Potty training with a bell at the door

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

Hi! I'm new to the group.  My little Kona is growing quickly and I'm fairly well trained at taking him out often enough to avoid accidents, but he isn't trained and will quickly pee without even sniffing or showing signs that he needs to go.  I thought he was brilliant that he didn't have a single accident the first 4 days he was in my house, but now I'm not so lucky

I've heard that a good method of training is to hang a bell by the back door and get them to associate the bell with potty time, and that they learn to ring the bell themselves to let you know they are ready. 

Does anyone have any experience with this?

[Rebecca Matthews]

Kona is so cute!  How old is she?

We are doing bell training with our ALD.  We started about a week after we got her and we would entice her to ring the bell with treats or us tapping them every time we would take her out to potty.  We always made sure to do it only before potty and to try not to associate it with play outdoors. After a few weeks she started doing it on her own.  She has a lot fewer accidents now if she can get to her bells.  The one problem is that she rings them just to get attention or to take a quick spin outside, so now we take her out A LOT because she's ringing- AGAIN!  All in all, I think it's a good training method and I've heard other doodle owners say that they learn the difference in the rings of potty vs. play.  As for now, we take her out almost every time.  If she doesn't go a few times in a row, but just wants to play, we play with her a bit and see if that refocuses her and try again next time.  And of she is still phantom calling we put her back in her puppy play pen where she'll most likely take a nap :-)  Good luck!  BTW Mina is now 16 weeks old.

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

Hi Rebecca!  Kona is a boy (King Kona) and he is 10 weeks old.  He was the tiniest of the litter and when he arrived at my house last week, he was only 3.5 pounds.  He is now almost 7 pounds! 

I'd love to hear more about your puppy play pen?  How big is it and how long will your puppy play in there?

[Rebecca Matthews]

So our puppy pen is about 60 inches by 53 inches.  She will be in there for quite some time, if we can't watch her.  We still don't trust her running around the house freely.  She plays, naps and sleeps over night in her crate in her puppy play pen.  When we leave the house we put her in her pen with some toys and treats and she's happy. 

[Brody and Valor]

I have fully trained my 5 month old goldendoodle Brody to use the bell. When we brought him home we hung up the bell and would take his paw and hit the bell everytime we took him out. He eventually caught on and now he rings it to let us know he has to go potty. IF we don't go right away to the door he hits it like a wildman and barks and sits at the door. I highly recommend it!

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

I'll definitely be hanging the bell up soon!  Hopefully it's not too late since is already 10 weeks old.  (Not that that is old...but I feel bad that I didn't do it from day one last week!)

[Lisa O.]

Hi Gwyndolyn,

We trained Oliver to use his bells when he had to go out to go potty.  I took his paw and rang the bell before I would let him out to potty.  We have always bell trained our dogs because I can always hear them in any part of the house when they need to go out.  We also use them when we travel and that seems to work really well.  It takes a little patience but it's worth it!

 

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

You can also teach the command TOUCH.  It will help too.

Teach TOUCH first, then incorporate touch with bell training. Takes a few weeks-to a month but it really works

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Love Love Love my bells.  Didn't start using them until AFTER my dogs were trained.  Still using them after 4 years.  Same ratty bells on that door  :)

Some dogs I have had don't take to them at all. No big deal. But, if they can, it is wonderufl

[DJ & Chance]

Chance learned to ring the potty bells at about 10 weeks.  Now at 16 weeks he will ring the bells if he just wants to go out--to potty or not.  I'm learning that a slight or single ring of the bells means "I want to sniff the grass and play with leaves" and that multiple assaults on the bells means "take me out to potty or I may have an accident in the house."  

[Gwyndolyn Morasko]

Thanks so much everyone! I hung the bell tonight. Hope he catches on quickly. He caught on pretty quickly to peeing quickly for a treat after using the phrase "hurry up" so I'm hoping he'll add the bell to the front end of that

[Diane, Hurley and Sidney]

The bell on the door worked great with Hurley.  When initially I was taking him out every so many hour I would take him to the door, tap the bell and in an excited voice say, "potty, potty' and immediately take him out to the area where he is to do his business.  After he would go I would praise him and immediately bring him back in the house.  I did not let him play on a potty trip out back.   Playing outside may be as little as 15 minutes later but would not be associated with potty.  After he caught on to dining the bell I still took him out not letting him go out alone.  Always brought him right back in.  When he started getting over zealous about ringing the bell I would take him out to the pee spot.  Not let him explore or play beyond 3 minutes.  If he didn't pee/poop in that time I would bring him back in.  Point was to teach him exactly what the bell was for.  I didn't start letting him go outside by himself until about 2 months ago.  Hurley celebrated his 1 year birthday Nov 29th.

I hope that helps you out a bit.  Good luck and keep us up on how his training goes.

[Linda, Charlie Brown and Beau]

I have used the poochie bells since we got Charlie.  From day one, when I took him to the door to go potty, I would ring the bells with his paw and say lets go potty.  Within two days he was wringing the bells very gently with his nose only.  He will be two this month and he still rings the bells this way and very softly.  As soon as I showed Beau the bells he started ringing them too, but he is hilarious - he grabs the middle bell in his mouth and really swings them back and forth.  I think everyone on the block hears them! 

I had the same experience as some others - they started ringing the bells to go out to play and potty.  It is ok with me, but I did read in the instruction with the bells to put the bells on the door you are planning to use for going out to potty and when you are taking them out to play use a different door.  I did do that for a while, but now whenever the bells ring, we open the door.

I think most of them catch extremely quick.  However, my breeder told me about half of hers ring the bell and the other half either bark at the door or use there foot at the door.  I would much prefer the bells.

Good luck!