thrilled about that. Now I can go out there with her, (the yard is about 10 feet wide and 20 feet long) but she isn't crazy about that, either.

 

This sequence started on August 12. Maid peed for the first time, outside my back yard, about 3 weeks ago. I've gotten her to go about two dozen times since then. She has pooped - on a long line - in a field a block from my place exactly 3 times. (Not counting pooping in the back yard.)

 

I have never corrected her for peeing in the house - there's only been 3 times - and one of those was because she was frightened by a friend of mine walking into the apartment with a large, folded-up dog crate. She has never pooped in the house.

 

I expect it'll be another two or three months before we start seeing "regular performance" on leash, and she is still too fearful to be off-lead/ off-long line outside a secure fenced area.

 

All of which is to say, that this may take time. It may take quite a bit of time. Probably not as much for your dog as for mine - but mine had a set of nerves like 40 miles of bad road when I got her. (She's better now - but still has a long way to go.)

 

Be vigilant, but stay positive. I would say no negative reactions to her mistakes from you at all would be essential. As others have said, throwing a party for her doing the right thing is a must.

[Elko]

Thank you so much for the advice!

[Elko]

I've been crating her and unfortunately she urinated in it after only an hour. Had this happened to anyone else? She totally gets the idea to do her business outside as when we go out she does it right away.

[Elko]

We also just played in the kitchen and she immediately soiled the floor, I had no time to take her out.

[geonni banner]

Has this dog had a urinalysis? If not, I would get her checked. Maybe blood work too.

[chrisandgabe]

Elko- how soon before you put the dog in the crate had she gone? As in, was the "in the crate for an hour" about when she was due to go? Also, vigorous play can make a puppy have to go, so maybe going outside after just a few minutes of playing. Also, how big is the dog's crate? And how much is she crated? You mentioned it was a lot, just trying to figure out what that means.

[Elko]

She went outside, then came back in her crate and it was about an hour that she soiled, and she did the same one time yesterday morning. She isn't crated that often as we don't rely on that a lot because of the breed. My other bc I newspaper trained and she turned out perfect in that regard, well she was perfect in all areas! So will Elko, she's smart, she'll get it! Her crate is a medium size one, just big enough for her to stand and stretch. She uses it to sleep as she enjoys it but she is never crated with door closed for very long, maybe two hour and a half at a time.