Am I training him right?

Question

We have a 12 wk old lhasa/bichon mix who has had great potty manners!In the 3 weeks we have had him he has only had a handful of accidents which of course, our fault.I am home a lot so I am constantly working on training-my question is,I take him out ALOT sometimes I know when he has to go,he will go to the door or sniff around,or he just walk out if it's open. But a lot of the time I take him out just because I think it's time. Sometimes he will go,sometimes he'll sniff for a 1/2 hour or he will run back to the door to go in.He is a constant sniffer,he will sniff the grass right off the ground if he could.I do everything right-rewarding, correction, etc.My question is am I doing him an injustice by rushing him out every 10/20 minutes or should I lay off him so he learns to signal us everytime?The weather will be cold here soon,so his time out will be all business soon. I know I should still take him out frequently but will he learn to signal us if I am always whisking him out?

Answer 1

Good job. Take him out when he is signalling and if he doesn't go within 3 minutes, take him back inside, wait 1/2 hour and try again. When he does go, praise/treat him and take back inside until he is either signalling again, or 2-3 hours (he cannot hold longer than that at his age). He will learn that going outside means "go potty" if you don't allow him to sniff around for 30 minutes. Of course, you should also take him outside at other times just to sniff/explore/play.

Answer 2

Around 12-14 weeks your pup will get a little better at holding his urine. Before that, they really can't go too long. The muscles are still developing.

I really don't think you can take him out too much. The more he pees outside and less inside, the better, no matter what you have to do. Every 10/20 minutes is probably a little excessive though. A 3 month old pup should be able to hold it for 4 hours max. Rule of thumb is the number of months old that they are plus 1. So at 4 months he will be able to hold it for 5 hours max. But it depends on what they are doing. Your pup will still have to go about 1/2 hour after eating, and after playing or sleeping.

Since your dog understands the concept of housebreaking, work on decreasing the amount of walks. It is very helpful to use a crate here. After you walk him, let him play for half an hour, then put him in his crate for 20-30 minutes. Then take him directly outside. That way you are only walking him every hour (and not evey 10 minutes!). You want to give him enough chances to eliminate, but you also want to start teaching him to hold it for short periods of time.

Good luck, sounds like you are doing great so far.

Answer 3

You are doing a good job just que him when you take him out with a verbal command such as, "Go potty" and when he does use a clicker and as soon as he potties on que click and offer a treat. He will soon get the idea and if you always go to the same area he will learn to potty in that general area so you will not have to search your yard for his little gifts. Clickers and CD's on clicker training can be found at most pet stores such as Petco or PetSmart. There are many good books and tapes the How of Bow Wow is a good beginners CD. Check it out and good luck. Sound like you have a special friend there, I hope this helps,
T

Answer 4

Seems to me you are taking him out a bit much - maybe once every hour or two would suffice.

Otherwise, you are certainly doing a good job of it, just labor intensive - crate training is a lot easier.

I hope you are aware that not every dog signals when they need to go out, unfortunately. I do rescue and have had many dogs (and have 2 now) who never signal - they just look for a very private spot if they need to go.
The key with dogs like that is to take them out immediately in the a.m., within 20 minutes of every meal, every couple of hours if possible, and before bedtime.

You more or less have to go with the nature of the dog to some degree.

Answer 5

It sounds like you're absolutely doing the right things! He'll eventually learn to 'tell' you when he needs to go out, but at 12 weeks he's really still too young for that.

Enjoy your pup!

Answer 6

When my pup was young, I had great success in adding jingle bells to the "out" door. Every time we would take our pup out, we jingled the bells, which were low enuf for pup to easily reach. After a few days, our pup took to ringing them on her own to signal to us she needed to go outside.

Some dogs take longer than others to "get the idea", but it's a great way for your dog to let you know it's time to go out.

Answer 7

Sounds to me you are doing a great job.My Doberman plays those games too. I swear he does it just to annoy me.You know when he needs to go out and when he's just being a puppy.Look at his eyes, body language ............