Puppy potty training madness!

[Nicole Konicke]

Help! My Irish Doodle Lilah did great the first couple days, and I've kept up with taking her outside and she will pee outside and then come back in and then try to pee but its like a few drops and she keeps doing that!!! Any suggestions for patty training? My labradoodle Daisy was so hard to potty train but she is 5 now so I don't remember and Mimi my goldendoodle was already trained when we got her, so I'm needing some guidance! Thanks!

[Daelene & Molly]

No suggestions for the potty training, but perhaps she has an infection?  Like when people have a UTI, don't they feel like they have to potty but nothing comes out??    BTW I love your variety of doodles ♥

[Stacy Deitrich]

Rosie has been fairly easy to train.  We have had her for 2 weeks now and she only had 2 accidents in the house.  I started off by only allowing her access to our living room.  I took up our area rugs so that I would now for sure if she went, and wouldn't ruin our rugs!  I made sure that we played in every square inch of the living room so that it would be known as play area.  In the beginning with all the new smells I took her out literally about every 15 minutes.  We stayed outside each time until she pottied.  If I wasn't playing with her, if I had to have my attention away from her for even a minute I put her in her crate, then immediately took her out again.  I've slowly allowed access to each room of our house (main floor only).  In each room I make sure I lay down on the floor and play with her in that area.  It needs to be designated as play, eat or sleep area in the puppies mind.  We now go out AT LEAST once per hour, sometimes more.  The minute she isn't playing or resting I take her back out.  It's a lot of work but it will be worth it later.  I hope this helps!

~ Stacy & Rosie 

[Lindsey]

Wow Stacy, you are a determined potty training doodle mom! Good job!!
Ou Molly has not been the easiest dog to train, but she's not horrible either. Everytime I go to take her outside I say "outside" and then I praise her like crazy when she pottys outside. When she's inside I just keep an eye on her and if she starts sniffing or all of a sudden looses interest in whatever we're doing and starts to wonder around, I say "outside" and she looks at the back door (oh, also try and always take her out using the same door) and then I jump up and take her out and praise her again.

[Sherri, Sophie, Winston, & Kitty]

This is exactly what I did and it worked well. I always gave her treats after she pottied. Sometimes I think she faked it to get more treats :) Whenever I asked her "outside?" she would jump at the door to say yes. Of course, now she just jumps at the door pretending she has to pee but really she just wants to go out and play. She's a smarty pants :)

[imacreative]

Hi Nicole,

 

Since I am going through the same situation as you, I may be able to share some tibits. It's been over a decade since I had a puppy and so I probably have most of the same concerns.

 

Our puppies are nine weeks old now and this is what my family has been doing in regards to potty training:

 

• First thing we noticed is her having diarrhea issues. This also meant that Lucy was drinking a lot of water to hydrate herself. This had caused us to take her out to pee almost every hour for the first 4 days- and nights! There was some few drops inside the house probably because he puppy bladder couldn't hold the amount she was drinking. I was able to take a few days off from work to spend more time with Lucy and eventually learned about chicken, broth and rice. Now things are more consistent.

• I also notice that Lucy doesn't completely finish with her #1 when I take her outside due to being curious of her surroundings. We have to spend a bit more time outside calling her attention to "hurry up". She mostly goes twice before she's ready to go back inside.

• We always have her on a 6 foot leash at all times so we can monitor every action.

• Lucy can now stay in kennel form 10;30pm to about 5:30am. But as soon as I open the cage, she steps out and tries to pee immediately, so I have to carry her outside quickly. I will try to let her out one time between those hours to make things easier for her.

[Nicole Konicke]

I am glad Lucy is doing good, we had diarrhea issues this morning but luckily not in the house.  She was in her crate and was whining about 6:30 am which is the time we usually get up and I took her outside and she had diarrhea.  I am so paranoid about parvo but I know she got a hold of a couple pieces of turkey yesterday and I think that was the problem because she has been eating, and drinking since then and is very peppy and not lethargic at all!  Thank goodness!  How did you get Lucy to do the tricks so quick?  Lilah just wants to play or cuddle.  I think I need to remove my other doodles when we try to sit down and train her and eliminate those distractions.  Any advice?

[imacreative]

Lucy had diarrhea the first few days with the new dog food, so after researching this, we decided to do the rice and chicken ( with chicken broth) mixture and she started to get more solid output. We are currently changing the ratio of rice/chicken: dog food slowly. I feed her in her crate. And from time to time, I take her food out for a bit and give it back for her to continue eating. This shows her that I'm pack leader and also helps pace the way she consumes food.

 

Lucy, at almost 10 weeks,  can now sit, down, rollover and stay ( for maybe over a minute). Since we can't bring her out on walks due to her not having all of her shots yet, we try to run her in the backyard. Once she's a bit tired and hungry, we start training using her dog kibbles as the treat. We started with sit, then down. Once we got her to go in down position, we were able to teach her to roll over. Stay command is still a challenge, but after all, she's still a puppy.

 

Our 12 yr old lab is starting to get used to her, but still shows teeth when she approaches him too assertively ( we always have her on leash). This gives us solo time for training without distractions. We plan to socialize Lucy once we get the go-ahead from the vet. Please post pictures!

[SFdoodle]

We got Kylie our Australian Labradoodle one month ago (she's now 13 weeks old) and we've had pretty good success so far. Here's what we did. The first week we carried her outside to her designated potty place every hour on the hour. Once she started to go to the bathroom we'd say potty. When she finished we'd give her one freeze dried liver for pee and two freeze dried livers for going number two. We also kept a log to help us understand how long she could hold it and to make sure we kept going out on schedule. Fast forward three weeks and though she still has a few accidents here and there for the most part she will go sit in front of the door to go potty. We also take her out every 2.5 hours (that seems to be about how long she can hold it), give her the 'go potty' command, and praise and treat her when she's done. It seems to have worked out pretty well because now she will push open the back door and let herself out to go potty in the right place (at least most of the time)!

[Nicole Konicke]

I know it is hot in Texas, in the afternoon I see that Lillah wants to sit by me and not potty!  Today has been great though no accidents!  Lilah will be 10 weeks old on Sunday so she is doing so well! 

[Traci -Bexter & Maggie]

Bexter is doing great so far!  He is 8 weeks old.  He has never gone in his crate.  It seems like he has to go about every hour or two at the most during the day, but can hold it for around 7 hours in his crate at night already!  I am not allowing him to be on the carpeted rooms at all yet (the carpet is brand new...got it a week ago...I know - crazy to get new carpet & a new puppy...) Whenever he tries to get on the carpet, I say "OFF" & put him back on the hardwood in the kitchen area (my house is all very open...he is always RIGHT NEXT to us!)  He has done really well staying off the carpet.  I always have a baggie of cheerios by the back door so that when I take him out, I just grab that so I can treat him immediately upon pee or poop.  I am now trying not to treat him EVERY TIME, but most of the time.  I'll try to decrease that within the next couple of weeks.  I also have poochie bells & ring them with his paw every time before we "go outside."  When do the dogs start ringing the bells themselves to actually tell us when they need to pee???   All Bexter does is start whining a little & I take him or I just do it automatically depending on how long it's been.  Also - Do dogs pee when they poop?  When Bexter poops, I can't tell if pee comes out also or should I wait for him to pee separately?