If she's peeing that frequently I'd have the vet check her for a UTI.
I'm having a hard time figuring out her triggers. She always has her nose to the ground smelling everything, everywhere, so i never can tell when she's smelling just to smell or looking for a place to potty. Sometimes she doesn't even smell when she potties in the house. Just a quick pit stop and then back to chasing the cats or playing with my 18 month old. I'm not sure that she has a UTI because she holds fine when she's in her crate. I don't think she'd be able to do that if she had something wrong. Her momma is a nervous and excited pee-er. Maybe she just gets so excited and wound up that she just can't hold it yet. IDKIf the vet rules out a UTI then what I would suggest is to keep a very close eye on her until you figure out her triggers and her signs that she's got to go. My husband and I put a bell on our 8 month old puppy because she'd wander off and we wouldn't notice and then we'd step in pee later. It really helps to let us know she has to go. What we did when we got Doppler was I followed him all around the house. He kept looking at me like, "What do you want?!" But he had very few accidents. Also, you could try and tether her to you in some fashion. Then you'd definitely notice if she had to pee. Good luck with it!
Well for me, it's like having two toddlers. I also have an 18 month old along with 5 month old Button. We've only had her a week..she had no potty training before we got her so she's already gotten into some bad habits...like walking through her potty. Hopefully she learns quickly like your dog did.We definitely did the following around thing the first 1 1/2 months-- it was tiring, and it felt like the parent of a toddler. I'm not sure what helped was noticing the triggers (not sure if we figured it out) so much as just catching him in the act, reprimanding him, and taking him outside to do his business. Yes, as we got better at this, he would start to pee, we would tell him 'no' and he would stop, and then we'd carry him outside and he would actually finish peeing there. I think that helped him to understand where to go.
We had an easy time with him-- he was housetrained in 1 1/2 months, after about a dozen accidents.
Also, speaking of bells, at 5 months, we hung up some leftover jingle bells, which were still attached to ribbon. We put it on the doorknob. We jingled it every time we were going out for potty. He showed absolutely no interest in it the first month, and I didn't think we'd ever really end up using it. Then one day, voila! he started ringing the bell. When he did that, we would take him out. Now, at 8 months, he rings the bell to tell us he needs to go #1 or #2. So that is another idea that ended up working for us....
Wow, 2 toddlers... feeling your pain!! well, we didn't get Worm until he was 4 months (no previous toilet training either), and i think that it helps when they are older (better control of bladder and able to hold it longer)... so I do think it will come along for Button.
Good luck w/everything and keep us posted!
(and post some pics if you get the chance, we'd love to see them...!!)
Hi Salsacookies-- Worm was pretty housetrained after 1 month, and fully trained by 1 1/2 months after we got him. He was 5 1/2 months at that point.How long did it take you to get him fully trained and what method did you use?
I'm not really sure. It's hard to keep her on a schedule right now because of school and boyfriend's work schedule and symphony. I have school monday and wednesday at 830, tuesday and thursday at 1130. aaron works 10-9 MTW and we have symphony thursday from 7-9. so button gets to be with my sister who watches her and my daughter when i'm at school and on thursday they both go to my mom's house. I somehow have to keep up with housework and homework and other things too and i used to be able to do tHi Salsacookies-- Worm was pretty housetrained after 1 month, and fully trained by 1 1/2 months after we got him. He was 5 1/2 months at that point.
(Mikey, you should have met Worm at that time...)
I was thinking more to see what useful info I can share...
Now when I think back, he may have had a head start at his breeders. He and 15-16 bassets (mostly pups from his own and other litters, as well as a couple adults) all lived together in one area. They were apparently supposed to go bathroom farther down on the concrete, away from their sleeping area. His breeder said that he was learning and was doing that already, because the older dogs were peeing there. But he was otherwise unsupervised and not housetrained by anyone, per se. ie, he could have peed in their sleeping spot and nobody (except dogs) would have reprimanded him. I do find that Worm is good about peeing where other dogs pee. And he's good about doing #1 and #2 in the same spots outside. At 8 months now, I just bring him to the spot and he goes right away. Does your dog has pee spots and #2 spots where she likes to go?
Sounds like your puppy does go outside, but also goes when you come back in too... hmmm, we never had that issue with Worm. He emptied everything outside, so I don't know what to say about that.
I guess we just used the method of keeping an eagle's eye on him (Mikey's right, that "good housetraining" might just be "good supervision.") We were tired from following him everywhere that first 1 1/2 months, but I think it paid off in the following ways: 1. like I posted before, it was really good when we interrupted him in the middle of a pee, took him outside to the pee spot, and then he finished his business. helped him to understand what to do. (but that stinker, sometimes it was hard to tell that's what he was doing until it was too late. he still squats like the females, so when he pees, it just looks like prolonged sitting.. easy to miss). 2. we were always able to stop him from chewing bad stuff because we were watching him so closely. we have not had major problems with him chewing things like furniture, etc. Nowadays, I can watch him a lot less, because I am able to trust that he won't go to the bathroom. He's the one who rings the bell when he wants to go.
Even when we went camping recently, I took him to the perimeter of the campsite to pee as soon as we got there. After that, he would always go back there to pee. He was on a long lead, and when he needed to go #1 or #2, he would whine to tell us he needed to go. So he never went in our campsite, even though it was a very grassy area. Good dog.
Something else interesting: Took him to daycare this week, and they recorded him peeing 7 times (!) in 8 hours. That tells me he would naturally like to pee more than he does when he's with me. He holds it. Nowadays, when awake, he wants to go out to pee every 2 hrs, roughly. But when we were housetraining, we would have to take him out every hour when awake, or else he would have an accident. (believe me, i was quite bitter at times. but if i didn't there would be an accident).
I'm ok taking him out every 2 hrs now when he's awake. Also because he stays in his crate for 4-6 hrs at a time and doesn't pee or mess up his crate (he's never done that). And he sleeps through the night without needing to go pee (8-10 hrs).
What else? we don't use puppy pads or newspapers or anything like that. I decided it would be too confusing for him. We basically send him the message-- it's not ok to pee ANYwhere in our home at anytime.
How's the housetraining going with your puppy now?