About a month ago we picked up a mutt off the street. That’s how dogs get into your life, right? Cricket is sweet, affectionate, cute as a button, knows basic commands, can fetch, and is sleeping at my feet right now.
But…
House-training is a big issue. I think she knows she is supposed to go outside, but doesn’t know how to indicate to us that she needs to go. She’s peed and pooped in the kids rooms so much that we are going to need to replace the carpets (we rented a steam cleaner this weekend, but it still smells). She whines quietly when she needs to go, but if it’s loud (usually) or we are busy paying attention to other things, we sometimes don’t notice to let her out. I’ve been trying to teach her to scratch at the back door. For weeks before I let her our I raise up her paw and make her scratch at the door and then praise her for it, but she’s dumb as a rock and doesn’t seem to get the idea at all. We have another dog who is a good example of scratching at the back door, but Cricket isn’t catching on. We usually keep the doors to the kids’ rooms closed, but at some point we want to be able to leave their doors open normally.
First - get her on a strict feeding/watering and walking schedule. if she’s always eating and drinking at the same times each day, it will be far easier to predict when she needs to go.
Second - DO NOT let her out of your sight, even for a minute. She’s simply not ready to be roaming the house unsupervised. She needs to be in the same you you are in until she’s reliable about not soiling in the house. Don’t give her the chance to make that particular mistake.
I would go a step beyond “don’t let her out of your sight” and suggest you tether her to you 24/7 for two weeks. If you normally crate her at night, keep doing that. It worked for my difficult-to-train dog. It’s a trick I learned from an excellent trainer, and I know others have had success with it.
In my experience, each of my dogs had their own unique way of letting me know when they needed to go out. Also IMO, it’s COMPLETELY up to us to be vigilant and consistent when we first get a new dog/puppy, to pay attention to them, look for the signs they will Always give you that they need to go out. Some will “whine”, bark, scratch, stand at the door or come stare intently at you when they need to go out. Puppies should always go out after eating, drinking, sleeping or playing hard.
Enlist ALL family members with this task and in no time your new family member will learn the rules. It’s not difficult if you’re consistent. Sounds like she’s trying to let you know and you’re not paying enough attention.
YOU or a member of your family need to go out with her to the SAME place outside and praise her profusely during and after a pee or poop. Even if you have a yard, go out with her during the training period. It won’t take long for her to get the hang of it. I’ve house trained so many puppies and dogs using this method.
Doesn’t sound like she’s dumb at all if you were able to teach her other things. She’ll develop her own way of letting you know when she needs to go.
You need to think of it as training yourself, not the dog. I pretty much do what artemis says when I get a new dog - Feed/water dog, then 30-60 minutes later, take her outside. Do NOT let her out of your sight. With a new dog, about the only time you might be able to be less vigilant is the hour or so after she’s gone to the bathroom. All other times? Keep her in the room you’re in, and keep an eye on her. When she starts getting restless and walking around, it’s time to take her out.
The feeding schedule is for your sanity. She’ll need to go outside after she eats, but if you feed her, say, twice a day, the shouldn’t need to go outside more than a few times. As she gets on a schedule, it’ll be even less. Our dogs can get along with going outside in the morning, late afternoon, and before bed. We often let them out more than that, but only because it’s easy/convenient. If we’re away from the house all day, they never have accidents as long as we let them out at those times.
Also, take her out a LOT at first. When she does her business outside, praise her a LOT. The idea is to get it in her head that outside = peeing/pooping. Once her head and her bowels get trained, you won’t have accidents in the house anymore.
This advice comes from a woman that runs a kennel AND a rescue shelter: You need to be more proactive. Until your pup gets trained, your going to need to take your pup out at least six (or more) times a day. And like the feeding, it should be on a schedule.
Recommended schedule:
Morn: Walk dog, feed dog, walk dog again. Do this in succession. No waiting time between feeding and walking.
Afternoon: Walk dog, then do another walk three or four hours later.
Evening: Walk dog, feed dog, then walk dog again.
Most dogs prefer to go outside. In some cases, they just don’t know it yet. It’s up to you to show them how awesome going outside is. Once it finally sinks in, you’ll be set and you can cut the walks down to three or four a day.
When got our dog, at 8 months old last July, neither of us had ever house-trained a dog, and what worked for us is exactly what everyone here is saying: constant vigilance, praise and treats for peeing and pooping outside, a regular schedule. Also, if you catch them in the act, you can give a “no!” and immediately take them outside to finish their urination/defecation. If you only catch the aftermath, you’ve missed your teaching moment.
At any rate, within two days our dog stopped pooping in the house, and within seven days peeing accidents in the house have gone down to a minimum. Our first day home, he pissed the house five times. By the end of seven days, it was down to one or none. In the following weeks, he had maybe one accident every week or two, and now hasn’t peed in our house in several months.
It was work, though, and it did require constant attention and taking the dog out at any possible sign that he might want to pee. The cue that he developed for wanting to go outside is generally sitting by the doorway, but sometimes it’s nervous pacing or even a whine. You have to learn your dog’s signals. (Or there’s ways of teaching them with a bell or that kind of thing, but I’ve never tried any of those methods.)
We let her out of the house A LOT. This morning we let her out at 5 am, and then she peed in my son’s room an hour later. What I’d really like is for her to learn how to signal to us that she needs to go outside. Has anyone here trained a dog to scratch at the back door when they want to go outside?
She IS signalling, you’re not listening. Who’s the problem, again?
The answer has already been given, it works wonders. She should be either attached to you (most of the time) or crated (when necessary) for the next couple of weeks. Take her out often and praise her extravagantly for accomplishing her business.
There will be no more accidents because she will never have the opportunity. By then, you will have sorted out communications. Bonus - if you do it right, you end up with a dog that goes on command.
If you’re going to insist that she must scratch at the door, then look into clicker training. That’s your best bet for that sort of behavior modification. However, it will take time.
Until then, either keep her attached to you or continue to pay the price in messes.
What Shakes said - letting the dog outside doesn’t mean the dog is going outside to evacuate. You need to go with her, tell her to do it, watch her do it, praise her for doing it and let her back in.
There’s “going out to play time” and “pee pee time” and your dog doesn’t know the difference, so you have to show her.
Exactly. First get the dog housebroken (which requires you pay attention to HER signals, not the other way around!), then if you like you can concentrate on using clicker training to teach her your preferred method for signaling her need to go out. Right now the dog doesn’t really understand what it is you want her to do. A truly housebroken dog NEVER goes in the house, any more than you go in your pants. The fact that she’s still having “accidents” despite the fact that you’re taking her outside frequently tells you she’s still hazy on the basic concept that outdoors and ONLY outdoors is the proper place for elimination.
Good advice! Cleaning with an enzymatic cleaner removes any residual smells that might be attracting her back to the spots of her previous “accidents.”
I didn’t tether, but that’s a good idea. Anyhow, the way I would have done this:
Go out with her at 5 a.m. She pees. Praise. Treat. Make it a big “what a great doggie!!!” show. When you catch her peeing in your son’s room, stop her, catch her mid-stream, give her a “no!”, and take her out immediately. Praise and treat her outside. (You can combine the praise/treats with an elimination command like “go potty,” if you’d like). As I said above, if you don’t catch her in the act, you’ve missed a teaching opportunity. I honestly got maybe three hours of sleep a night that first week teaching my dog to evacuate outside, because I had to be on him like a hawk, catching him peeing in the wrong places, and taking him out at any possible sign of urination in order to reinforce desired behavior.
I endorse the general consensus. My rule for housetraining a puppy is, “Am I comfortable? If so, time to get up and take the dog out again.” It’s only somewhat relaxed for adult dogs who aren’t housetrained.
Oh yeah, we did this, too, on the advice of our veterinarian. I remember a lot of Dopers and other folks swear by a weak vinegar-and-water solution, too. My vet said in her experience, it’s useless, but I know a lot of people here say it works just as good, if not better, so who knows. (And, no, the vet didn’t have any enzymatic cleaner to sell me or anything. She just told me of a couple brands and where to get them.)
My dog has never learned to ask to go out. I’ve just learned how often I need to let her out. Dear Son’s GF’s dog, on the other hand, will come stare at you and then start warbling, if you don’t get the hint. So your dog may learn to signal and she may not. Signaling is not necessary if you’re on a schedule that works.
What everybody else said, especially the part about following her outside and making sure she pees/poops and then praising a lot. If you’re just opening the door and letting her out, it’s gonna take a long, long time to train her. Dogs just aren’t wired that way.
Eventually, she will signal you when she wants to go out. She might not scratch at the door, but if you pay attention, you’ll figure out her signal. I understand when my dogs want to go out so clearly that it really wouldn’t make a lick of difference if they figured out how to talk and came up to me and said “I need to go out!” Their activity level, stance, and general demeanor tell me very, very clearly when they want to go out.
Yeah, our dog just stares at you very intently. When you look at her and say “Do you need out?” she becomes frenetic.
If no one notices her staring, she’ll eventually bark to say that it’s an emergency.
Of course, this same dog will go out to pee and forget why she wanted out. If you don’t tell her to go pee, she’ll just run around sniffing and carrying on, then want back in. Then a minute later, it’s “oh yeah, I need out, gotta pee”.
We have two pooches, 10 years apart. The older one was a snap taking only a week or so but the second one…sheeeeesh.
Here is what we did. We feed them at the same time morning and night and always had water out. We made note of her where she would go pee or poop, especially pee. After feeding, or getting a drink we would constantly monitor her behavior and movement. As soon as she looked even close to squatting in area visited by her previously we were on her like ugly on an ape. As consistent as we were she was resistant to gives us a heads up, like a hard stare or sit by the door. So I incorporated clicker training. She got to the point where she would go pee on command outside with the clicker. Getting that down, she began letting us know first by quietly sitting by the door and then adjusting that to sitting by and staring at one of us. Lots and lots of praise for doing the right thing!!!
clicker training not for everybody,but in this case it worked well with her personality.