How Many Accidents is a Normal Amount?

[Gillian]

Hi Everyone!!

We brought home our puppy, Maizey, last Friday.. and I know she is just a baby (turned 9 weeks today!) but I"m wondering how many accidents a day is normal at this stage? I am ALWAYS with her or she is in her crate, but she has at least one or two accidents in the house a day. And she does it in front of us... we say NO, take her out, and let her finish. I just wonder if she should be having fewer accidents or if this is pretty normal at this stage?

[Robyn, Greg and Snickers]

Do you take her out within a few minutes of eating/drinking? We did that and if he didn't go withb 5 minutes we would bring him in and take hm out after about 10 minutes and repeat once he went we gave him a treat and praised him like he won the Superbowl!

We really had good luck with this tactic

Congrats on your new addition as well!

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

I think that every situation and every puppy is different. I don't think 1-2 a day is all that many for a 9 week old puppy. But it should start (with appropriate training) getting better fairly quickly.
1) How often are you taking her out? s/b about every 30 mins to 1 hour at this age during the day and evening.
2) When you take her out is she going potty? Are you praising and treating?
3) Are you taking her out on a leash to focus on potty vs.. play?
You should be spending lots and lots of time going out right now till she gets it!

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

One or two accidents at nine weeks seems pretty good to me.

[Pat & "Tucker"]

sounds like she is doing pretty good to me for 9 weeks. I would take her out every hour- max every 2 hours.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

Maybe I am crazy,but we had to take Peri out every 15-20 minutes for the first few weeks. Are you giving Maizey treats and lots of praise when she goes outside. Really mark the difference. A firm NO (as you are doing) inside, anytime she does anything outside she gets a "YES, good girl, good peepee (or other key word)". You need to be speaking in a high pitched annoying voice. We litterally did that everytime and gave her a treat. At 15 months, she STILL pees on command.
At that age they pee (and poo) a LOT

[Carole (*Koda*Monty*Bindi)]

We did this with Gaston-Cramer as well and it worked like a dream. That having been said, one or two accidents at nine weeks is awesome so you're on the right track :) When GC was a puppy we used his outside time strickly for potty time so that he was never confused as to what he had to do once he got out there. As he got older we introduced outside time as play time but until he was potty trained we made certain that he knew that when he was outside he was to do is business.

[Gillian]

Well, I ended up taking little Maizey into the vet yesterday... good thing I did, because she has a UTI :( Poor thing. She's now taking antibiotics and seems to already be feeling better...

But of course, now I am faced with two dilemmas and I'm hoping you all may have some insight!

1) Do we still "startle" her and correct her when she has an accident inside for today/tomorrow because she is sick... I know she can't control it right now and we are taking her out every 20 minutes, but I don't want her to get scared of peeing in front of us if we continue to startle her when she has an accident (and we catch her in the act)

2) Yesterday, she had her first accident in the crate :( I know it's because she has UTI, and we had two of our TShirts in there for her to feel comforted... now I wonder if I should not put any new soft clothing in there. I don't want to punish her for being sick, but I also don't want it to become a habit of peeing in there (she had gone a whole week without one accident in that crate!)

Thanks for all your support :)

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

It is great that you took her to the Vet, and I really hope she'll be feeling better quickly. If it were me, I would continue to pick her up when you catch her peeing inside and take her right out. I'd be sure there is no correction involved...just calmly take her out and I used the word "potty". If the puppy finished outside there was lots of praise and a treat. I'm not sure the soft clothing in the crate will have an impact either way. If she can't control it because of the UTI, I don't think it's going to matter whether or not there's something in the crate. Right now she probably has to be taken out very frequently which should help prevent the accidents in the house or the crate. Good luck....hopefully with the antibiotics this will pass quickly.

[Sarah and Joplin]

Hope she feels better! :(