Does it ever feel like you're NOT messing up? (Puppy question)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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We are currently trying to housebreak our new puppy, Daisy. And things are probably going about as smoothly as they ever do, I guess. The thing is that I just don’t know if they are or not, because I’ve never actually housebroken a dog (or had a dog in the family who was housebroken (we had two dogs growing up…one was an outside dog and one was paper-trained)). I’m scared to death that my attempts to keep her focused on the task at hand (especially at 3 or 6 in the morning) instead of running around smelling the whole wonderful world will make going potty a chore she’ll shy away from. A smaller but at least self-controllable concern are the muffled curses (“Oh, go to the freakin’ bathroom, PLEASE! It’s 3:15 AM and we’ve been out here for fifteen minutes and I have to get up at 6:15 again to take you out again before I go to work and PLEEEEASE go potty! You’re killing me, dog!”), but I can stifle those.

How do you know that you’re not messing up your puppy’s psyche while trying to instill the necessary skills a house dog has to have?

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If she’s spending 15 minutes (or even 5 minutes) sniffing before peeing, maybe it’s safe to skip the 3 a.m. potty break.

I’ve never done middle of the night potty break with a puppy, but it’s been awhile since we had one. I don’t remember if there was a mess to clean up in the morning or not.

Where’s the photo?

3

I feel your pain, jayjay. We got a puppy this year and it was the first one I’d ever housebroken as well. It really didn’t take long, but it sure felt like forever when it was happening!

We did the crate-training. The theory is that the dog won’t mess in its own bed, so they start learning to hold it. Then when you take them out, you carry them right to the place you want them to use (and of course give them praise and treats when they do). When they make mistakes, you take them outside but don’t hit and yell. (Okay, we might have raised our voices at times).

Also, I read that if you take them inside the minute they finish their business, they take longer to do their business because it means fun time’s over. Try walking a little longer afterward.

4

We are housebreaking 2 Yorkie puppies and feel the same way. Yorkies are nortorious for being difficult to housetrain and right now they’re fighting with each other on the floor. Ugh. We’re going to start puppy school Thursday night because I need some training…

5

How old is your puppy? As AuntiePam says, maybe your pup just doesn’t need to go that badly. Do you have a fenced yard, or do you take her out on a leash? What I did with my pup was (even though we had a fenced yard), those middle-of-the-night bathroom breaks I’d take him out on a leash and stand still until he did his business. Then he’d get a lot of praise, a minute or so of play/sniffing/whatever, and then right back in the house. He got the idea pretty quickly that those trips had a single purpose. . .and now even as an adult dog he pretty much at least tries to go when I tell him to whether he has to or not.

Also, even though puppies do have to “go” pretty often, at least the ones I’ve had were able to make it through the night LONG before they could wait 7 or 8 hours during the day, so maybe she doesn’t really have to go that badly. You could start adjusting from every three hours (based on your 3 and 6 am comment) to every 3.5, then 4, then before you know it it’ll be all night.

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Pound Puppies Are More Than Just 80s Kids’ Toys…

The pics are near the bottom of the thread, as we didn’t actually bring her home until two days after I started that thread.

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She’s 3 or 4 months. The housebreaking sites I’ve read say that puppies usually can only hold for 4 hours or so, but I don’t know how old of a puppy that means. When she HAS ended up going in her crate, it distressed her so much that I really don’t want to subject her to too much of it. And I can’t really differentiate “I’m alone and lonely and it’s dark and I’m alone and lonely and it’s dark…” whimpering and yelping from “I just crapped my crate! EWWWWWW!” whimpering and yelping, and I don’t want to encourage the first (because the last thing we want is for her to learn that barking and whimpering is the way to get her daddies’ attention), but I don’t want to make her deal with the second, either.

And we’ve only been at this since Friday, so it’s not like it’s been going on for weeks or anything. I’m just being a very neurotic “parent” who’s being neurotic about making her neurotic, which doesn’t really help anyone…

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OMG, what a cutie pie! I have a border jack too, although he’s more border than jack, and they’re the smartest critters imaginable. Here he is, on the left, with the lab/husky mix we just adopted two days ago. We prefer getting older dogs because it’s easier to tell what their adult temperaments will be and we don’t have to housetrain! Win!

And although anecdote != data, I have to say that Widget has a bladder of steel and if he’s comfortable sleeping and it’s cold out he’s willing to go 12+ hours without a wee break. Of course, he’s also an adult, but we got him at six months and he was pretty much the same then.

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I may try to extend the overnight hours a bit. We had three outings this morning between my getting up and going to work and she just wouldn’t go. I felt horrible recrating her because I knew I wouldn’t be able to get home again to take her out until lunch, but I had to get to work. Hopefully she hasn’t had an accident, but I’m not holding out much hope.

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The general rule of thumb is that puppies can hold it their age in months plus 1 hours. So unless Daisy is way, way younger than she looks in the picture you posted in the Christmas present thread, she doesn’t need to go out at 3 and 6 am. Her nosing around for ages before getting down to business would seem to bear that out–if you need to pee badly enough to get up in the middle of the night, how long do you typically spend twiddling around in there before you actually go? A lot less than 15 minutes, right?

Right.

I would highly recommend crate training her. The benefits are legion. It speeds up the potty training process, as nobody likes to eat and sleep in the bathroom. It gives her her own enclosed space, which is something dogs tend to instinctively seek out due to their natures as den animals. You don’t have to worry about her chewing shit up while you’re gone. It gives you a safe and psychologically comfortable place to put her if you’re working on something messy or hazardous or have allergic people over. And if she ever needs hospitalization or boarding or has an injury that requires cage rest, she’s not freaking out over being in a cage. That last is a huge deal for a lot of the animals I work with–we’ve got several patients that have to be sedated the whole time they’re with us, or else they shriek constantly or rub their noses raw on the door, or stress themselves into a nasty case of diarrhea. And many of the owners worry themselves sick over how the pet is responding to the cage. It’s easier on everybody to just crate train 'em.

Something else I would really recommend is handling her feet, mouth, and ears every single day. That way you can trim toenails yourself instead of taking her to the vet for it, and clean her ears, and give her pills, and all that jazz. At some point she’ll probably need ear drops, or eye ointment, or have a cut on her foot that needs cleaning, and your life will be infinitely simpler and more pleasant if she’s used to being handled in that way.

And since she’s a border collie, she’s going to need some sort of mental stimulation. Dogs are like kids, when they get bored they tend to get up to mischief. The smarter the dog, the more easily it gets bored, and border collies are very smart. Puzzle toys are good, as are Kongs filled with frozen peanut butter, agility training or flyball.

On preview (I’ve been fighting with the damn computer for ages trying to get it to take my post), I see that you are crating her. Trust me, messing in her crate and having to sit in it a few hours isn’t going to hurt her any. It will be much harder on you than on her. In fact, it will help her make the association that this is gross and I really ought not do it. Also, if you cut out the middle of the night walk, she’ll be more likely to go in the mornings because there’s more likely to be some urgency.

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Puppies are work as well as play, ain’t they?

My first piece of advice is to remind you to remind yourself that you are guiding a little being into competent, confident adulthood. It can be intensely frustrating at times, but the doggie does want to learn the right thing. She’s not intentionally being difficult.

I housetrained about a year and a half ago. We used all-positive methods; no rubbing her face in it, no scolding. When she went inside the house I would just take a paper towel, dip it in, and rush her and the towel outside, put it in the grass, and praise her. After many a midnight hour standing outside, and quite a few false starts, she got it down cold and has been perfect ever since. Did I mention she was totally unsocialized when we found her? Didn’t know a thing about people or other dogs.

Try and stick to a schedule, but don’t be surprised when she doesn’t. I agree that increasing the time between potty trips sounds indicated from your description. Be sure to go straight out when you do go out; don’t loiter at the front door, heh. By and large, I wouldn’t worry overmuch that you’re making her neurotic. Just spend time with her, be consistent, show leadership, teach what you can.

I had no particular dog-training skills at the time we took in our un-house-trained doggie. I just used positive praise, patience, and oodles of my time and attention.

It is indeed a labor. But it’s a labor of love.

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CrazyCatLady, thank you for that rule of thumb. I usually go to bed around midnight-ish-1AM and get up around 6:30-7:00. I think I’ll just take her out before I go to bed from now on then get up around 6:15 or so to take her out before work.

And welcome back, btw!

I’m definitely thinking of maybe taking her to obedience classes in a month or so, just to get the basics down and maybe socialize her for other dogs. Also, when she’s a little bit older (or at least when her spay incision heals completely) there is a dog park within walking distance of our house.

I just went home at lunch to let her out and she did really good…hadn’t messed her crate and went both ways for me, after a couple minutes of coaxing. Let her drink some and then recrated her until I get home from work. We’re scheduling feedings in the morning before I take her out and about twelve hours later when we’re both home from work.

I have to admit, I know that I’m supposed to praise her effusively when she does go, but watching her walk in her puddle then try to put her front paws up on my knee (in dress trousers for work) may have dampened my enthusiasm (if you’ll excuse the pun).

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Sounds like Daisy is about Bailey’s age: she just turned 4 months old, and I’ve had her for a little over 3 weeks (my first night freak-out post can be found here). :slight_smile: We also have a 5-year-old Beagle, so I was used to potty breaks being all about the nose! She pretty much has housebreaking down – in fact, I was surprised at how quickly she picked up on the idea. I nearly cried the first time she went to the back door to let me know she needed to go out. grin

Crate training has been another issue, but only because I messed up a couple of weeks ago and gave into the barking so we kind of had to start over. She actually doesn’t bark much in her crate now, but we’ve been having a thing lately where she wakes up every hour and needs to pee – or has already peed. I talked to the trainer (we’re in puppy classes at PetSmart) and the vet about it, and theorized that her crate was too small and she was waking herself up at night every time she tried to stretch. They both agreed it was likely. The vet was at the house last night to give Bailey her last 2 shots, and she agreed that it was probably that and not a bladder infection since she sleeps for 3-4 hours at a time on the couch or the bed. She also looked at the crate and said it was starting to get a little small (Bailey was only 9 pounds when we got her, but now is 13 pounds and will be a tall Beagle). So after dinner I got a larger crate, and last night she went for 2-2.5 hours. Progress! :smiley:

The main problem is that she hates being in her crate at night (she seems to be ok in it other times: my SO works from home, but he crates her when he goes out to lunch and then we crate her when we go to dinner), and wants to sleep on the bed with the rest of her “pack.” She can’t get on/off the bed by herself yet: while I totally trust her to let me know if she needed to pee, being able to jump off the bed is right around the corner and we can’t have a 4-month-old puppy wandering the house by herself (and closing the bedroom door would stress out the other dog).

Anyway, hang in there! I definitely know that feeling of “I’m not doing anything right with this dog,” but things do get better as long as you’re consistent.

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Aww…Bailey’s a cutie! My mother actually has a shih-tzu named Bailee.

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Another vote for crate training. Besides housebreaking, it comes in so handy for traveling (if you get a folding crate) and when they’re ill or injured, or need to be kept calm for other reasons. Ours are 6 and 8, and when we send them into the crate, they hop right in and settle down right away. (“This is my bed! Guess I’ll be in here cooling my jets for a while. Ho-hum.”)

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Thank you!

I, of course, completely forgot to mention how freaking adorable Daisy is: in some of those pictures she looks like a little stuffed animal!

The name actually came with the dog: I’d had “Charlie” in mind (even for a girl), but when I saw “Bailey” on the rescue’s web site I fell in love with the name as well as with the puppy. :slight_smile: She’d only been with the rescue for 5 days when I adopted her, so she hadn’t learned her name yet, but she learned it very quickly once we got her home. Now she has also learned how to pretend that she doesn’t know it. grin

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Daisy was named at the shelter, also. We didn’t want to confuse her or anything, so we kept it. It’s a good name. :slight_smile:

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Makes me think of the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm. :slight_smile:

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And of course, Daisy is the Bumsteads’ dog in Blondie. I think the shelter was going with cartoon characters, though…one of her brothers was named Sylvester. I forgot to ask what the other two littermates got named when I picked Daisy up to bring her home.