Hello Dear friends......
You told us we would eventually find a new friend to replace Sandy and so we have.
Pictured is Bess our new pal from the local rescue centre. She is said to be about ten months old and is a lurcher/greyhound cross. Whilst she appears to be house trained and walks well to heel on a lead she has no idea of 'sit' to order, however if you are holding a doggy biscuit say and she wants it and you hold out long enough she will eventually sit to get it. As all our dogs were rescues and were 'sit ' trained we haven't worked out how to help her with this yet. Pressing down on the rump and saying 'sit ' meets with great opposition! any tips please?
Happy New Year to all.

Congratulations on your new arrival :)

To teach sit, show her a tasty treat in front/above of her nose then move it over her head towards her back and most dogs will sit to follow it, say sit at the same time and of course praise and treat when she does it.

what happy news--all the very best to you and Bess, a lovely start to the new year! I did the same with my youngest dog, and now every time we come in from a walk he sits without being told on the mat and looks so sweet he almost always gets a small treat for his efforts :)

Another lucky dog to share your lives with. Congratulations and enjoy. What a nice start to the year.

What a lovely start to the New Year for you :-) Wishing you and Bess many happy years together :-)

To teach sit, hold a very tiny tit-bit (you are useing this as a lure) in fount of her lift it over her head, she will follow it and as she does her bottom will go down. This becomes a hand signal.
repeat untill she does it straight away, then begin to say sit, not before because she does not know what the sound sit means, so get the sit behaviour a few times first.
Say sit and then use your hand signal. Reward your dog. (must be in that order)
You must get rid of the lure, about 10 repetations such be enough, then practise without food in your hand. Fade the food away grandully, to use just verbal praise with the odd tit-bit or sit before meal times.
If you use the food for too long it will be differcult to fade off and you will have a dog who follows a food lure and isnt really trained.

Pushing her down on the rump wont work she will only push back against you, dog push the opposite way.

Also Lurchers and Greyhounds are longbacked and some (not all) dont like to sit it is uncomfortable, if so teach down useing the same method. Or teach down as well.

congratulations on your new addition :)
the reason she won't sit is if she has Alot of grey hound in her she will find it uncomfortable to sit. only time I remember my grey hound sitting was when she was leant on something. :) so I wouldn't encourage her sitting just teach her to stop and wait and lay down :)
hth
Lea :)

Congratulations I hope you are all happy and have a wonderful life together.

Congratulations on opening your hearts to Bess for spoiling.  A wonderful year is on the cards i think.

I've been waiting for this post for ages now.

Thanks all for your encouragement as we take on a new pup.
Bess is, we are told, about ten months old. For the first two weeks we have carefully watched her  and it seems that she has for some reason a hang up about her toilet habits. We have been in the habit of letting  her out into the garden when she asks and she 'does  the business'. However for some reason we missed her call early one  morning and she had messed indoors. We did not scold her but still let her out and made sure she saw us clearing it up. Today we missed again as it was 5 am and by 7 there was the tell tale wonderful aroma to greet us! .....but no evidence! One day last week I caught her eating her own faeces in the garden and can only conclude that this is what has happened today. I have heard of dogs doing this and expect she is doing it so as not to get into trouble but coupled with the fact that she will not under any circumstances perform anywhere but in her designated place in the garden (however long her walks she insists on 'bringing it home') it looks as if we are going wrong somewhere. Any ideas please. She is such a good and loving dog and well behaved in all other respects we don't want to let her down with this! 

Maybe try feeding her a little earlier or later to see if this helps.  Will she go out before bedtime?

She's always ready to go out but will only perform in the garden if one of us goes out there with her and NEVER on walkies!

I don't think you're doing anything wrong - some dogs actually prefer to toilet at home.  I'm sure I read that it can be a confidence issue too, which makes sense as she may not want to start advertising her presence just yet!  I would just ensure her meals arrive at a fixed time and pay attention to her timings so you learn when she needs to go out.  I'd also suggest going outside with her every time just like you do with puppies and wait for her to perform.  Give her lots of praise, and treats, for going then distract her whilst you pick up.  Cophragia can be a phase, and may be associated with her settling period, but you don't want it to become an entrenched habit if it can be avoided.

Good luck with her :)

My old one never goes on walks either.  She'll have a wee if desparate or patch of grass.

Very good post from dogs a babe.  You really do need to stay with her outside and wait for the poo.  Loads of excited praise when she gets it right.

We so far have worked it out that after a walk we come home go straight to the special part of the garden,led by hand on the collar, and wait around till she does what is necessary.
she will not perform if on the lead or wearing a dog jacket!. But at least she is 'going ' outside at last!
Next step will be to let her off the lead in the field where we go for 'walkies' and once she will return to our call see if that works?

Nice to hear she's making progress for you.  Souunds like she's settling in nicely with her new mum and dad.

Thanks for all the advice but we appear to be getting no-where. There is obviously some thing in Bess's past that is causing her trouble with toilet routine. After observing  we have seen that her  regular routine is to toilet in the main twice a day,twelve hours after the last feed. However she will not 'go' when out on walks however long and so we have got caught in the trap of taking her straight out into the designated place in the garden straight after walks............if we don't she will just 'go' indoors within minutes or even seconds of getting home. She will ask to go out at other times and is praised for that as you suggested. BUT there are times when she will not ask and you suddenly find she has been caught short and then so as not to get into trouble she will attempt to eat the stools.
when she is outside she is very very distracted by nature.........birds,next doors cats,people talking in distant gardens and all these things take priority over the business in hand! Being young, and a greyhound there are certain things that have to be attended to like chasing cats which is more important than going to the loo!
We would have hoped she would be feeling a bit more secure now. she is a lovely dog and is clearly confused about this business and we really want to help her but she is so easily distracted!

Hi every one.

I am Susan. I am new here. Looking forward to learn new things from all of you. :)

Only just found this thread so forgive me if I repeat anything. Firstly, is she an ex racing greyhound? If so then she would not know how to behave in a house. They are normally kept in kennels so she won't have learnt how to be clean in the home. You haven't had her anywhere near long eough for her to feel entirely comfortable in your presence. This can take anything up to 2 years, though the fact that she is still young should shorten this time.

I would start out by limiting her access around the home, sorry if you already do this, but others will read this too. Take her out into the garden every couple of hours, more if you think she needs it. walk round your garden with her. Teach her a command so that she associates going to the toilet with this command. I use busy and hurry up, depending on their needs, and how long we've been outside ;-)

Once she really starts to relax in a couple of months time you should start to see a difference in her. Good luck.

Thanks Lindylou..........she isn't a  racer,only 10 months old but we think she has been homeless and then kept in a cage at the rescue, so you are right.
We have as a result of the weekends problems restricted her to just the hallway in the house. She seems to be settled in so many other ways and seems to enjoy life with us . Her toilet problems have got worse rather than better over the six weeks we've had her. she is such a loving dog and knows she's confused and not pleasing us so we want to get it right for her too.
We have had three rescue dogs over the years with mostly problems with human cruelty to get through but this is the youngest and he first not house trained we have taken on.

well done--one of my dogs will do anything to avoid having a poo while on the lead and in fact is prepared to wait until he finds the 'right' molehill, which can try one's patience slightly if we are on a tight timescale. Failing the molehill, he is perfectly amenable to waiting till we get home. The telltale sound of scrunched up newspaper is generally the clue to what's going on. I could deal with the occasional newspaper, but the scrunching up is a definite no. He is an adult dog and I can only put it down to the fact that he and the puppy were trained on newspaper. Can't tell you why he hates the moles though :)

Jay15

You need to read this: The Story of The Little Mole Who Knew it Was None of His Business - your boy obviously has!!

OMG how smart is my dog, he's written a children's book!!!!!!!

Hi TheTwoPeas

Well done for taking on a rescue dog...

I'd suggest that, when your dog goes out to the garden to toilet, you use a lead.  Take her to her designated toilet area and wait for her to go.  Immediately after she has gone, give her a treat.  (You will need to keep a pot of treats by the door to grab on your way out each time.)  If she does a poo, don't clear it up - just for a couple of days, leave poos in the toilet area, so it begins to smell like a toilet area to her.  Take her out frequently - more frequently than you think she needs to go.

The reason for the lead is so that you can be right next to her, when she goes - not with her at the bottom of the garden, and you with the treat at the other end of it.  So that, as soon as she has finished, you can pop a treat in her mouth. 

She will learn that, when she toilets outside, she gets a tasty treat.  When she goes indoors, nothing happens.  She will start to save her toilets up, to get them outside.  (You'll know that you've got this going well, when she starts to tell you she wants to go out, and then does only a tiny drop of wee - because she wants the treat!).

This is the same way you'd toilet train a puppy - it's possible she hasn't ever been taught, or may even have grown used to toileting in her cage and being in close proximity to her poos.

I'd be a bit wary of assuming that she is eating the poos inside in order not to get into trouble.  That seems to be applying human reasoning to a doggie mind, and their minds just don't work like ours.  In order for a dog to come to that conclusion, they would have to be able to imagine ahead, anticipate something which might happen, then think backwards and make a change in the present moment (eating the poo) in order to prevent the outcome they don't want to happen.  That is quite sophisticated human reasoning and studies show that even 3-4 yr old children struggle with it. 

As for why she IS doing it, there could be many different reasons.  Some dogs do eat their poo, so this could actually be a separate issue and not related to the toileting problem (except it happens to be temptingly hanging around there under her nose!).

When you clean up accidents indoors, make sure you use something which has enzymes in it (like biological washing liquid/powder), because these will break down the poo/wee smell, so that it doesn't smell like a toilet, even to a dog.  If you use bleach or something with ammonia in it - or something which doesn't break down the smell of the poo/wee fully - it will carry on smelling like a toilet to the dog, and the dog is likely to toilet there even more.

Dogs are creatures of habit.  If you reward the habits you like, and set up the conditions for them to happen a lot, and meanwhile prevent the habits you don't like, you'll be laying good foundations.  Good luck!

A warm welcome!

Here some tips for you:

1. Stand in front of your dog.
2. Hold a treat right near your pet's nose, just out of his or her reach.
3. Slowly move the treat over your pup's head and toward his or her tail.
4. Say your dog's name, and give the command "Sit."
5. Keep the treat at nose level. If the treat is held too high, the dog will jump.
6. Say the word "good" at the exact second the dog sits.
7. Praise abundantly and give your pet a treat for any movement that resembles the sit position.
8. Release your pet from the sit position with the "release" or "free" command.
9. Repeat for 5 minutes. :)

Thanks very much rabid...........a real lot of helpful information and explained easily. You have given us a whole new approach and hope that we can really get to grips with the problem. We'll let you know how it goes later.

Thanks to everyone who has helped us so far with our new arrival.......she is now house trained thanks to all the advice given here!
The topic which we were not expecting to confront is food. Bess is a 1 year old Greyhound and when we got her from the Rescue they recommended 'Complete' dry food. however we notice that this produces  a runny poo and also when she relaxes in the evening on her side she eventually , like most dogs , produces a very strong gas release!.........this is very strong and tends to change with the different  makes of 'Complete' , we have slowly changed from Sainsbury's own, to Morrisons own to co-op own and back to Sainsburys again.............done very gently from one to the other taking several days to slowly mix from one to the other but the results are the same. We are wondering if we should change to canned food which was more easily digested by all our other dogs.......Chappie was excellent. does anyone have experience of Greyhound requirements when they are not racers so don't need high octane stuff! The rescue place insists that the dry food is best but it clearly doesn't suit Bess.

I've known a couple of ex-racer owners who found Chappie suited their dogs.

A friend of mine feeds her Greys on Wafcol Greyhound
http://www.valupets.com/pets/wafcol/wafcol-greyhound-maintenance-dog-food-15kg/21997.html
They do well on it and she is happy. She does often add tripe to their dinner too.

We have now completed the change to Chappie and the result is terrific..........it seems to go down well and Bess must surely feel much better and more comfortable not suffering from the 'runs' or the terrible smells!
Thanks again for all the help on here.

Good news all round then :)