Housetraining 101 - Please Read this Thread in its Entirety

[Oliver & Henry's Mum]

[BraveTyphlosion]

Okay, so maybe I might get a little grumpy, but that's why puppies have evolved to have such cute faces. You just can't stay mad at them even if what they're doing is completely bonkers.

Oh gosh human babies, lawl, I'm not very good with them. They cause me to panic. I can handle crazy dogs and terrible kitties but children are like a completely different story. I don't ever plan on having a baby any time soon. A puppy is plenty of work and learn more quickly too. That, and I just have so much more patience for them.

Teddy could certainly become a scraper. Our cats do it when they want outside or really don't like their food. They scrape their paws against the wall and it makes almost a "nails against the chalkboard" sound. The worst part is our older cat taught the young one to do it so I wouldn't be too shocked to find them teaching the puppy. It certainly gets attention hahah.

Oh my, what a naughty puppy xD Tanner is cute and awful at the same time. It's great that he is house trained though, that means you'll have more time to attempt to keep him out of trouble.

[kurimusoda]

Douglas learned how to ring his "poopie" bell within the first two weeks we brought him home. It is immensely useful as we live in a two-story house. Now that he's allowed full roam of the house, we can hear when he needs "poopie" even from upstairs. Unfortunately I don't know of any other reliable "warning" system. He nudges my elbow when I'm working on the computer for any kind of attention, and I've been discouraging the behavior.

The only thing with the poopie bell is that when he was younger he would ring the bell for other reasons in addition to doing his business. If he wanted to play outside or sniff the bushes, or if he saw a squirrel outside for instance. Now we've trained him to be efficient with his business and come right inside afterwards--no dawdling.

Also about Wellness--we switched Douglas to the Wellness Super5Mix Large Breed Puppy formula (previously he was on Eukanuba large breed). We order from Petbest.com and do their autoship program because it's free shipping, discounted, and you can cancel anytime. Around here you can also find that particular formula of Wellness at feed stores, but in my area the stores only carry the 15 lb bags.

[BraveTyphlosion]

Yeah, I think I might just start off without a bell and see how that works. If I feel the need to use one I can easily introduce it later, the Doberman is smart, Teddy will understand quickly.


It turns out with the Wellness Large Breed Puppy Food(The one that you use kurimusoda) by the time it gets shipped to where I am, it's quite close to expiration and that's why many of the pet stores didn't stock it. I do plan to twitch to Wellness CORE when Teddy is older and has completed all of his growing.

I kinda caved in and got Teddy Orijen, as much as my wallet squealed in protest. I do really believe that it is important to put him on a very good quality diet as he grows up into adulthood. I don't think I will continue with Orjien for his whole life, it is VERY expensive. Lucky me though, I over-estimated the cost of my dog so I have almost 1000 extra to pay for this top quality food. It was really annoying how I could only get the food in one size, which was pretty big since I was hoping more for a trial size. Of course, they had a smaller bag for the regular puppy or small breed puppy food -grumble-. Oh well, I know what I have is good and doesn't get much better, the store was also kind enough to let me return the food if it didn't work out.

[kurimusoda]

I was actually considering Orijen myself while I was doing a bit of research on high quality dog foods. I don't know if Dobermans are considered giant breed dogs, but since they are large breed, there are certain recommended nutritional guidelines.

According to: http://www.newmanveterinary.com/large.html
-Calcium: 0.7%-1.2%
-Dietary fat: 9%-12%
-Protein: 15%- 27%

http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/dog_food_reviews/showproduct.php?product=2300&cat=8
Orijen is a whopping 40% crude protein, which is why the reviewer says it is not recommended for puppies. High protein levels are also one of the reasons it isn't recommended to feed puppies grain-free diets until they become adults.

I went a little overboard for a month fretting about what to feed Douglas, and did some extensive research. It would be useful to hear from an experienced owner of large breed puppies though!

Here is a useful spreadsheet of all the dog foods with a breakdown of nutrients: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AsBcSQ8_xK_ndDRkYWo3NmRSWEl4T1NuX290bG5ULVE&output=html

[Oliver & Henry's Mum]

Generally we have the food and nutrition discussion in the Health Section. Since there are several different food discussions currently ongoing in the Health Section, I did not feel comfortable moving the above thread.

Gabi, may I suggest that you start your own thread in the Health Section as it relates to your needs and your Breed. There is one about "How much is too much...when feeding a puppy" (I'm paraphrasing) and you may wish to attach your questions to that thread and go from there. It's up to you.

This thread is devoted to the most commonly asked question; "How do I house train my puppy?"

The link that is most often provided, and one that we know is secure, is http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com

Good luck with your ongoing discussion! If you need assistance, just send a PM to me or any other Moderator.

[BraveTyphlosion]

Yeah sorry, completely getting off topic xP I'll go make a different thread.

Here is something ON topic however. So I've been thinking about the whole taking your puppy out every (whatever time your puppy seems to need to go relatively consistantly) and did you guys use timers to alert yourself for when you should take your puppy out or was it easy enough to keep track of the time? I'm thinking of using one maybe, since I tend to be less aware of how quickly time flies by(what feels like 20 minutes to me could very easily be an hour). Also if you did use one, can you tell what kind,brand,where you got it, details like that if you can.

[virgilsmama]

Absolutely I used a timer!!!! It is called a puppy and when you start house breaking it should be a constant and consistent job. Your focus, say for the first three days you bring him home, you do nothing but watch him and his body signals and know a little puppy needs to pee every 20-30 minutes, after sleep, after play, after food. You have to spend this time learning your dog and his timing! He is your timer!

[Oliver & Henry's Mum]

LOL Liz! That is the perfect answer.

You may not take your eyes off of your pup for at least the first 3 days. I would have said first month, and I would also up that time between trips outside to once every 15 minutes, at least during the first couple of days, as well as all the other times Liz mentioned.

It isn't just about their need to go to the bathroom that should hold your attention, but the fact that everything is a danger to them and you must know where they are, and what they are doing, every second, of every minute of every day....at first.

[virgilsmama]

Deb, can't help it! PUPPY = BABY Watch the baby!

[Oliver & Henry's Mum]

Exactly!!! It's the same idea with an alarm...not needed as they will let you know.

[DelilahJayneBadGirl]

Hey everyone, I had this posted outside the thread, sorry about that

So I think I know what is happening in my current house training situation, but I really would like the opinions of some more seasoned potty trainers!

When I take Delilah to "daddy's house", where there are no other animals, and things are relatively calm (with the exception of daddy and uncles playing mortal combat and bonding), Delilah is wonderful with potty training! She sits by the door, goes out, goes potty right away, gets her treat and comes back in. I normally don't have to take her back out again for another hour or two...

But when we are home......well....its like she is an entirely different puppy! (There is a 2 year old male pug who is fully house trained, 3 cats, a 3 year old and an 11 year old). I tried to stick to the same schedule of taking her out every hour or two, which resulted in at least 3 or 4 tinkles in the house in between. Each time I caught her, I rushed her outside, and if I didn't catch her, I put her in another room quietly, and cleaned up the mess silently. I've since cut her potty breaks back to every 30 minutes, and make her wear a puppy pamper while she is in the house (which I'm beginning to think is making her regress in her training). So every 30 minutes I take her out, she tinkles 2 or 3 times in 15 minutes, but doesn't fully release her bladder all at once like she does in the morning, then I bring her back in and put her pamper back on, and within 10 to 15 minutes, her pamper is wet and she gave me no sign that she had to go. No sniffing, circling, scratching, whining, and definitely no sitting by the door like at daddy's house, she could be walking through the house normally and just suddenly pop a squat wherever she is. The wetting of the pamper isn't consistent....sometimes she'll have one pamper that we put on and take off throughout the day and its sill dry before she does to bed...other days (like yesterday) she will go through 4 pampers and still pee every time I take her out (yesterday I took her out every 20 minutes and she still went through 4 pampers in between!)

I know that accidents in the house are my fault. And I'm trying to adjust to the different scenarios at the different houses, and I know she is too.

My guess is that she is either marking because of the other animals in the house, or that she is just so excited while she is at home playing or running around, that she doesn't think about the fact that she has to pee until its too late?

I've taken her to the vet, and she doesn't have a urinary tract infection or a bladder infection, I keep a "potty log" of all of her normal potty times at daddy's house as well as mine, and it seems that she goes at LEAST twice as much when she is at my house. I just don't understand why she totally gets it at daddy's house, but not at home? I'm SO confused, so I know she has to be too, and I just want to do whats best for her, so any advice is welcome!!

[maribd55]

I'm not as experienced as some on this forum, and I'm sure you'll get more information from them (you DID read this entire thread, right?), but here are my thoughts:
She is still a baby.
The additional commotion in your home may very well affect her housetraining. As a baby, her attention span is going to be really short; like toddlers just going through housetraining, if they are having too much fun, they just don't remember they have to pay attention.
My Dusty never liked a crate and since we were both working when we got her, she had longer periods of time when we couldn't take her out. We used a pen in the kitchen (floor easily cleanable) with toys, food, water and newspaper. She was also in the pen during the night. When we were home and able to monitor her closely, she was out of the pen. We didn't really try to housetrain her (other than the close monitoring and frequent trips outside) until 6-7 months, then we made the pen much smaller. By 6-7 months she was able to hold it for the 6-7 hours we were gone.

Hope this helps.

[DelilahJayneBadGirl]

Thanks for the advice Maribd55. I did read through the entire post, and I saw another post similar to mine, but in reverse, their puppy was fine at home, but not at other peoples houses, and the poster was told to return to the beginning of the thread, so I decided that I was going to have to figure it out on my own.

I've since taken the diapers out of the picture, as Oliver and Henry's Mom suggested that they were inhibiting her training more than helping it. I cut down the time to every 15 minutes (which, while incredibly cumbersome, is worth it if its going to help Delilah), with little success. I took her to the vet again, to be 10000% sure that she didnt have a UTI, because she litterally peed 25 times from 5:45 when I got home until 9:00 when she went to bed, and the vet found nothing. . She told me that Delilah could very well be marking, and that I would just have to deal with it until she gets fixed. She also told me that I should keep her in the diapers, which I do not agree with at all.

Delilah is tethered to me from the moment I walk in the door until she goes to bed at night, she just waits until I have my back turned and pops a squat where she is . I bought a gallon of Natures Miracle today and, quite litterally, mopped every floor in the house with it, I also poured some in the steam cleaner and did the carpets. So far so good. So I'm thinking that she was smelling some old spots where her playmate (my best friend's dog) marked in the past that werent cleaned with enzyme cleaner. I've also been trying to keep her as calm as possible (which is a mammoth task considering there is a shrieking, running, overly excited toddler in the house, as well as another dog and cats) which has also been helping.

SO I guess the only questions I have now is: How long do I keep her at 15 minute intervals when I'm home before trying to extend the time? And how much of a time increase should I start with (10 minutes?)?

Thanks

[kikala]

"There are much better products out there if you intend to have your dog potty inside, some apartment and condo dwellers with smaller dogs prefer this."

Can you tell me what they are? We are apartment-bound, on a higher floor, etc. dec. Thanks, D