Hi All

I have got a playpen for my puppy Hamish, he goes in this at night and when we are out in the mornings, i put newspaper in there which he uses overnight but during the morning when i put him in there he doesn't do any wee until we come home and let him out the garden. Our problem is when he is out in the conservatory for the rest of the day, he does his wee anywhere, i have put newspaper around but he does not always use it, i put him out into the garden regularly throughout the day, but sometimes he goes to wee and another time he waits until he comes back in and then goes, he always goes outside to pooh or if he cannot get out for some reason he will always find the newspaper. I am wondering whether i should pen him through the day even when we are in because he is usually out from 12pm to around 9pm, i just feel that he needs to be out for some exercise as he must get fed up in a pen. I do not put any water in his pen overnight as i find he tips it up and then everything is saturated, the breeder said that he would not need any water overnight but if i cage him in the mornings should i give him water, he is usually in his pen from 9am to around 12pm. If i do cage him during the afternoon i am just wanting to check whether he should have water as i do not want him to be poorly through not getting enough water. I know that most of the time they tip the water up but i wanted to check with other people that are using crates to train their puppies whether they put water in and for how long at a time they crate their pups.

Thanks
Helen

Hi,
You can buy water containers that attach to the cage and are unspillable. Someone else I'm sure will know where you can get them from.

Please don't leave him without water at any time.

Hi Helen,

As the other poster said, you can buy water containers that fit to crates, the coupe cups (which are sold in pet shops - sometimes under the bird section????) are fab for this. They are a metal bowl (I know you shouldn't really use metal for water bowls long term - but it won't be for too long) which sits inside a little metal holding ring and is almost impossible to remove with mouth ow paws. The only thing is if he digs the water like our working beardie pup does!! :D

We have to pen her overnight without water, but we do make sure she is in there for the shortest length of time possible and that she drinks before she goes to bed and in the morning. Luckily, she is fed BARF, so doesn't get too thirsty.

If you feed dry food, DON'T leave him without water at all, even for a few hours, he will be thirsty and it won't be good for his body.

manda
X

I have always used metal (stainless steel ) bowls for deinking water, and have never had a problem. Wwwhy do you think they shouldn't be used, as these are what everyone I know uses of fod and water???

Ditto here Brainless. I've never heard that you shouldn;t use metal bowls. Could you tell us why please Manda?

Pam n the boys

Now I have heard that plastic bowls can be bad as they absorb smells and some think they cause pale noses???/ but stainless steel I always thought perfectly inert.

When our pup had a bad, ulcered muzzle at Xmas, the vet did enquire whether we used plastic bowls (we don't) as she had had an allergic reaction and the plastic might have caused it.

Daisy

All my water bowls are metal!
Lara x

I must say Im confused about the post firstly hamish is in the pen at night and in the morning when you go out then he is in conservatory from 12 to 9 but he is outside
Just how long is he penned up? and if your there why is he penned up all the time ? Iagree its handy sometimes but not all.
Anyway the water question is this a dog should have free access to water at all times who ever said not to give water at night is wrong,I would suggest getting the heavy ceramic dishes which are hard to tip expecially the ones that are wide at the bottom narrowing at the top.

I'm just wondering when the puppy is being house trained? A puppy is not going to train it's self. It see's no reason not to spend a penny any where it feels like! It is us that have reservations about our dogs wetting and messing in doors and it is us, through training, that convince the puppy that "Out Doors" is the right place to go.

John

Actual metal or ceramic ARE what you should use long term. It's plastic bowls that can cause trouble with some dogs if used long term.

WEndy

Hi All

Sorry to confuse people regarding my post, hope this may explain things a bit better. Hamish is in his playpen overnight and when we go out in the mornings he is put into his playpen which is in the conservatory, when we come home we then let him out for the rest of the day to roam the conservatory but we are not letting him have the full run of the house downstairs at the moment until he is clean, i have been putting paper by the backdoor and as soon as i see him sniffing around the floor one of us gets him out into the garden as quickly as we can but sometimes he squats and pee's so quickly that we cannot get to him in time. He always goes to the back door when he wants to pooh but if not he goes on the paper. I thought that if i kept him in the conservatory which of course has the back door out into the garden that this was the best place for him to be but he does not seem to be getting the hang of going out into the garden to go to wee, he is quite happy to go inside, i was wanting any advice as to anything else i can try to get him to pee in the garden. He is usually out with us in the conservatory from around lunchtime until i put him to bed at 9pm, he only gets caged when we go out and there is nobody to keep an eye on him. in his pen he is brilliant and hardly ever has a mishap it is just when he is out roaming around he forgets where he is and just wee's himself, i know some people do not put any newspaper on the floor but i am not sure what to do, he seems to just play with the newspaper and rip it to shreds as if it is a game.
Hope somebody may have an idea as to what else i could try, this is the first puppy i have ever had so sorry if i may seem thick but i am not up on puppy training. Hope this helps the confusion of my last post but Hamish is not shut in his pen all day he is out from lunchtime through to the evening with us, i didn't mean people to think i had the poor little pup caged all day!!!

Thanks
Helen

Hi,
When he is in the conservatory are you with him, or is he on his own? If he is unattended, he'll be very slow to get the idea that he must ask to go outside. With the good weather you'll be able to leave the door open so he can go out by himself.
:)

Hi

We try and stay in the conservatory with him as much as we can, so that we can get him out into the garden as soon as we see him squat, unfortunately the conservatory is joined onto our kitchen and when we go into the kitchen and shut the babygate across he then is inclined to wee as he looks through the gate, it is impossible to be out there with him all the time from lunchtime until 9pm when he goes to bed, for instance if the phone rings or when there are household jobs to do ie, cooking,cleaning,ironing etc. Should i then pop him back into his playpen when we are not around or is it okay to leave him out in the conservatory to roam around as he pleases. I am concerned that when there is nobody out there with him that he will leave puddles around the floor, and then think that this is natural to wee in the house.
I am lucky that i do not work full-time as i don't know how people housetrain pups when they are out to work all day and there is nobody around to let them out, perhaps i am going wrong somewhere but i am not sure whether to let him run the house when we go from room to room as i feel he will never get to learn that he has to go to toilet in the garden if he is in our living room which is the other end of the house, and i will not be able to get him outside quickly enough from the living room so that he can pee in the garden as it seems that once he squats he then carries on peeing until he is finished. Somebody told me that if you see them squat to shout loud enough so that you get pups attention then pick him up quickly and get him out into the garden to finish but i have tried this and have found that Hamish just carries on weeing.
As i say i have kept him in the one room thinking it would be better to get him clean before he goes into other rooms in the house, especially as the conservatory is tiled and easier to remove the smell of his urine, but perhaps i am doing it wrong.

Hi,
I would think it best if you pop him in his playpen when you can't be with him. You're quite right, if there's no-one with him he won't learn that the conservatory is not an appropriate place to wee.

Try to do as many of the household chores as you can when he's asleep, so that you can concentrate on him when he's awake.

:)

You must train him as the other person said. I never use paper, instead I put my pupps out at regular intervals, say every hour or so, always when they first wake up after a nap. Don't forget to praise him like mad when ever he does his buisness in the right spot. Its important that you take him to the same spot for him to wee, he'll get used to his own area through smell. With puppies its all about positive reinforcement, and regular timetables. Dogs like routine.
Davepu

I train exactly the same - no papers - just taking out every hour or so - every time the pup wakes up, immediately after hard play, 15 minutes or so after eating..... I use a word they associate with going and make a HUGE fuss when they've done right - I also take a dog cookie outside and reward them immediately after going while making the huge fuss. They pick it up pretty quick that outside is where they're supposed to go - then YOU have to figure out how they are telling you they want to go out.

Wendy

Hi

Thanks for your replies, i have ordered some Odourkill today so hopefully when i get this he may get the message. I don't really know where i am going wrong but obviously there is something that i am doing wrong, like at lunchtime when i came home he was in his pen so i let him and put him straight out into the garden, he had a wee and i praised him up like mad, his tail was wagging and he seemed quite chuffed with himself, we then came on into the house and he got into the conservatory and went straight to the kitchen door where the babygate is and then pee'd again, i am not sure why he had to pee when he had just had one in the garden. This is what i am finding hard is that he will go out into the garden and within 5 minutes he wants to go again, and this time he will not make any attempt to go to the back door he just does it wherever he is, i did ask the vet about it incase he had some sort of infection that was making him wee a lot but the vet checked him and said he was fine, he said some pups do wee a lot it depends on the puppy itself.
I have been putting newspaper by the door that leads from the conservatory into the garden but he sometimes uses it but seems more bothered about laying there playing and shredding it up, should i remove all the paper and see what happens then? I do put paper in his pen when i leave him because it is too long for him to go expecting him not to wee for around 3 hours, he uses the paper in his pen even though this is sometimes shredded but i am not concerned about this, i just want to find a better way of training him indoors, as some people say use newspaper and then others say that this confuses them.
I am also trying to get him used to his lead because from Monday next week he can go out but when i put his lead on he just grabs hold of it with his mouth and yanks it around, has anybody got any idea's of getting him to walk nicely without biting the lead all of the time.

Helen

Have you had him checked for a urine infection? To go that quickly after going outside could mean he has one. Worth investigating - and if he does it means you don't have to keep pulling your hair out in frustration;)

Wendy

Hi

No he has not been checked for a urine infection as the vet said when he saw him last week that on feeling the bladder he was not in any discomfort so he said he was positive that there was no infection there, but i am wondering whether he may have a problem afterall.
Things have been pretty bad this afternoon toilet wise, we have had the door from the conservatory to the garden open as it has been quite warm, i assumed that if the door was open and he wanted a wee he would go on out and go, we were in and out of the garden most of the time, he was coming out and laying on the patio but did not wee once out in the garden he went back into the conservatory every time and wee'd on the floor, i had left newspaper by the back door but he was going into the middle of the conservatory floor and weeing, i just cannot see how i am going to get him used to going to toilet in the garden, because i cannot keep the door shut as it gets too hot in the conservatory now that the warm weather is coming, as i say i thought that he would have gone to toilet while he was in the garden not to go back into the conservatory to do it.
Anybody else got any tips of what i can do.

Helen

All I can think of is watching him like a hawk, and catching him in the act of going in the wrong place, and telling him firmly 'NO' and cart him outside and follow him until he does (and praise), then put him in his crate for 15 minutes, then try him outside again.

If you spend a day taking him out every 15 minutes to half an hour, and not allow him access to his favoured wee spots indoors. Keep him on your lap when you want to pet him, but do not let him on the floor, except to go outside.

He knows you are pleased when he goes outside, but hasn't got it in his head that you will be the reverse when he goes in the conservatory.

Hi All

Things have been slightly better today with Hamish, the Odourkill arrived in the post this morning which was very quick seeing as i only ordered it yesterday, i mixed some up straight away and sprayed some near the back door that comes into the kitchen, this seems to be his most favoured spot for weeing, the door that leads from the conservatory into the garden i have removed all of the newspaper from now so there is no paper around on the floor at all. When i have not been in the conservatory with him i have put him into his playpen that i have put some newspaper into just incase he needs a wee when i am not around to get him into the garden. We have only had 1 accident today which was partly my fault because he got back in from the garden where the door was on the jar, the phone had gone off and before i could answer it he was in with me, so i cannot really blame him for this.
I quickly got the wee up and then sprayed with Odourkill and touch wood he has not been back and done another wee since, i have been putting him out a lot but i am keeping my fingers crossed that he may at last be getting the message. I am just waiting to see what tomorrow brings but hopefully if he carries on like today we may eventually be getting somewhere.
I will let you all know how he gets on.

Helen