POOP PROBLEMS!!
Oliver is a little over 3 months, and has done great with all of his training in other areas. I know that he is still a puppy, so accidents are to be expected. However, as I said in another post somewhere... Now that I have figured out that he pokes my leg to let me know he has to go outside, the potty accidents are very few and far between (every once in a while in the middle of the night as his is not crate trained as of yet).
The pooping incident is a complete other ball game though. He will go to the door on occasion, but he never makes any noise (even if he has to pee), and will wait a minute or two, then go in the entryway. In the middle of the night he will go in my closet. Once he goes #2 in the house a couple of times, then the pididdle accidents become more frequent also.
I take him out on a regular basis (every 2-3 hours, about every 5 at night). I enforce the 'go potty' when he does go, and even reward him with a treat/praise immediately after. I try to watch him for accidents, and can catch him most of the time when he has to potty, but the other is still just escaping me.
He isn't crate trained... I have had multiple dogs throughout my life, none of which have ever had a crate, so I am really new to the whole idea. I've read up on it, and we bought one last week. I am in the process of getting him accustomed to the whole idea, but since I've never done crate training before, am still a little unsure and unconfident that I am doing it correctly. So he spends an hour or two in the crate a day, along with an hour or two on the tie-out a day, but the rest of the time he follows me around the house. Even though I take him outside for at least 20 minutes each time, the poop incidents occur. Any help would be appreciated!!
The pooping incident is a complete other ball game though. He will go to the door on occasion, but he never makes any noise (even if he has to pee), and will wait a minute or two, then go in the entryway. In the middle of the night he will go in my closet. Once he goes #2 in the house a couple of times, then the pididdle accidents become more frequent also.
I take him out on a regular basis (every 2-3 hours, about every 5 at night). I enforce the 'go potty' when he does go, and even reward him with a treat/praise immediately after. I try to watch him for accidents, and can catch him most of the time when he has to potty, but the other is still just escaping me.
He isn't crate trained... I have had multiple dogs throughout my life, none of which have ever had a crate, so I am really new to the whole idea. I've read up on it, and we bought one last week. I am in the process of getting him accustomed to the whole idea, but since I've never done crate training before, am still a little unsure and unconfident that I am doing it correctly. So he spends an hour or two in the crate a day, along with an hour or two on the tie-out a day, but the rest of the time he follows me around the house. Even though I take him outside for at least 20 minutes each time, the poop incidents occur. Any help would be appreciated!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sam Tsang on
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A crate is a dog's sanctuary, make it a nice comfy place, never associate it as punishment. Re-read the FAQ, remember that when your eyes are not on Oliver? Crate! Be consistent and have schedule. Crate him at night. You will need to do this until 9 mo - 1 yr. That is when the bladder will be fully develop and able to hold for a long time. Right now he is only 3 month, if he's been crate training, the longest length of time that he can hold is technically 4 hours. Always remember that your dog will master potty training faster than a human baby. By 6 mo, Oliver will be in his teenage years and he will forget and rebel everything you taught him thus far, so be patient, consistent, and you'll get through it. We all did :)
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Sam is 100% correct. Jack was not allowed in our living room (even with us) til he was about 6 months old, because he was not 100% reliable even if I was right there, so he could only play on hard surfaces, not carpet. We took him out constantly, and if we were not able to give him 100% attention, he was confined. He was crated at night and we used a pen in the day, but I realize not everyone has space for a pen.
By 100% attention, I mean if I was not actively playing with the pup, he was confined. That meant if I ran upstairs for something, went in the living room for something, sat down to eat a sandwich.... in the pen he went. If my eyes would be off him for 30 seconds, in the pen (I learned my lesson the hard way when I ran upstairs and came down to find pup busily eating my window sill).
Some people have had luck with the "attach pup to leash and your own waist" method, but personally that would not have worked for me, because Jack also tended to grab onto pants, shoes, or whatever else he could get his blasted little teeth into when he was young. :-)
He was allowed run of the house when we were home by about 7 months, and we did not start leaving him loose unattended til he was about a year or so. And then we did very short trips; we would leave for 20 minutes, then an hour or two, then a half day, etc.
He was not left loose at night until he was about a year and a half, but that had more to do with barking than pooping.
Until he was just about a year old, I came home every day at lunch to take him out, even though he was penned.
It seems like a lot now, but this time will pass quickly. Good luck!
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P.S. Remember, young dogs "earn" their freedom and they do not see this as punishing. In a natural state, the young ones would be forcibly kept in the den area most of the time by their elders.
As your pup gets more reliable, you can expand the area where he is allowed to play when you can watch him. Once he goes a long period with no accidents, you can start leaving him loose when you're not there to guard him, but that is not until he is much older. The pup sees this as normal and natural, and having space to wander around unsupervised can actually be over-stimulating for them. We see the confinement as unnatural and tend to feel guilty, but to a tiny pup, a small area is about as much as they can confidently handle when they are left to their own devices.
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Permalink Reply by Sunni A. on
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Getting a schedule with food/pooping is the easiest way to protect your carpets, at the same time using the crate as a teaching tool. That way you will have pretty regular poo times throughout the day and can avoid a surprising accident indoors. For example, with Eddy as a baby, we would feed him, take him out to pee. 40 minutes later, we would crate him for 15-20 minutes, and then open the door, carry him outside, no time for carpet-to-paw action, and he would poo. Clockwork! We fed him 3x/day, so he poo'd 3 times, and maybe first thing in the morning, on occasion. If he didn't poo, we'd crate him for another 15 minutes, and take him out immediately again. Using the crate this way helps teach the pup your expectations, helps him realize it's eat/digest/rest in crate/go to grass to poo... not eat/play/wander/poo when I have to.
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We were lucky with Jack. He did not like to poop inside, and only did so once on the first day we brought him home.
When he was tiny, we would get him up early (maybe around 5:30), take him out, he would pee and sometimes poop. Then it was breakfast, potty, playtime, another potty. In his round pen where we had papers down when I went off to work at just before 8am. I would then come home at noon. He'd have peed on the papers, but not pooped, and I'd take him out, potty, clean the papers, lunch and play, potty, then back to work. Home at around 5, clean the papers again, potty and play. Supper at around 6pm, potty, dog in pen while we ate. Potty, then some more playtime, potty and we'd have to put him in for nap because he'd get cranky. Then one last potty-play-potty session, and in the crate for the night around 10pm and he'd be clean when we got up in the morning.
We did not exclusively use the crate because of being at work all day; I did not want to crate him overnight and all day too. Plus, he was going to be in the crate more hours than we felt he could hold it, and you can ruin a dog by making it mess in its own den. What we did with the papers is we started out with the whole pen papered, then after a couple weeks cut down half of it (the side we'd noticed he usually peed on), then just gradually worked down the pile of papers to one little section. When he went a few weeks without peeing on papers when we were gone to work, I took out the papers and he was fine.
I had read advice online from a trainer that if you don't praise for going on papers, but just leave them down for when they can't hold it, AND you praise like mad when they go outside, they will housebreak nearly as quickly as they would if you always only let them go outside, as long as you only leave the papers when they are in a confined space and don't make it a free-choice thing for them to use papers when they are loose in the house. The reasoning is a dog does NOT like to relieve itself right near where it is sleeping, playing, and drinking all day, so it will try to avoid going in the confined space if at all possible. We found this to be true, and Jack no longer used the papers at about 4 months, which matched the "age in months plus one" number of hours that a puppy should physically be able to hold his bladder for.
IMO, if you are at work for hours at a time with a very young pup, this is the fairest way to housebreak. Very tiring, and lots of cleaning of papers twice a day, but we had a happy pup who was not stuck wallowing in his own filth.
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Permalink Reply by Kyle, Megan and Loki on
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My corgi is also not crate trained. We gave him a crate for a bed, he sleeps on the floor, has used it maybe 5x total. Crate training is not an essential.
It takes a bit longer to get them started especially as loki had a stigma since day 1. He did not like to poo when you were watching him or near, if you were there , he would hold it (for 12 + hours even at 8 weeks if need be, I am dead serious). It took him til about 4 months to get over this and then everything just kind of clicked with him. Now at almost 6 months, he has free reign (except in the office and bedroom while we are not at home) and all is well. Maybe he just needs a bit more time. He only had the kitchen for about the first 2 months, then when showed promise got the living room, now also has the hallway and other rooms if we are home to clarify.
It took a lot of coercion and catching him at absolutely have to go with lots of praise and treat outside to get this working, but after he got comfortable pooing in site, everything was just dandy. He also sleeps through the whole night and I take him out before work in the mornings
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Permalink Reply by Falicity Harred on
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Thanks for all the advice, it was all definitely informative and helpful! I am trying to crate him more during the day, even though it just breaks my heart to hear him whine and complain the whole time!! I guess since I am home all the time, I just kind of assumed I would be able to watch every move... which is definitely turning out to not be the case!! Just to add more onto the plate, I am now pupsitting his littermate for a week. Littermate Tot doesn't have a crate, so it's become a nightmare trying to crate one but still have one on the loose at least in one room. Hopefully once Tot gets to go back home (mommy had to have surgery), we can get back on OUR schedule and work towards improving. However, I'm still not convinced it's going to happen... yesterday I took Oliver out to potty-which he did, then played for an hour outside. He went to the door to go back in, so we went in, he made it two steps in the door and started pooing right on the livingroom floor!! GRRR... Sometime's I think he's smarter than what anyone really realizes, just also more stubborn and mischevious!
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Falicity, depending on how you have your dog trained on corrections, you might be able to tell even a young pup "No" if you catch them in the act. Not a prolonged "You are a bad dog" no, but a simple explanation.
If you have already conditioned your dog to think "No" means "You are a bad dog", then that won't really work because you don't want to punish him for something he doesn't really have control over.
I use two different corrections with Jack. I have saved "Ah-ah" to translate to "Stop that!" or "That's bad!" It's a sharper correction and it has worked well. That is saved for when the dog is doing something bold. Everyone needs to find their own correction which feels natural and comfortable to them.
I use "No" for something completely different. When I am training my dog something new, we use something like the old game of "hot" and "cold." So I use "No" in a very calm and slightly drawn-out voice when he's cold, offering something not at all what I want, or (as he often does now) offering all the behaviors he has already been trained on (especially Speak and Paw) in response to a new, unknown command. In this case, then, "No" does not mean "You're bad" but simply "That's not what I'm looking for at all." And I use "good" again in a calm and drawn out voice when he is getting close to what I want but is not quite there yet. Then I save my most cheerful "That's it! You're a good boy. Who's a good boy? What a good boy!!" for when he finally gets it right.
So, if you have trained your dog that "No" in a calm voice simply means "That's not what I'm looking for" you can correct your pup if and only if you catch him in the act. If "No" means "You're bad" then he is really too young YET to use that on, since he's still in the training process and is not mature enough yet to totally comply with your wishes, even if he wants to.
Think of it like a little kid who is being potty-trained, and knows (sort of) that you want her to use the potty but sometimes gets so engrossed in what she is doing that she forgets.
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