Okay, so I have a 13 week old Basset Fauve de Bretagne, in a house with two working adults and four cats of various size and age.

We have a neighbor come over each day in the afternoon and exercise the dog, who is being crated in an attempt to housebreak.

Our first attempt to housebreak:
While at work and at home, we put down papers on the kitchen floor and blocked the dog off into the kitchen area. The dog used the papers during the workday and our neighbor would walk the dog every day. Pretty soon we moved the papers closer to the backdoor and the dog continued to use them. However, pretty soon the puppy (Cooper) felt that if his front paws were on the paper that was good enough, and we ended up with pee going on the floor NEXT TO the papers. To no avail we can't train him to step all the way onto the papers.

Our second attempt to housebreak:
We attempted to do two things: direct housebreaking with paper training as a backup during the workday. The same thing happened as described above, and add to it that the dog continued to occasionally pee on our living room carpet - sometimes just after coming inside from the backyard!!

As of last week we've started crating him for the first part of the day, then allowing our dogwalker to let him into the kitchen for the last 3 hours before my husband and I arrive home from work. Puppy uses the papers fine, but still occasionally pees on our living room carpet. Also, this morning instead of waiting the FIFTEEN SECONDS it takes me to open the backdoor to let him outside for his first constitution, he went over to his bed and promptly peed on it.

I've only had the dog a month, and I'm already tired of trying to figure out how to housebreak this dog so that he won't pee on my carpet or (now) on his bed. Is the only "Tried and True" method to crate him ALL DAY - including when I'm home? Seems cruel to me, but that's what some websites have said.

A coworker said it took his dog several MONTHS to learn the housetraining thing, but other people have said it can take seven days. Well, after four weeks, I NEED TO SEE THE FINISH LINE! HELP!

It can take upto 6 months before a puppy is fully housetrained. I would forget the paper bit as all you are training him to do is go on (or near!) paper. A puppy as young as yours needs to go out every hour or so to relieve themselves. This is the method I now employ as I have tried others which just dont seem to work! When you get home take him out immediately and every hour until bedtime and again in the morning. Take him out first thing then every hour (or just before you leave) to let him relieve himself. You must persevere as many people stop doing this when they think the puppy is housetrained only for the pup to revert to going in doors.

EVERY HOUR? Isn't that a bit excessive? I would think that that would only encourage the dog to NEED to pee every hour, as opposed to training him to be able to "hold it" until I'm able to take him outside.

Ugh.

My other question: By trying all these methods am I completely confusing the dog? How long should I try one method before giving up and trying the next one? I mean, it's inconvenient to let a dog out every hour...especially on WEEKENDS. When am I supposed to get anything done?

No they are like babies. Every hour, and after every sleep, meal and play session. Puppies have not much physical control of their bladders until after 5 months old.

I have used this method on all my pups, and those that have gone to new homes, and been advised to do this have found that pup was clean in no time, as rarely if ever did it in the wrong place. A 9 week old pup of mine (she goes to new home on Sunday) has not had a poo in the kitchen for 2 weeks, but I keep door open, and go out with her, and praise every time she goes. I leave the paper by door at night, usually don't make it in time to let her out, before she wakes in the morning!

I agree entirely Brainless. (I really think that you should consider a new name because you're not at all!) My saying is that a baby puppy can be house trained just as soon as the owner is trained - and it's not difficult to remember, just as you've said.

Flattery flattery, my kids think it suyits me fine. when I first got my Computer Nov 2000, when I went on my breed chat page I chose Brainless of Bristol, for my handle, I have decided to shorten it elsewhere, lol :D

Have you ever heard of this training tip for puppy owners:
Get a rolled up newspaper!
When puppy does something wrong!
Hit yourself over the head, saying, "I should have been watching my puppy"!

This way you are guranteed to have a well behaved pup :)

So last night I did the "Every hour" Thing and sure enough that dog peed EVERY SINGLE TIME I took him outside, despite only having a copious amount of water at 7 p.m. But he did brilliantly.

So today (so far - it's only 1:30 p.m.) he's been great - we spent most of the morning in the backyard doing yardwork, and he was out there with us. We "built" a small dirt area where we hope to train the dog to poop - we plan on showing our dogwalker later this afternoon so that he'll know to escort the dog over there in the afternoons.

We just gave him a bath (he was COVERED in dirt when we came in from the backyard), and he's now sleeping peacefully on his bed in the kitchen. He had a LOT of water when we came in, so I plan to take him back outside in about half and hour and make sure he gets rid of some of it. =)

Great! The really good thing about taking him to a spot is that he is more likely to use that area than any other, though in my experience, you will need an area of say 6 square feet, which will tend to get used!

Also when you accompany him, you can use a word, like potty, Be qick, be clean, or my plain 'Wee Wees'. Apart from the pleasure of your praise, it will build the association that he should pee when you ASK him, and take him out. I have found they start to naturally be able to hang on longer and longer at night. When you notice that you make it down in time in the morning to let him out, before he has 'been', that is when he is developing real bladder control.

I also find that if you pop out that more often the paper and kitchen start to be dry on your return, and he will be waiting for you to take him outside. A pup that i was looking after for its new owner while on holiday, would ruch outside and do the tiniest amount, just because she new it pleased me if she went there. That takes me back to qaccidents, if you don't catch them in the act don't comment. If fortuitously you catch him at it, scold mildly, while scooping him up and taking him outside, them put him down, and hopefully he will finish there to lots of praise. The look on their little faces when they realise how clever they are is precious! :)

A

hi Jaynee

Sorry but Bec is right, by taking the pup out everyhour you avoid mess inside, pup can settle being "empty", and bellieve me it doesn't teach them to go every hour.

Think of human babies, they go all the time all over the place, as they have little control; pups are the same.

In time they need to go less and less often.

My pup needed every hour, except at night when we got up twice, now she is 6 months and able to hold on happily for 3 hours or so.

Lindsay

HI Jaynee, sorry I am way behind the times, i have just read the rest of the posts and see that you are doing very well .... that'll teachme to read ALL the posts before i shove my oar in LOL!!!!

Have fun

best wishes
lindsay

Not to worry, Lindsey! I appreciate any responses that you folks have been giving me!

So, it's now Monday morning and we had NOT A SINGLE ACCIDENT ALL WEEKEND. Cooper was so good this weekend! I deliberately took him out every hour on Saturday and every 90 minutes on Sunday, and he was a jewel. Saturday night he slept until 5:30 before needing to go out - that's what time we get up during the week. Sunday night he whined at 2:30 a.m. and so I took him out, and he was great.

He's also been better about being penned in the kitchen while my husband and I eat dinner. All last week he whined when we sat down at our table, but this weekend (Friday, Sat. & Sun - all three nights), he would whine for 1 minute and then lay down on his bed and wait for us to finish our meal. GREAT DOG!

After having such a great weekend I'm feeling very encouraged!

HI

Isn't it excellent when suddenly it all starts going well? This is a great board for sharing information and help, isn't it?

LIndsay

I don't wish to inflame the situation or to be excessively critical but if you work all day and find taking you Cooper out for toilet breaks at the weekend inconvenient, why have you got a puppy????

Puppies need company during the day and can't be left alone like this. You say that you have a neighbour coming into the house to walk Cooper whilst you are at work - I'm sorry but in my opinion that's YOUR job. YOU bought the puppy to be a member of YOUR family, not the neighbours. It sounds in your posting as if your ideas about owning a puppy are totally different to the reality of owning a pup. Puppies are messy, smelly, tiring, inconvenient little horrors - but that is all part of their charm.

If you don't want the hassle of toilet training your puppy, I suggest you seriously reconsider his future within your family and think about getting an adult dog when you are in the situation to devote more time to him.

Chris

I certainly don't find taking Cooper out for walks on the weekend inconvenient even though that's the word I used in that post you responded to. By that I meant that it's inconvenient to feel that I can't *leave my house* for more than an hour to do ANYTHING because he needs to be walked every hour. Recommending I walk my dog every 60 minutes means I can't go to the store for groceries.

As for the workday, I can't very well travel the two hours roundtrip from work to walk the dog for thirty minutes, and I don't feel guilty for having Jason walk him for 30 minutes in the afternoon since I can't be there to do it. The dog is not part of Jason's family - he's in mine. And no, my ideas of owning a puppy are not different from the reality of owning one. I know that puppies are messy, tiring, etc. But that doesn't mean I can't be frustrated or exasperated at what I feel to be a setback in the training process.

If you didn't want to inflame a situation, you shouldn't have posted at all. You don't know me, you don't know my family, or my history with animals. I would never bring an unwanted animal into my home - and believe me, despite any housetraining issues I have/had with Cooper, he's still loved. I pet him, praise him, play with him, cuddle with him, take naps with him, go for long walks after work and on weekends with him, and greatly enjoy his company. I have four cats that get the same loving treatment from me, and everyone I know can attest that I *love* animals and have an incredibly soft heart for them.

If you bothered to read my latest update above, you'd see that Cooper is doing wonderfully well with his training, and is a very happy dog, judging by his behaviour with me, my husband, and our other pets. He is great with the neighbors, other animals in the neighborhood, and behaves quite well around even the youngest of children. So it doesn't sound like I'm doing a poor job as a parent, despite having to work every day.

Hallo

I think the short answer is that the length of time depends on the puppy! <G>

My Belgian pup is now nearly 6 months old and has just started to ask to be let out, I feel that those who suggest the 7 days are putting too much pressure on you.

After all, perhpas they have just been lucky!

Many people do use the paper method and find that it does work, but many pups just don't cotton on and think that in fact it is OK to "go" in the house - after all, that is what we have been teaching them with the paper.

I wonder if maybe you are expecting a bit too much, my pup went outside lots (with me - you have to go with them) but also did some indoors. For example if she woke up she would need to go, after a game the same thing...so there are times when your pup may need to go and just can'thold on yet.

He may also be smelllng where he went before so get a good odour eliminator or use a Bio washing powder solution.

I expect others will lhave some good tips.

Good luck
Llndsay

Lindsey, thanks for the timeframe on that - six months is a long time, but it's already been one month, so we're part way there! My husband plans on taking a lot of time off between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so the puppy will have someone home with him a LOT and hopefully will have a lot of progress during that time.

I'll definitely come back and give you a followup on our happenings!

I don't know if anyone else has found this to be true, but, I find dogs are harder to housetrain than bitches, dogs would wee every 5 mins if you took them out but bitches wont. I always advise new puppy owners NOT to use newspapers for one of my pups as i've had them out in the garden for several weeks before they go to new homes (weather permitting of course), so they know what the garden is for, and I also use the sayings, do a pee, if they perform they get 1 bit of a titbit, I then say "be clean" and again give a titbit but for being clean I give 2 titbits, its amazing how quickly they learn the difference, and in no time are sitting waiting for the titbits, and i've also heard good reports from new owners after several weeks the pups will do well, of course, there are some puppies who take that little bit longer to get the hang of it.

HI Irene

BAnya will always do a wee for a piece of sausage, very useful if we take her out and to friend's houses and so on!

lindsay

Hi Lindsay,

What if you have gone to friends for dinner and it's Bangers and Mash ? :D
I can just see you about to put a forkfull in your mouth and she promptly pees ! lol
Sara

Oh no LOL hadnt thought of that one!!! <g>

Guess what though, i don't eat sausages so I think we'll be oK ;)

Best wishes and thanks for the giggle!

Lindsay

Just wanted to give one more update on Cooper's housetraining.

It's been almost a month since the initial post I made, and he's doing quite well. We've graduated from crating him for the first part of the day to crating him for most of the workday. And he has stopped whining when we put him in there in the morning - now he just walks in and plops down on his bed. GOOD DOG! We've been really diligent about having a set schedule in the mornings during the week, and Cooper is quickly learning that schedule.

Also, he has only peed inappropriate once in the past 7-10 days, and it was my fault (I waited too long to let him out). Other than that, he's learned "do you want to go outside?" and rushes to the door whenever I ask him. YAY!

Lastly, in my initial post I mentioned that Cooper had papers to pee on in the house, and frequently missed and peed on the floor instead. Well, the GREAT news is that for the past 7-10 days whenever he's used the papers he hasn't missed ONCE. It's so gratifying to see how well he's doing.

He's an adorable dog and so loving and fun - a great addition to the family. So thanks everyone for your advice - it's definitely come in handy!

Jaynee

Are you saying that Cooper is crated for most for the day? What happens to him at night - is he crated then as well?

I'm sorry, but although it may be helping on the housetraining front, I wonder what is the point of having him if he spends most of his day in a crate. If I have mis-understood then I apologise. If not - I think you need to question just how much you are crating your dog.

I do support the use of crates and use one at night time for my boys. But to use them so much during the day as well is too much IMHO.

Pam n the mad boys

No I do not crate him at night - he's with us in our room the whole night. We only use the crate when we are at work or out running errands on the weekend. And let me clarify what I said in that post....we were *always* penning him during the whole workday, but we'd crate him in the morning and then let our dogwalker pen him up in our kitchen for the afternoon, thinking that he'd enjoy being out. We discovered that he would DESTROY our kitchen in the afternoons - so we opted to crate him the whole workday. It's a large crate, twice the size of the ones recommended for a dog his size. So it's not like he's in a pen that he can't move around in - he can actually take a number of steps from end to end.

Over the next six weeks, my husband is taking a great deal of time off from work for vacation, and so Cooper will be fortunate to be crated only a couple workdays a week from now until the new year.

I believe lengthy crating is not a good thing, which is why he's with us whenver we're home. He's only crated when we're NOT home. We never crate him when a human is in the house, which is often.

And again, we have a dogwalker that comes every afternoon to let Cooper out to run and play for about thirty minutes halfway through our workday.