can anyone offer me any advice now as going out of my mind I have an 18 week old bull terrier and have managed to paper train him excellantly but how do I make the transition from going on the paper to asking to go out for a toilet.  He goes for an hour walk first thing in the morning and will wee and poo successfully.  H e has got a crate which is lined with paper and have paper down by the back door but as soon as he wets it and I put clean down I think he thinks its a big game cos he wets it again straight away whilst looking at me!! treid not putting any paper down but he then just does it on the floor where the paper usually is.  Please help
jackie

You will ahve to start from scratch and remove all paper and clean the areas he wees with biological cleaning product to remove traces of it that a dog can still smell.

Take the puppy outside into the garden every halkf hour and using a comand word speak encouragingly until he performs and praise.  Als take him out after meals, games, any excitemetn and on waking.

I have an 18 week old puppy who still is only just getting the hang of asking to go outside, but if the back door is open she will perform on command, and has trotted outside since she was five weeks old (as did her littermates).

Once he understands that weeing inside is inappropriate, and he will be praised for doing it in the right place, even pretending to wee, or just getting a few drops out when you say, so that he can earn your praise, and his body is gradually able to hold on for longer he will become clean, but don't expect this to happen until about 5 to 6 months of age, and expect the odd accident up to about a year.

I forgot to say an hours walk is rather excessive for such a young puppy.  His walks should not be for excersise so much as for socialisation at this age.  As a rough guide it is generally agreed that a puppy should have 5 minutes of lead walking for every month of life, so in your pups case a 20 minute walk on the lead should be about the right amount.  a puppy will spend a lot of time playing in the house and Garden in addtion to this, but 20 minutes formal walking is enough.

Puppies grow at an incredible rate.  I weighed my 18 week old Puppy today and she weighs 12.4kg (adult weight 20kg) and was 400grammes at birth.  My friends 8 month old son weighs 11kg and was 4kgs at birth.  With such an incredible growth rate a lot of walking on hard unatural surfaces and possibly pulling against the lead. :D

Ok thanks for your advice I never realised the 5 minute rule no-one ever told me that not even the breeder!!!will reduce that from tomorrow and will also try again with the training and take the paper up.  Its such a shame the weathers not too good cos he dont like the rain either!!!dont suppose you've got a remedy for that have you!!  what dog have you got?? we got ollie weighed on monday and he weight 12.9 i think he's gonna be a large one!

Mine are Norwegian Elkhounds, and they aren't keen on rain (even though they have thick weatherproof coates) though will happily go out in it if a walk is offered :D

The only thing you can do is be really upbeat when you take him out, and stay out with him.  Some people with shortcoated breeds even go out with an umbrella!!!  He will soon learn to be quyick about going if he knows you will stay out as long as it takes.

Hi Jackie,

You have discovered, the hard way, why many people say that paper training is a bad idea! Now you have to go right back to the beginning and retrain him that going indoors is not acceptable any more.

Pretend that you have just brought him home. Take up all the paper and wash down all the floor where it was with biological washing solution to remove all urine smells. Take him outside after every meal, every playtime, every nap, and at least once an hour in between times.

For exercise, the general rule of thumb is 5 minutes exercise for each month of age. So at 18 weeks his walks should take no longer than 25 minutes maximum.

I'd also remove the paper from the crate and replace it with some proper bedding - he's learnt to wee on paper so why provide it in the crate?  It may help the transition if you take a piece of soiled paper outside to the area you want him to use (weigh it down with some bricks or stones) and encourage him to use that.  Gradually reduce the size of the piece of paper until it's hardly there.........  It's also important to remove ALL traces of urine, not only using biological washing powder, but follow it up with a wipe down of white spirit as this will remove all the fatty acids which hold the smell.

he has got bedding in one end of the cage but paper in the other end for the night times which i must say is generally clean when we get up to take him out in the morning but if we need to go out during the day he will wet the paper.  I will start again from tomorrow no more paper!!!wish me luck

We had a problem with paper training with our bearded collie pup. She liked to sleep on the paper so when she was in her cage and had to go, she weed on the paper then slept in it.  The problem with this is we had to give her a wash almost every day.
In the end we stopped putting paper down completely and took the advice of a lots of the posts on Champdogs. We took her out every half hour or when she seemed to be restless. We made a real fuss of her and gave her treats when she did anything in the garden and said 'Poo Poo good girl' (even if its a wee). Because she didn't have the paper to go on I'm sure she held back until there was a 'proper' place to go.
This has worked beyond our wildest dreams she is almost completely house trained at 14 weeks (bar the odd accident that is our fault when we dont respond immediately to her whines or scratching at the door).
She goes through the night dry and when you take her out and say poo poo she obliges. She even squats down and pretends when you say poo poo even if she doesn't need to go.
So I would say dump the paper. Tell the dog off if you catch it doing anything in the house but praise it when outside. Only downside is the constant visits to the garden, in all weathers, when your fave prog is on the tv, often with no result, but we have 5 in our house so if we share its not too bad.