housetraining a puppy

[happy_face]

at the moment we're house training my 5 month pup and we've mastered that she goes outside to do her business but how do you extend the training to teaching her to hold it as at the moment she needs to go out once an hour?

any help is much appreciated

[jackyp]

once she is a bit older she wil automaticly be able to wait at the moment she doesnt have that much control over her bladder

[gessoo]

Bitches take longer than male dogs before gaining full control of their bladders, so be prepared for a few accidents until she is about 1 year old. This was advice given to me by my vet and he was right!

You can't teach them to hold their bladders - your pup will gradually get bladder control. Be prepared for letting her out quite often for a while yet.

[Clanad]

Keep in mind that dogs receive about 60 to 70 percent of their information about the world around them through their nose. So... the next few times she goes out note where she goes. Then, at a time she is not displaying the need to go out, place her on a leash and take her out to the area she visited previously. She should sniff around and relieve herself, even though not neccessarily needing to. This does presuppose that there aren't other dogs in the area that have marked a territory, in which case she may want to mark that area. This begins a training habit that you can use more for your convenience than hers... Good luck!

[drgnrdr]

Over here vets are not trainers this may be why, dogs should learn to hold it as they get older yes but to take a year is a bit long, (go every hour for a yr? no way) If they are 5 months old she should have some ability to hold it, if you have been taking her out for potty every hour this is what she is use to, so she has to develop the muscles to hold it longer, since I don't know how you trained your dog to potty I can only surmise an answer for you. You can start to prolong taking her out for 1 and 15 minutes and see what she does, then after she is good for that a day or 2 then go to 1 hour and 30 min. for a couple of days, then go to 1 hour and 45 minutes, are you seeing the pattern here? Regulate her water and food so you know when it goes in and when it will need to come out, does she actually go pee or poo when you take her every hour? She may have an UTI or some other medical, get her urine checked by a vet. Supervision is the key to potty training. Watch her like a hawk if she can go for 2 months with no accident then your good to go. It took my pups only about 3 months to get trained, most all the older dogs I got were under complete control by the time they were 6 months. 6 months is the time it should be unless it is medical or bad training. They can hold it 1 hour for every month they are, is a good guideline.

[gessoo]

drgnrdr

I didn't mean they should go out every hour for a whole year, just that they are still prone to little accidents until they are a year! :o)

[Goofy]

good grief. My dog was house-trained at 8 weeks (I got him at 6).
He now lasts from 8.30 in the evening (although sometimes he just goes out and turns straight back inside) until 8.30 the next morning.
Mind you, if it's pouring with rain he won't go out in the morning until we do!

[drgnrdr]

gesso: I was being silly saying go every hour for a yr..:)

But your dog "should not" take a yr to be potty trained. Every dog is different and I won't say "Never", but if you have been consistent and supervised them they should catch on very quickly, it depends on how many "accidents" you have, the more you have the less the dog learns where to go. If they go behind a chair, no one sees them so they think it's okay, because no one tells them UH-UH, and takes them to the correct spot. That's why you never yell at a dog when they are going, they think you don't want to SEE them defecating/urinating in front of you, so they go to hide it.

Just keep prolonging the time happy_face, after you check her urine by a vet. Let us know how it goes. I may have to put my whole Hour class speech on here just so people know how to potty train a dog, it's on Orangedog ForumUp.com it tells you how to do it the right way.

[gessoo]

Bitches are more prone to little accidents when the are excited, etc. than males. That is why the vet told me that bitches often have more problems with complete bladder control until they are about 1 year old. This is a physical thing rather than not being fully trained. My bitch was housetrained completely in a couple of months but occasionally her bladder would let her down, e.g. excitment, or if she got caught doing something she shouldn't be doing!

[drgnrdr]

Okay gesso that is "excitement/submissive Urination" that is totally separate from potty training, you have to handle that differently. Sorry I misunderstood your earlier post.

[happy_face]

Hi everyone. thanks so much for your answers. We're trying the method of slowly extending the timeframe of her going out as she can last a whole night without any accidents. She's doing really well so hopefully we should have it mastered soon. If any of you answered or read another thread I put on about puppy drinking lots of water I also wanted to let you know that we took a urine sample to the vet last night and she also had a blood test done and it has showed up that she has crystals in her urine. the vet said this usually happens with cystitis but as she's not showing any other cystitis signs they did the bloodtest to check for other things. She's been given specially prescribed food to get rid of the crystals and this should help with the excess drinking. She would drink over 2litres in 24hrs which is excessive for a pup. But I'm happy that at least the vet ruled out diabetes. We're going back in 2 weeks for another urine sample test to see how the crystals are by then. drgnrdr can you give me a link to Orangedog forum as I've been there before and also registered but now I can't find the website again, - Thanks.

[drgnrdr]

Sorry i was correct in guessing the medical happy_face, hope she is better soon here the link

http://orangedog.forumup.com/index.php?mforum=orangedog

hope that helps.....we have been wondering where all you brits have been....LOL

[threaddecrip]

hi at the age of 5 months your pups bladder will be very weak so no they wont hol on to it untill they are at least 7 months youll find that time between going to the loo will just get longer all of a sudden just stick at it and it will work out fine i have one that is 9 months old so ive been there and done that all i know how frustrating it is