Puppy business

[gwand]

I have had dogs my whole life. I’ve raised them from puppies into adulthood. All of them warehouse trained within four weeks. Six weeks ago we picked up an 8 week old cockapoo. She’s as cute as can be. In the first week with us she learned to sit, stay, stand on two legs and lie. So I know she’s not mentally challenged. However, I cannot housebreak this dog. For six weeks no matter what strategy I’ve tried, she cannot distinguish the inside from the outside of the house. This is getting distressing. I know many of my aquarium friends on the website are also dog owners. Any tips that I may not have tried. I’ve looked at 10 different utubes and read puppies for dummies. I re-emphasize that I am not a novice at this but right now I need some new strategies.

 

[Fishmanic]

My gosh… that is one very cute puppy. Be sure you enter her in the Pet of the Month contest which is now accepting entries.

 

[gwand]

I won the last one. I think I am ineligible this time.

 

[Fishmanic]

oh...that's correct...you would have to skip this one....but be sure to enter the next POTM contest in July

 

[Colin_T]

Take her outside for an hour after eating.

Take her outside first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and regularly throughout the day. Leave her out there until she goes to the loo then praise her.

 

[seangee]

I took mine out hourly at 8 weeks (4 hourly overnight) and gradually reduced.
When I saw him getting ready to wee I called "wee wee" and praised / cuddled when he was done. "Potty" for a number two.
Now he goes on command.

 

[gwand]

Take her outside for an hour after eating.

Take her outside first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and regularly throughout the day. Leave her out there until she goes to the loo then praise her.

We do that. After an hour outside without peeing or pooping she comes inside and pees or poops. She can go 6 hours without a poop after a meal or she may go an hour later. Unpredictable.

 

[Uberhoust]

Sometimes it is difficult to train the smaller dogs not to soil in their home. You might try confining the pup in a crate then let her out to do her business, if she goes lots of praise and some time with free run about the house. Some dogs are not very fastidious about where they do their business and will take more effort to train out of going in the house. Once you get the dog going outside on occasion, try establishing a schedule, feed wait 1.5 hours then take out to go. I don't think there is any silver bullet. Not a help but my wife also had an issue with training a Cockapoo not to go in the house, and she had raised a number of dogs by that time. I wish you good luck.

 

[Myrkk]

What Seangee and Uberhost say.
Little dogs can be much harder to house train than larger dogs. I know of one very experienced person that took 1yr to fully house train their daxies.
Crate training is a great help.
I would do, out immediately upon waking, 20mins after food, any time excitement is due i.e. play, visitors
If having issues then puppy pads can be helpful put them where pup goes in the house and then gradually move them to the door and eventually outside to the area you want them to use as their permanent toileting area.
The minute they start evacuating, bowel or bladder, use command word i.e go pee, tinkle, go poop etc then followed by lots of good dog. In the house a stern no if you see them eliminating incorrectly.
Good luck, our collie took to peeing behind the tv as he was terrified when we went to lift him to take him outside (he is blind), took us 3mths to get him fully trained, compare with our lab who was fully trained by 2wks after we got him. They’re all different.