taking advantage of the "go outside" bells

[Gina]

So we put bells on the door that our goldendoodle uses to go outside, he rings the bell when it is time to go out. This had been going fine, but lately, he seems to be taking major advantage of the situation to the point where we are taking him out 7-8 times in a two hour slot. We tried ignoring this once, and we actually peed on the floor by the door, so now, we feel like we cannot ifnore him no matter what. He does go to the bathroom when we take him out about 60% of the time, and the other part he just messes around. At what point should I maybe consider that this could be a UTI??? He usually will void large amounts when he does pee, and he isn't squatting all throughout the house, or each time when we take him out, suggesting to me that possibly he would have a UTI? I really think he may be taking advantage but I don't want to let this go if it could be something more serious. Does anyone have an opinion about this?

[Adina P]

how old is your doodle again? All three of our dogs are trained to ring to be let out. each of them, when they first learned, would take advantage of the situation and ring excessively. eventually the novelty wore off--one of our doodles will actually go ring the bell to be let out so she does not have to have her ears cleaned :-)

[Gina]

He just turned 1...and the string broke on the bells about a month and a half ago, I just finally got them back up, and it took a couple weeks, but it started up since we have put them back up.

[Adina P]

if you go to the tab labeled forum and do a search for the word bells you will find past discussions about this very topic that might be helpful to you. Also check in the group called puppy madness for discussions about bells as well. I'm sure that the novelty will wear off for your puppy ... maybe not in the next few days but it will eventually :-)

[Oliver]

oliver did this the 4th day we had him...he did it alllll day, but i kept taking him to his designated potty spot and did not use the path we normally use when we go for walks/play, so by the 5th day he no longer kept ringing the bells: he knew it wasnt going to get him anywhere! when your puppy messes around and isnt interested in going potty, id take him in immediately. dont talk or sound too excited or give him any attention so he learns he needs to do business first! like adina said, he'll eventually stop ringing them all the time. :)

[Sandy]

Toby does this all evening long! We haven't bell trained him yet, although I guess we could any time. But during the evening - from about 9 till 10:30, he is very, very busy, and wants to go in and out, in and out. I figure he just has excess energy to get rid of, and let him out. It's a pain, because of the snow, but he sleeps all night, so I guess I can put up with this. I'm sure it will ease up as he gets older.

[Jackie]

When Beckett was little we trained him to ring the bell.Every time we took him out, WE touched his nose to the bells and said "outside,ring the bells". Then immediately took him to his spot. It didn't take long before he was ringing the bells. At first it wasn't every time. But within a few weeks, he was pretty good about ringing them. He did "abuse" them for awhile but the novelty wore off.

[Oliver]

hi jane- this is purely anecdotal (from my own experience and from friends), but smaller dogs generally take longer to potty train (i saw that you have a maltipoo and mini goldendoodle). i'm not sure if its because they cant hold it as well or what... At 10 weeks old (he's now 13 weeks) my goldendoodle was more reliably potty trained than my chihuahua was when she was about a year old (shes now 7 years old). so just keep on truckin and doing the same thing! youll succeed with the bells eventually! i actually picked up my goldendoodle and nudged the bells with his nose each time we went outside when i was training him (i was careful not to use his paw because i figure hed scratch the door). and in 4 days he understood what was happening and now i can tell how urgent his need to go potty is by how forceful he is with the bell ringing haha! good luck!

[Keera's Mom]

You really have to take them out very time they ring the bells.. Yes sometimes they don't have to go but they have to be able to trust that they can go out whenever they ring the bells. Keera took advantage of it for a while but after a while she stopped. She does ring them if she wants to go bark at something or she has to go. Everyone in the house needs to ring them when they take to dog out in order for them to get the idea.

[Deena Womack]

We bought the bells and we jingle them and say "potty" everytime we take Cali out. She has absolutely no interest whatsoever. In fact, she still doesn't tell us when she needs to go out. We pretty much have her on a schedule and she goes potty when we take her out. Don't get me wrong, we would rather she let us know, either by ringing the bells or whining, barking or anything but we get nothing.... she does really well so far, but we are always worried about accidents.