new dog owner, help with pottytraining and leashtraining

[sheisaeval]

So I just adopted my first doggy yesterday (and I posted an intro post), and anyway, he's the sweetest dog ever, but he does have a few things to work on.


First, the good: he does like his crate, and it is pretty easy to put him in it without any complaints or problems. He also loves to play fetch. We'll throw his toy to the other side of the room and he loves to chase it and bring it back. He also loves to cuddle. He likes to jump into our lap when we're sitting on the floor.


Now, the not so good.

First, even though we believe he is somewhere between 1-2 years old, he's still not completely potty trained. Since we got him yesterday, he's already peed on our floor three times - twice in our bedroom doorway, and once by his crate. Last night we put him in his crate at around 11pm for bed, and at around 5am he woke us up with his scratching on the crate door, so we took him out of the crate and he pooed. Then we put it back in, went back to bed, and by 7am he had both pooped and peed in his crate. We are trying to get him to pee on the peepads but he doesn't seem to know what they are. I've read that when he starts peeing you are supposed to bring him to the peepad and then treat him, but wouldn't that result in a line of pee from where he wants to pee and the peepad? Or should we rush over to him with a peepad when he starts peeing and then treat him? We would prefer that he uses the peepad in the bathroom, but since we have all hardwood floor, the location isn't TOO important yet, we just want him to associate peeing with the peepads, not our doorway.

Second, leash walking. I am not sure if he's not used to leash walking or not, but whenever I bring him outside on a leash, he sniffs the ground a lot and/or runs around me so the leash gets wrapped around me. I can't seem to make him walk with me, he just wants to run to his own place or stop. I tried to do the "let the leash tension relax and then treat" strategy, but as soon as he gets the treat he'll go back to running around in circles or pulling the leash.

Also working on other commands likes sit/stay/etc.

[Morkie4]

Well, none of mine will use the pee pads and I adopted all of them at an older age (all over two except the yorkie, he was six months). I think you have the right idea, at least that is how I would do it........risk the line of pee (althought I think he will stop once you pick him up) to the pad and then commend and tell him to potty once you put him on the pad. Another useful tool would be to get an x-pen and keep him in there for periods of time after playing, sleeping or eating with pee pads and of course the verbal reward is a great incentive.

The leash............well, are you attaching it to a harness or a collar?? If you are attaching it to a collar, I would forget that and get a harness only because of the health issues of possibly causing a collapsed trachea down the road. And with the harness you can keep him by your side and teach him the heel command. Of course it helps to start out with the basic commands of sit/stay/come before moving on to more complex commands.

Just remember he is in a new encvironment, with new parents and with what I call "luggage" of two years with another person and place that you really don't know what he was taught or not taught. Just be consistant, patient and huge rewards for reinforcing positive behavior. A simple no or another word or sound for bad behavior. This breed is very smart and really catch on fast to words and are over the top in trying to please you.

[sheisaeval]

Well, none of mine will use the pee pads and I adopted all of them at an older age (all over two except the yorkie, he was six months). I think you have the right idea, at least that is how I would do it........risk the line of pee (althought I think he will stop once you pick him up) to the pad and then commend and tell him to potty once you put him on the pad. Another useful tool would be to get an x-pen and keep him in there for periods of time after playing, sleeping or eating with pee pads and of course the verbal reward is a great incentive.

The leash............well, are you attaching it to a harness or a collar?? If you are attaching it to a collar, I would forget that and get a harness only because of the health issues of possibly causing a collapsed trachea down the road. And with the harness you can keep him by your side and teach him the heel command. Of course it helps to start out with the basic commands of sit/stay/come before moving on to more complex commands.

Just remember he is in a new encvironment, with new parents and with what I call "luggage" of two years with another person and place that you really don't know what he was taught or not taught. Just be consistant, patient and huge rewards for reinforcing positive behavior. A simple no or another word or sound for bad behavior. This breed is very smart and really catch on fast to words and are over the top in trying to please you.


Thanks for the tips. We might try the xpen method sometime. And yes, we do use a harness. I think I might train him to sit/stay/come before leash training.

[Morkie4]

Thanks for the tips. We might try the xpen method sometime. And yes, we do use a harness. I think I might train him to sit/stay/come before leash training.

Good idea as you don't want to overwhelm them with too many new things to learn at one time. My yorkie was a very dog aggressive fluff and I had to take him through three eight week classes...........but in the end, this little guy had to have a pinch collar to control (all 7 lbs. of him) but in the end, he could walk off leash among nine dogs all bigger than him with no aggression towards them at all. So it was a huge transformation for him to go from attacking to now curious and cautious. So it took a lot of work, time and effort on his part and mine to get him to where he is today.

[organikmom]

So I just adopted my first doggy yesterday (and I posted an intro post), and anyway, he's the sweetest dog ever, but he does have a few things to work on.


First, the good: he does like his crate, and it is pretty easy to put him in it without any complaints or problems. He also loves to play fetch. We'll throw his toy to the other side of the room and he loves to chase it and bring it back. He also loves to cuddle. He likes to jump into our lap when we're sitting on the floor.


Now, the not so good.

First, even though we believe he is somewhere between 1-2 years old, he's still not completely potty trained. Since we got him yesterday, he's already peed on our floor three times - twice in our bedroom doorway, and once by his crate. Last night we put him in his crate at around 11pm for bed, and at around 5am he woke us up with his scratching on the crate door, so we took him out of the crate and he pooed. Then we put it back in, went back to bed, and by 7am he had both pooped and peed in his crate. We are trying to get him to pee on the peepads but he doesn't seem to know what they are. I've read that when he starts peeing you are supposed to bring him to the peepad and then treat him, but wouldn't that result in a line of pee from where he wants to pee and the peepad? Or should we rush over to him with a peepad when he starts peeing and then treat him? We would prefer that he uses the peepad in the bathroom, but since we have all hardwood floor, the location isn't TOO important yet, we just want him to associate peeing with the peepads, not our doorway.

Second, leash walking. I am not sure if he's not used to leash walking or not, but whenever I bring him outside on a leash, he sniffs the ground a lot and/or runs around me so the leash gets wrapped around me. I can't seem to make him walk with me, he just wants to run to his own place or stop. I tried to do the "let the leash tension relax and then treat" strategy, but as soon as he gets the treat he'll go back to running around in circles or pulling the leash.

Also working on other commands likes sit/stay/etc.

Hi I am really new I mean really. We just took Benny(15 weeks) to
obiedience school, and the trainer Pat Lacey patented a harness and leash especially for training it is call Priemier, she is from the old school (so far after one class he is flunking) it works really good on leash training. also she does not recomend the expandable leashes. I have lots of questions myself but it's wonderful! Laurel

[JesBred]

I think the idea of an expen is great, especially since he is older and most expens you can connect their crates too!! I also like your idea of taking the pad to him.. maybe just to get him to see "this is what you pee on" then after ahwile start taking him to the pad. I've never pad trained though... :confused:

I have leash trained though :D They have all sorts of training aids out there to help you, and for every dog its different. We currently use a harness with the d-ring on the front of the chest. Its designed so when the dog pulls it tightens on his chest and pulls him to the side so he can't walk in front of you if you don't want him to. Its perfect for training them to walk next to you and heel!!

[Sheida]

S


Now, the not so good.

First, even though we believe he is somewhere between 1-2 years old, he's still not completely potty trained. Since we got him yesterday, he's already peed on our floor three times - twice in our bedroom doorway, and once by his crate. Last night we put him in his crate at around 11pm for bed, and at around 5am he woke us up with his scratching on the crate door, so we took him out of the crate and he pooed. Then we put it back in, went back to bed, and by 7am he had both pooped and peed in his crate. We are trying to get him to pee on the peepads but he doesn't seem to know what they are. I've read that when he starts peeing you are supposed to bring him to the peepad and then treat him, but wouldn't that result in a line of pee from where he wants to pee and the peepad? Or should we rush over to him with a peepad when he starts peeing and then treat him? We would prefer that he uses the peepad in the bathroom, but since we have all hardwood floor, the location isn't TOO important yet, we just want him to associate peeing with the peepads, not our doorway.


Also working on other commands likes sit/stay/etc.

how big is the crate ?perhaps the crate is too big so he has enough room to putty on one side and if so ,a smaller crate would work.
sheida is 5 1/2 months old and had to go through the whole peepad training just recently.i started with 8 peepads around the area where he is allowed to play,bed room , bathroom...etc and within a few days once he learned to use them i started to reduce the numbers and pull the remaining ones more and more toward the bathroom,now he uses the only peepad which is in the bathroom although he still has very rare accidents but that is related to his age.
soon you will also be able to tell when he need to go putty by looking at his body language.feeding on time also helps to control putty habits and normally they like to go 5-10 min after eating.
good luck

[Zo zo's mom]

We bell trained our girls for potty. Everytime we took them outside, we would ring the bell (ours is an old parrot toy attached to a suction cup stuck to the bottom of our sliding glass door) and say "go potty" and give lots of praise and rewards when they did. After that, we gradually taught them to ring the bell and everytime they do (and trust me, there was a period for both of them where I swear I was putting them out every 15 minutes), that means it is potty time.

Our previous dog was three when we got her and she was not completely potty trained. It did not take long for her to pick it up either with frequent potty trips and lots of praise/treats and a stern "NO" when we caught her in the act.

I also took my Zoe through two obedience classes and agility and I am using the same lessons (and handouts) to train Abbie. Both my girls learned sit VERY early on because the rule is that you only get a treat if your butt is on the floor. That is an easy one to teach. You hold a treat just above your dog's nose and naturally their butt would move towards the floor (granted, sometimes they jump but try and move the treat move over their head rather than out in front of it) and when the butt hits the floor say "good sit" and praise and treat (I also used a clicker with Zoe but not Abbie). Trust me, it doesn't take long.

Good luck with you fluff.