Hi All

Seen as I got so much good advice on the 'crying at night saga' I thought I'd give you a go on this one...Molly (choc lab) is now coming up to 4 months old & is a darling, sleeps through the night, does her business in the park & is sociable with other dogs, however....  When we are around we leave the patio dorrs open so she can go outside to wee etc (which she does) & then at night or if we go out we put newspaper down which again she does her business on however she wees tons & the paper is always sodden.  When is a good age to stop putting paper down, if we do this will she hold it until we get up in the morning?  We have reduced the area paper is put down on & she know just goes where the paper is but we don't know how long to carry this on for, is she just going because the paper is there or is she still too young to go through the night?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Gemma

They all vary of course but I would say at this age there is a very good chance they could hold it all night especially if you are not early to bed, late to rise types :)
I would be inclined to just try it and not put any paper down you have to mop the floor anyway don't you.

I never use paper, because, as you have found, once the dog is conditioned to pee on paper, it will continue to do so unless you remove it.

If you think about it, it is exactly the same behaviour dogs carry out on grass, "oh its grass, I pee on it".................

So if you want to discourage your dog from eliminating indoors, remove the paper.

Yes, you may have a few accidents, but it will never stop unless you remove it altogether.

Remember, just because a dog KNOWS how to do something etc does not mean its body is necessarily CAPABLE of doing it, every time, without fail without a few errors.......

HTH

Hi There

I paper trained mine and had no problems, though I had to do this as I work and though my mum in law pops in, at a young age she didnt come in frequently enough to avoid accidents. At about 3 months, I limited the amount of water he had about 2 hrs beford bed and made sure he went out for a wee and just stopped putting paper down. He never ahd a single accident. I now leave the water bowl down constantly and he doesnt always wee before bed but still no accidents.

As for your question will she hold it until you get up, I think she probably will. As the other poster said its a case of see paper and pee on it. As an example, when throwing out the trash a milk token fell out of the newspapers. It was the shape of a milk bottle and about 6 x 6 inches. When I came down the next morning he had tried to pee on it. It was very sweet and made me realise how smart they are to make the association between paper and a safe place to pee. :) I thought it was very sweeet.

Im sure she will be fine.

My pup is 18 weeks (today) and *can* go through the entire night without a wee. This is not to say she can do it every night, though. However, she sleeps in our bedroom so can easily let us know when she needs out for a wee. From the beginning we got up twice a night to take her out to encourage her not to have to 'go' inside at all, gradually decreasing to one trip outside until we got to the stage a few weeks ago where she started to 'ask' to go out. It is a pain getting out of bed in the middle of the night to stand outside trying to persuade a puppy to 'go pee' but at least it's summer...might not have been so willing in the dead of winter!!

Personally I would never restrict water.  Thirst is not a very nice sensation and it is too easy for a small animal such as a puppy to dehyradate as, obviously, their blood volume is much lower than a larger animal.  This is particularly important if they are fed a dry diet.  I really don't think it worth the risk when a couple more weeks of patience will take you to the time when they will have enough bladder control.

Isabel

Maybe I was unclear, I didnt actually mean that I literaly took the bowl away I meant that these days I freshen and give a full bowl of water every few hours. Back then, he would have a full bowl all day long and in the evening I would just make sure that he had enough to drink without drowning himself in water as he does now :). I used to make sure that he had a few laps frequently through the evening rather than one big drink before sleep (like you do when they have an upset tum) and made sure he had a wee after each. Also, he has always had a wet diet which obviously contains a lot of water. I never had the need to take the bowl up as he went right through the night from a young age and didnt get up for a drink but it was there if he wanted. I NEVER took any risks with him and never would.

Of course you are right pups can and will dehydrate very quickly and fresh water should always be available. Thats why it might be worth talking to your vet as I did to get some more advice.

Apologies to the OP if  this was unclear.

Its amazing how dogs can be so different, I have a Golden who took just over 6 months to completely potty train (he was paper trained) and I did do a lot of mopping too :-0  Yet I had a newf that was completely trained by 4 months and a mix that I don't ever remember having any problems with potty training.  Sounds as though she is very close to being completely trained, good job!