Tell Bell Training

[Lindsey, Lee, Whopper and Simba]

We live in a townhome and spend most of our time on the upper level. We have realized that it takes time to get from the top to the bottom and bought a tell bell to try and help our puppy out. In less than a week she is sitting next to it when she needs to go out and when we tell her to ring it to go potty she rings it, but we are still waiting for her to start ringing it regularly on her own. Has anyone else tried the Tell Bell and if so, how long before your dog was consistently using it to let you know they need to go out. As a side note, we chose the tell bell because it sits unobtrusively on the floor and the door to the outside is so many levels down that the hanging bells aren't really practical and we didn't want all of the incidental ringing.

[Adina P]

What IS the tell bell? Our dogs touch their nose to a chime by our back door to signal when they want to go outside.

[Lindsey, Lee, Whopper and Simba]

The Tell Bell is a small bell that has a slightly larger "button" for the dog to press on than an ordinary countertop bell. Here's the link: http://www.tellbell.com/product.html. It was more expensive than the hanging bells but in our particular situation, the hanging bells wouldn't work and we were looking for an alternative to give our puppy a better way to voice her needs.

[ClarkP]

Cool... I hadn't seen the Tell Bell before. We use wind chimes hung on a hook beside the door so there isn't any incidental ringing as we use the door. Wind chimes are really easy to ring and sound really nice too.

I think the training to get your puppy to ring the Tell Bell would be exactly the same as any other bell training. What we did was to physically move the dog to ring the bell and then praise enthusiastically and immediately took the dog outside. We did that every time we went out that door with the dog. Once they know that ringing the bell will allow them to go outside it won't take long at all before they will do it themselves.

Now... a warning of what is to come. Your puppy will start ringing the bell ALL THE TIME once she realizes the power she posesses. But to really ingrain this new behavior, you MUST take her out every time she rings. Yes, she will abuse it. And yes, it will be a pain for you. I understand completely... I lived in a third floor walk-up apartment when I trained Cass to do this. The way to minimize this is to NOT play with the dog when you take them outside after they ring. This is a potty only trip. You don't want her to ring for any other reason than to go potty. So only do that when she rings.

Good luck. You can do it and you will be thankful you did for her whole life (as soon as she quits abusing it that is...).

[Steve Drury]

I had never seen the Tell Bell before; I can see how it has advantages over hanging bells. However we live in a single story house and don't face the same challenges you do. We potty trained our then 9 week old puppy in one week. The door didn't open without the bell ringing-----for ANYBODY. We also would take her to the door and manipulate her paw to hit the bells. She picked it up in a day----after all she's a doodle!
There have been some abuses. In particular she prefers "patio water" over "kitchen water". She'll walk right past her bowl in the kitchen; ring the bell to go out; get a drink from her bowl on the patio and then come right back in. She gets pretty funny if we don't respond quickly enough. She'll start out gently but progress to swatting the bell like a tennis star if it's really urgent.

[Tricia Campbell]

I also have wind chimes that Duffy & Riley ring when they want to go out. I introduced Duffy to it at about 5 months, I would take his paw & hit while saying out. He picked in up in about 2 days. Riley I taught from the moment we took him home at about 11 weeks, he just turned 5 months & for the past week he has been using it regularly. For a while there I thought he would never get the idea but now that I'm writing this I am thinking to myself - he was just a baby. In our house
I guess the magic number is 5 months. Good Luck, she will get it & you all will be so, so happy :)

[Renee]

Taffy started using it on a regular basis about 2weeks after we started with it. She did abuse the bell and start playing with it constantly. We did stop using the bell and now she gives one bark and stands at the back door, so that is working for us.

[Adina P]

Cuz I hate barking--wind chimes are MUCH more pleasant.