Missjoy

Hello,

I've enjoyed reading the message board (and seeing the pictures). I have a few questions that seem to be pretty common, but perhaps some advice.

Maggie is just over 4 months old and we've had her for about a week and a half. We're working on housebreaking but it is a slow process. She is fine if we are preemptive - she'll pee once she's out, but she doesn't try to indicate to us that she needs to go out, she'll just pee wherever. We reward her when she goes outside and she gets a bit of a treat. When we catch her going inside we give a stern "no" and take her out. Anything else we should be doing? Some days she's good - no accidents, somedays up to 4 or so.

She sleeps in her crate at night and keeps it dry. For the first few nights she woke up at about 6 to cry and need to be taken out. The routine was that we would go out and pee, come in and eat, then go for a walk so she could poop. She's taken to waking up earlier - 5:30 yesterday. Should we take her out for a pee and then wait a while before breakfast so she knows she doesn't get fed earlier just cause she gets up earlier? Any advice?

We're getting better at walking on the leash. For the first week it was a lot of stopping and lying down and not moving when we were leaving the house - but full ahead on they way home. She's getting better at having fewer stops now!

Thank you all!

mgbrown66

I use a bell on the door. My girls hit it with their nose to tell me they need out. Only took about a week to train her. Of course now Venus rings it when she's bored and just wants to see if any other dogs are being walked outside. But it's easy to tell the difference between need and curiosity.

http://www.poochie-pets.net/

you can make your own, but that site sells the Ohio State bells!

BubbaLeroy

I just brought up an old thread called "New Basset Puppy Advice" that was started in September. This has good information so check it out, and it might give you some good ideas.

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You don't own a Basset, a Basset owns you!!
Aroooooos from Bogie !! - Trumbull's Who's Teasin Bogart CGC- Born April 21, 2005
ATB: Bubba - (Trumbull's Surley It's Stormin Norman) Sept. 8, 1998 - Dec. 20, 2005

murraysmom

Keeping her on a potty schedule for now would probably help-maybe something like 5:30am to pee, then after breakfast to poop. Then 11am, 2pm, 5pm,and right before bed. She'll start waiting for her potty times.

We do this with our doxie if she has a housebreaking regression- after a few days on a tight schedule, she'll start asking to go out again, and we can back off the schedule.

And we use a bell too- it's really easy to train them to do this-

And BubbaLeroys advice to search the old threads is very good- it's amazing how much good information is in the archives-

Good luck!

lala

Poochie bells rule. However, it took more than a week for him to get it.


ernest the puppy.

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Mikey T

House Training: Ring My Bell!

Training or developing a cue for the dog to use that it needs to go outside is often the hardest part and often the most neglected part of housetraining.