I have been trying to train DouBao(8 months old)to ring the bell and let me know she wants to go.


Pat Miller's "The Art of Positive Training" suggested that ask the dog to ring the bell when you take her out for washroom. After she rings, (say nothing and no reward), take her out and if she eliminates, then praise and reward her. This way, you would be rewarding the ringing of the potty bell. After a while, the dog will finally ring the bell itself, just wait for that call.


Unfortunately, we haven't had the ring yet....We follow the instruction quite well, but only one problem kind of failing us --- we live at 6th floor apt, the duration b/w the ringing bell, the elimination and reward gets too long, not to mention there are distractions from waiting the elevator to arriving at the potty spot just outside the building.


I have one accident randomly every week, majorly because of drinking too much water when she is outside walking/playing. I know her bladder hasn't fully grown till she reaches at least 9 months old. But it will be really nice if she could let me know in some way...


Does anybody has experience with this training? Any thoughts on how to let her get it? Thanks very much for any ideas!!!

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I hung a set of bells to the front door, and the dogs learned to nose it right away to go out... the only time they can go out the front door is to potty...they have access to the back yard all day, but the front door is easiest when they are in for the evening/night..It really only took a few days to ring the bell.... I actually put their nose to the bell before I opened the door...now it is natural...

good luck- everyone just finds their own way, and you will too!

Kristen

I rewarded SOphie when she rang the bell,  not sure why the training said not to,  but Sophie caught on right away. 

 

I taught Ellie to do this by acting very excited and saying "Let's go outside" everytime she rang the bell (I started by hanging the bell from my hand and then I put it on the door knob).  There can be a drawback though--they ring because they want to go outside but not necessarily because they need to go potty.

I think the idea,the trainer suggested not to reward at the door bell ringing, but the elimination, is because you want to reward the dog for ringing the bell of elimination, not for the ringing the bell of going out.

Sarah & Luxy did bring a idea to me that reward the bell ringing and reward again for elimination. I don't think my girl is very crazy out going out so far, so hopefully she won't abuse the bell...I am gonna give a try...

Camber either prances around and just walks around the house more than usual and gives us the eye.  That, and we let her out all the time.  If I let her out 20 times a day, she'd go do her business 20 times a day, lol...

I am also trying to teach Pancake this but he never goes to the bell on his own. When I know he needs to go out I walk up to the bell with him and just wait and he rings it so he knows, but he just doesn't really put it in action unless I'm right there. Tips would be useful. :D

YES! That's exactly what I have with DouBao. If she knows we are going out for potty, she will ring before I open the door, BUT never ring herself...

Now I reward her for ringing the bell when we go potty and reward a bit MORE when she does go. We will see how it goes...

In addition, before she was 4 months old, we asked her to go potty on the balcony where the training pad was. Now even though she won't go potty on the balcony, she still has the old habit to go to that direction....Sigh...

Has she improved with treating when she rings the bell?

I would say no... She would ring when she knows we are going out for potty... She only rang herself twice or three times for I don't know what reason...

She is now pretty much on my schedule and no accident for a month. If she can keep being a good girl like this... I would not worry too much about ringing the potty bell...(Guess I have to give up...LOL...)

I tried to teach this to one of my corgis and ringing the bell caused her to pee in fright every time (she was very submissive) and our friend's Westie did it but learned that when he was bored and/or wanted attention that the bell got a response so became a real pain especially when they had company. I decided to just let them out on my schedule and that has worked really well. Sparty will bark at me if he needs to go more often.

my corgis loved this idea but I also take them everywhere with me and not everyones house has bells so be careful if you are visiting. lol

 

When we go visiting we take a bell with us. We just use a big jingle bell, or several small ones, on a piece of string or yarn.

When I was training both dogs, I'd gently take their heads in my hands and gently bump their noses on the bell so it would ring, all the time saying let's go outside in a very excited voice. Ring the bell, get a treat at first. Then treat for going potty. We phased out the treat for ringing and just treated for going potty. We finally had to get rid of the bell since they would ring it just because they could. I think they liked the sound!!

Like I said, when go go somewhere to visit or to a winter rental in GA, we take a string of bells with us. Rocky never barks to go out but he will ring the bell. Rosie will bark sometimes but not always. She's better about staring at you when she needs to go out but if you don't catch Rocky's "wander past the door and hope someone notices" you might have a mess to clean up!! That's why the bells go with us. Then he knows which door to use and will ring the bells. I just hang them, give them a jingle while he's watching and he's fine.

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