Housebreaking a puppy -- suggestions?

Factual Questions
1

My SO – the luscious redhead – and I recently acquired a beautiful 3-month-old miniature dachshund. Until we got him, Augie lived at the breeder’s home, with sibs and mother, and the breeder told us he was “paper-trained.” Well, that ain’t cuttin’ it, especially since he’s “paper-trained” only in the sense that he likes to be near the paper – not on it – when he squats. (Maybe he’s reading? I prefer crosswords m’self.) Naturally, we’re not interested in furthering his newspaper routine; we’d much rather train him to go outside, like any civilized pup should do. But we’re both new to training a puppy.

Any ideas from the SDMB crowd?

2

Housebreaking takes a great deal of time and effort. If you or your SO cannot be with the dog during the day, I’d suggest a crate. (Dog generally won’t “go” in their beds.)

  1. Get the pup used to a schedual of “out” times. First thing in the morning, before you leave for work, as soon as you come home, after meals, and so on. Dogs are creatures of habit. The younger the dog, the more frequent the potty breaks should be. For a very young puppy, I’d suggest every half an hour, just to avoid accidents. The best way to train is to avoid the mistakes in the first place. Gradually decrese the frequency as he catches on.

  2. Teach the dog a “go” word. (This is particularly useful if you’re taking the dog with you on a trip, and let him out of the car fro a potty break. I suggest saying “Hurry up,” simply because its a word that won’t make people snicker the way “go poopy” will.) When you take the do outside, repeat the word again and again until he finally goes, then praise lavishly, and give him a yummy treat. He’ll start looking forward to your praise. By association he will learn that whenever you say that word to him, THERE is where he’s supposed to go.

  3. Do NOT rub the pup’s nose in any messes on the rug. This only confuses the hell out of the animal, and makes him think you want him to eat his waste. Secondly, if a mistake is made, do not punish him unless you catch him in the act. Say “NO!” in a sharp tone, and take the pup outside. Praise lavishly when he pees outside.

  4. Always take the pup out the same door. Whenever you see him near that door, take him out, and praise him. Eventually, the dog will realise that whenever he has to go, all he needs to do is approach the door.

  5. Clean all messes thoughoughly. A dog will return to a spot he’s used before if he can smell traces of urine. Do not use an ammonia based product because it smells like urine.

I don’t encourage paper training. I think it’s slightly confusing to get the animal used to peeing in the house, even if it IS on a paper, and then to change everything and want him to go outside.

3

Raising a puppy myself. So much pee from a little dog. Anyway, it’s too bad he’s paper trained, it’s hard to break them of the habit of going inside once they’ve been taught. (Is he kennel / crate trained at all?) We taught our puppy by keeping her in her kennel whenever we couldn’t watch her (she wouldn’t go in there). A good way is just to get him used to going outside by taking him out frequently, and at times when he usually goes (after meals, after waking up, etc.) Let him be outside until he goes, and praise him for going outside. Show him it is a very good thing to go outside! At this point, don’t punish him for accidents in the house, but he gets no praise unless he goes outside. If you catch him starting to go in the house, distract him by clapping, or tapping him on the butt so he stops, then quickly take him outside to finish, and praise him. It’s important to catch him in the act so he doesn’t think he can get away with going inside. He should learn that starting to go inside will reult in being whisked outside. After enough times, he will associate being outside with peeing. When you think he is starting to get the hang of it, (holding it until you take him out) you can teach him to tell you when he needs to go out. Teach him to speak, or sit by the door, or whatever you want him to do. We hung a bell on the door so she could ring it when she needed to go. First, I taught her ring the bell as a command by picking up her paw and touching the bell when I told her “ring the bell!” and she got praise and treats any time she rang the bell, even accidentally. Then, every time I went to take her outside, I had her ring the bell first, then immediately took her out. She quickly learned that ring the bell=go outside.

The most important thing is to be consistent, you have to take him out every time you catch him, and keep an eye on him all the time at first! It helps to keep him confined to a smaller area at first, a big house can seem overwhelming to a puppy, she may not realize it is all “inside.” If you punish for accidents, they just learn to hide, or not want to go in front of you. Make sure you also clean up any accidents really well, either with a commercial product for this, or you can use white vinegar, so they don’t smell their urine (it’s a trigger for them to go there).

Some dogs really pick it up quickly, our puppy took quite a while before she really had the hang of it. (I think she was 5-6 months before she started being reliable, 7-8 months until she had no accidents at all) Also remember his bladder is tiny now and he won’t really have full control until he is about a year. Just when you are ready to give up and rip out all the carpet, they will suddenly catch on. Then, just when you think they’ve mastered it, they will have an accident in the house:)

Good luck!

4

I will second Lissa’s suggestion at crate training, and provide a link to the excellent FAQ on puppy training from k9web. Unfortunately a lot of info at this site is no longer available, but the FAQs are still there.

Good luck with your new puppy.

5

Dang, Lissa, you beat me to it. Well, what Lissa said, then:)

6

These are all excellent suggestions. I have a couple minor details to add.

First, it should be said that I am in the kennel/crate camp as well. AFAI Concerned… crate training is the only way to housebreak a pup. My tips: be sure the crate isn’t too large for the puppy. It should be large enough for young pup to stand up and turn around, but not so large that young pup can pee/poo on one side and go lay down on the other. If you bought a larger crate for young pup to grow into, you can put a box or some other barrier in the crate to decrease the size until young pup starts getting it.

Patience is key – do not expect young pup to get this overnight. Took me several weeks to train the 7-mo.-old when I adopted her. Rescued dogs take even longer, depending on the conditions they were brought up in.

Accidents happen. For those, I highly recommend Nature’s Miracle. It’s an enzymatic cleaner that helps break down pee and neutralizes the smell forever. Keeps the smell out of your carpet so young pup doesn’t keep returning to the same spot to mark.

If young pup is a male, they sometimes have trouble with the urge to mark their territory, even after housebreaking training. I’d urge you to neuter a male pup asap. (Females too!) Fact: (ask your vet for a cite) if you’re not going to breed a dog, not spaying or neutering can cause the dogs to have higher risks for doggie cancers.

Finally, here’s another good dog training site.

7

I wish you good luck as well. My family has a dachshund and she still has accidents in the house. I believe that dachshunds are slow to housetrain in general.

As a side note, make sure the dog gets used to houseguests now. My dog barks ferociously at strangers in the house. It’s quite annoying, but she’s three years old now and I don’t think that we can do anything about it. It’s our fault for not training her right.

Oh, and don’t let the dog get fat. Dachshunds are prone to back problems. But the breeder probably told you that, so I’ll shut up now. :slight_smile:

8

One more thing. I found that my dog didn’t quite understand what he was suppose to do outside, so we spent alot of time just watching him run around. We finally thought to take an old rag and use it to clean up his urine and then we took that rag and tied it to a tree outside, bingo, the dog got it. Same thing goes for his feces, place them outside in the area you want the dog to use. Our dog continued to use the same area instead of going all over the yard.

Good luck!

9

[hijack]
It’s NEVER too late to train your dog. In fact, dogs seem to get a bit a bit more receptive to training when they are a bit older. I get rescue dogs who are almost invariably older and the respond very well to consistent training.

Your dog is barking because she is being territorial. She is protecting you. Barking is a hard behavioral problem to overcome, but not impossible. The best thing is to get your dog well socialized. Have folks come over. Plan it. Have them lavish attention on her, but only when she is not barking. She’ll get it, no barking=praise. Also, give your guests treats. They will give her treats if she preforms a trick (i.e. sit). In her mind guests=potential food
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As to the OP. Since I am not good at house training, I will give you the single bit of advice I know. If the dog associates paper with “potty” you can move the paper outside. I think this is the point of paper training.

I’m sorry if this isn’t terribly useful, I train older dogs.

10

[hijack]
Thanks, light strand, I’ll give it a try.
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11

Lissa had an excellent post. I only have a few things to add.

Get used to your dogs potty habits. My dogs have to go right after eating, first thing in the morning, and after long naps. You may also notice particular “potty time” body language. One of my dogs always spins before he goes. If I catch him spinning, I know to put him out.

Once the dog is 8 months old, he should be able to hold it for a while. I’d recommend you not take him out every half hour. They have to get used to holding it and not going whenever they have the urge.

I have to reiterate the benefits of crate training. Crates are not cruel! My dogs love their crates. The crates are open all day long and the dogs will go into them whenever they want some down time. In addition to the potty training benefits, crates are helpful when you want to keep the dog away from visitors or just out of your hair (e.g. when you’re painting the living room and would rather not have speckled puppy). If a dog is used to a crate, they usually won’t whine or bark when confined to one (unlike locking a dog in a room when he’s not used to it).

12

I’m no expert, I only have one dog that I have had since puppyhood (he’s 12 now), but I also recommend using a crate.

I got Bandit when he was 4 months old, and I took him out often. I would get up in the middle of the night (every 2 hours) to take him out the first few weeks. I felt this was important (even though I didn’t get much sleep), because if he knew that outside time would come soon, he wouldn’t go in the house or crate. Be consistant about taking him out.

Bandit caught on to the routine fast, and I could trust him after about 2 weeks of this. It was a lot of work, but he only had 2 accidents (1 in the crate, 1 out) and none ever since.

13

Thanks to all for the great replies! We’re starting out with a big handicap with Augie – three months of paper-training already behind him, and not well done at that – but we’ll stick with it. MissSwish, I especially like your idea of transporting his leavings outside where we want him to go! We’ve already put that one into practice (the dog is a series of accidents that don’t wait to happen!) and we have high hopes.

Again, thanks one and all!

14

You know,

I used the crate method (actually, I used an old desk drawer from a no-longer-existent desk) on both my puppy and my kitten…without any special guidance to the animal other than placing it in the crate, they immediately knew what to do with it. Then later, I moved the crate outside, and they followed it, but amusingly, when I got rid of the crate, they kept using the same spot, eventually, they figured it out and have learned to be good little poopers and pissers!

Although we did not push their faces in their feces, we did punish them if they tried to go in our bed.