House training question

Judyg

Judyg

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At 3.5 months Lacey is fairly reliable in most of the house. She uses the doggie door (she figured it out on her own) but she is mostly in the kitchen, laundry and family rooms. We do have gates for the kitchen. What is the best way to introduce her to the living and dining rooms? Those are the two rooms that she will go in if she gets loose.

Yesterday morning she ran in the house following Milo and didn't poop outside. We were half asleep and didn't realize it and of course she went in the living room.

I did start taking her in there to play yesterday afternoon. I hope this will make her realize it's part of the "no potty here zone" I would love any additional suggestions though. I don't consider he to be completely reliable at this point. After all she is still a baby.
 
I still don't let Cubby on the carpet unattended after our incident a week or so ago.

Probably your going in there and playing and having supervised time will show her that is part of the "inside" like the rest of the house.
 
I've never cornered off a section of the house to our dogs. But I would just play with her there, give her treats and train her in there. Of course, always keep an eye on her :biggrin2:
 
All of our house is either hardwood or tile except for the bedrooms. At first, we gave him lots of freedom, and we had problems. We then kept him strictly in the living room. Much easier to keep an eye on him. Once he had that under control, we slowly gave him access to the kitchen, the sun room, and now the foyer. He turns six months tomorrow, and I cannot remember the last time he had an accident in the house. He goes to the door and cries when he wants to go out. Still have not given him free access to the bedrooms, not so much that I am worried about the carpet, but way too much stuff to get into and chew on! Once he gets past the chew stage, we will start giving him supervised access to the bedrooms.
 
There are several components to housetraining...

The first is no pee/poo in the house. That's the easiest and I have to say that I got Callan there by about 3 months.

The second and sometimes the hardest is the no chew training. From 3 to 10 months......our pups will chew everything in sight.

I would NEVER keep a dog 100% loose in the house under 12 months old....even then, it depends on the dog. Yes, I let Callan loose now at 7 months when I'm home and can monitor him, but even then he can get into trouble. Worse trouble is if no one is in the house.

He is still in jaw stomping phase. Nothing is safe. I learned my leason with my first Sheltie, Timber. At about 10 months I decided he was old enough, and he ate my sparkling white couches.

Indy and Bacca were contained until well up to 14 or 15 months

Today, Callan decided my area rug was delicious. Back to the pen, boyo!
 
I'm sure Lacey will be penned or crated for a long time. We have a leather sofa and chairs. I am not going to risk anything happening to them.
 
Before I got a baby gate to block off the stairs, Enzo would sneak up and poop in the upstairs hallway. So I fed him there a few times and he got the idea that we don't use the bathroom there.

I also did this in our guest bedroom, and he hasn't had an accident there yet. Although we don't hang out there very often.
 
I think Miss Hanna was close to 8 or 9 months before I gave her free run of the place. I still keep the bedroom door closed in the daytime as that is the only room with carpet and I really don't want any accidents in there. She can now easily be left for 6 or 7 hours in the daytime with no accidents, we do it only very rarely and typically take her with us if we can.

She's had a couple of poops by the back door since she's been trained. Both happened because I did not close her crate door at night and she does not wake us up to go in the morning - she just snuck out of the room on her own. Very often she'll put herself to bed in the crate as I'm a nighthawk and often don't get to bed til well past midnight. If I put her on the bed then there's no worries as she will not jump off by herself and she waits until I start to move. Very often that's as late as 8 or 8:30!
 
My previous Sheltie I realize now was an angel other than being a Kleenex shredder he never chewed or ate anything in the house. He was also really easy to train.

Bailey on the other hand is a handful:eek2: he has eaten 3 pairs of my flip flops ( my fault for forgetting to hide them + ruined 2 pairs of my work sandals ) okay so now I have a excuse to buy new shoes :biggrin2:

Anyways as for potty training we had Bailey gated in the family room and kitchen for the first several months with hardwood and tile floors ( we removed our area carpet) he is also crated when we are not there to supervise him. He now has access to the living room and dining room during the day when we are home with no issues.

The problem we have now is the basement. Although he has been trained for months, since he is a poop eater :eek2: we cut a small hole/door to our basement for our cat to get to her litter (so Bailey couldn't get down there) a couple of times he got downstairs and pooped assuming he thought he was outdoors ( unfinished basement)

So now I guess I will take the advise of others here and start training and/ or feeding him in the basement so he realizes it is part of his "house" and not ok to poop!
 
Watson was over a year, probably closer to 1.5 before I gave him free range over the house. I have the basement baby gated off but only because I don't want to to go digging for buried treasure in the cat boxes. He's allowed down there when we are there. The first couple of times he went in the basement he did piddle on the floor. I always figured that since he had never been down there, he didn't equate it as part of the house and not his toilet... He has not had any issues down there since, I guess he figured it out. But even when the gate is down, he rarely goes down there- he struggles going down the stairs.
 
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