Help us! We're trying to be thankful!

lol ok.. Seriously.. We are ever so grateful for our puppy Cricket. She's acing her puppy classes and the teachers are ever so glad we're putting her in agility when she is older. She's smart as a whip!

Our major issue is potty training. We have Cesar's books. Puppy Training for dummies. Puppy Training magazines. Internet sites.. and we just CANNOT get it! :(

We've had her for a little over a month and it just seems to be getting worse and worse as time goes on. We take her out right away when we take her out of her crate in the morning. Then we feed her.. Wait, and take her out again. The morning is usually an OK deal. Most of the time. But otherwise we'll take her out once and hour.. Or once every 30 minutes. She'll play outside. With leaves.. Sticks.. Whatever.. And not go potty. She may pee, at most. We reward her greatly and head in the house. We wont be in the house for 5 minutes and she'll pee, and poop IN the house! Ugh! We're so frustrated.. She's even pooped in the car the other day! Right after the hubby took her to a patch of grass and she peed! :( :(

She can go 4-5 hours in her kennel while we are at work. But when we let her out to play in the livingroom (shes restricted to the apartment livingroom) she seems she can't hold it for more than 20 minutes. We KNOW she can. It's that she doesn't want to. If we take her out and she doesn't poop. We have been trying to put her in her kennel for 15 minutes.. And trying again. To NO avail! She just waits it out. plays when we go out and when we give up and let her play. As soon as we go to get a soda or turn our backs she potties on the floor. It never fails.. We've even tried training her to jingle bells every time we go outside. You think she'd get it. She's not dumb.. She gets treats for potty outside and nothing but frustrated parents inside. :(

We don't yell at her when she does potty on the floor. We get frustrated and grumble while we have to clean it.

I can't express how stressed this is making us. We feel like she'll never be trained. We don't want to have a full grown dog who cannot let us know when she has to go outside. :(

Please, if anyone can help us.. I will give you huge internet hugs and candy and cookies.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

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Permalink Reply by Jane on July 25, 2011 at 12:04pm

He can go outside...just don't take him to areas where tons of other dogs go. I would definitely not force him to pee in his crate, first of all that's just cruel, and second of all you're killing his potty training progress.