I have just gone back to work having taken time off work to bring up my westie pup who is now 18 weeks. He is mostly toilet trained but can still have accidents on the carpet especially if the back door isnt open and we dont notice he wants to go out. He is crated overnight and has never wet the crate at night. In the morning when I leave for work he is in a crate with the door closed for 2 hours and then my dog walker comes in for an hour and a half, she puts him back in the crate for an hour then I am home at lunchtime. No accidents in the crate so far. Obviously I dont want to keep him confined indefinately, the next step is to keep the door open (crate in utility area) so he has the utility and kitchen area to run in and play with his toys etc. But I dont think he is ready yet to "hold on" without being confined. How does one make the leap between confining and not confining when pup is on his own?

Hi June,

It's really just a judgement call and then you have to take the plunge and see how it goes ;)   My pups are crated up until about 12 weeks overnight by which time or thereabouts they are clean overnight.  When I'm out shopping etc they are crated until around the 18-20 week mark and then I just leave the gate open.  Mainly I keep to that length of time as I have other dogs and wouldn't want the pup annoying them constantly so by that age they've learned (mostly anyway) some basic doggy manners.

My dogs and pups are always in the bedroom when I'm out because they sleep in there with us too - the fact you confine yours to a utility room should make it even easier as presumably there's less to destroy and it's easier to clean up any accidents.  Why not test the water on days when you can be at home but make a point of going out for say 15 minutes and see how things are when you return.  If that's OK try 30 minutes and if again successful for a few times move it up in increments of 15 minutes. 

HTH, regards, Teri :)

i have crate trained 2 out of 4 of my dogs ( although the other never had a crate as pups they are happy to stay in one if neeeded.)

the way i stop accidents outside the cage is:-

have the cage open when your home. take the pup out at the usual times( after feeding , waking , drinking , playing etc) if you see the pup sniffing around looking like its needing the toilet pick it up turn it upside down(that on its back not head towards the ground since you have a little dog this should be easy some of the bigger breeds are very heavy and this stage)and take him out ( the turning upside down often stops them peeing as they dont wanna pee on them self and get a bit of a shock at first.)

hopefully this will means there less accidents. if you dont get to them in time and there is a mess in progress or just been done.
tell them off point to the mess and give a stern NO.

i never tell them off for doing the toilet over night as younger dogs can thelp it but once they get the idea that they arent allowed to do it in the house they seem not to do it over night this is partly because they have got older and better at controling them selves and partly the training.

is this any help?????

 

Why is it that a young pup, who has no control over his bladder, can hold it in the crate but not when he is left elsewhere? I realise they don't want to go in their crate, but HOW can they hold it in the crate if they have no control?

Also, when you take them out for the toilet, some say to start the praise as soon as they start doing the business, but I would have thought this would startle them to the point where they stop going, and others say to praise as soon as they have finished, but is this too late for the pup to realise what you are actually praising?

Thanks :D

I tell Poppy "do wee wee", then as she does doing it I quietly say to her "wee wee" just to confirm that what she's doing is what I'd told her to do, then I praise and reward as soon as she's finished.  I did find that to praise her whilst she was doing it would only interupt her, she'd stop (I thought she'd finished) then she'd finish when she got back in the house.

It's surprising how long they can hold on if they need to.  Basically they won't (very often) go in the crate because they'll be shut in there with it. 

Poppy doesn't have a crate, she has a playpen, we got her at 10 weeks old, she's now 6 months and she has only had one accident in the playpen which was just as I was opening the door to let her out one morning - I think it was more to do with excitement!!

Thanks for that Harry, :D

Sometimes they just haven't quite clicked as to where is OK to go :) Tara got to the point where she was clean in her cage and the kitchen - but if someone left the door into the dining room open accidentally, she would dash in there and poo :) It didn't take much longer before she KNEW that she was only to go in the garden :)

Daisy

How's Bramble now Daisy?

I think that he's improving :) I've banned all ball chasing and he was miffed as he wasn't allowed to 'perform' at agility on Monday :) I've been giving him Arnica and he seems to be getting up more easily.

Thanks for asking :)

Daisy

Oh good, I don't know what the weather has been like in Essex but it has been very damp maybe it was just hurting his bones?

I am glad he is on the mend :D

No rain here :D Lovely Indian Summer - at the moment :)

Daisy

We haven't had too much rain this week, but we have had fog and mist and just dampness, I broke my wrist when I was little, and I can always feel the damp in it.

But none the less he is getting better, and that is the main thing :D

they do have some control over there bladder but there bladders are very small and it isn't good for them to hold it in. and i assume that if its in too long it hurts like in humans. plus not being rude but can you imagine holding it in all the time till someone tell you that you can go????

It will only be over night and when we pop to Tesco that he will ever be in his cage, at almost all other times he will be with us. I just couldn't understand when someone would say "an 8 week old puppy has no control" and then in the same sentence "they will hold it in the crate, as they don't like to go there"

Hi Natalie,

An 8 week puppy has no *conscious* bladder or bowel control - zilch ;)  Over the first 2-4 weeks of getting a puppy (assuming it's the average 8 weeks when brought home) we have to ensure that they get out at very regular intervals - but you've read all that stuff already ;)  Overnight, I wouldn't expect a puppy to stay dry - I get up for them after 3-4 hours and gradually alter that to a maximum of 6 hours at around the 11/12 week stage depending on how well they've been progressing.   If done diligently (and it is very tiring) then it's possible to keep the puppy clean overnight. 

It is true they don't like to soil their bed area, but at 8 weeks if shut in a cage with only a bed area it WILL happen unless the owner gets up and let's the puppy out during the night.  Amazingly, when my pups were about 2 weeks or so and just enough mobility to crawl/drag themselves, they made their way off the vet bed in the whelping box onto the paper - so instinct plays a huge part in it without our intervention :)   However by around the 11/12 week stage they should be able to hold on long enough to alert us they need out and wait for us to move from one room to another and out into the garden for eg.  But as with everything in nature, some will physically mature more quickly than others and some will cotton on to the concept more readily too.

Regards, Teri :)

Thanks Teri, :D

Just goes to show though, of all the things I have read, I still have questions!!! How people get on with out reading a single thing, I don't know!

Natalie, I still have questions - so does everybody ;)  Even sometimes when we think we have the answers, somebody comes up with a better one or at least a variation on the same theme but something worth knowing for future reference.

The thing is, if you remember back to when you had Thomas, you probably read lots, got all sorts of advice from doctors, health visitors, family & friends but when you first brought him home from the hospital - was there not a slight feeling of basic panic?  I know there was with me ;)  Thankfully a mix of natural instinct and common sense takes over until the earlier advice starts to filter through our slightly blurred minds - as much theory as possible is a great way to start but there's nothing like having to put it into practice for a huge wake-up call :D

I have a new canine addition roughly every 5 years or so and each new puppy has me back to thinking on my feet - they're all different after all and there's always new ideas coming through of how to prevent or overcome problems.  Never stop asking - it's a good thing!  Regards, Teri 

LOL, I have few more thousand questions if you have a minute? :P

No seriously, I think training wise, we are more or less at the point where we can't really read much more, until we actually have the pup here with us and it is happening, anything I think of between now and then are more what if this happens, what if that happens sort of questions.

:D

hi teri you said and 8 week old has no conscious bladder control, my pups are 7 weeks and i have then in a cage with attached run. the cage door is kept open at all times to give them access to the run. my pups have decide to sleep in the run and do the the toilet in the cage which is fine cause i can lock the cage and clean it then swap them round to clean the run without being attacked.

so can you explain why the pups ONLY do the toilet in the cage??? and CHOOSE to do this??? does that not show they have conscious bladder control???

and that they just need to do the toilet more due to the size they are , the fequency of there feed and the amount they sleep. aswell as there higher metablisim cause they are young.

edited to include   although i understand that your comment was just to vertify that you shouldnt expect a pup to be fully house trained at 8 weeks. which i agree with. i have known of 2 or 3 dogs that haven't been house trained till after 6 months but i expect that was due to bad training rather than the dogs.

realistically you shouldnt expect and  a dog to be near house trained till about 16 weeks although some are quicker and some slower.

I'm not quite sure whether multiple punctuation symbols make a particular query or statement more relevant but for the avoidance of doubt I'll try and cover those points which seem to cause you greatest angst:-

As I explained in my reply to Natalie  >> An 8 week puppy has no *conscious* bladder or bowel control - zilch<<   ergo, if it needs the toilet it does not and cannot make the decision to hold on even for a few minutes.  It has nothing more than a reliance on it's internal muscular and skeletal structure (eg bladder and bowel themselves plus pelvic floor muscles) to prevent a continual leak - just the same as human infants.

If you read my post you will see I referred to my own litter removing themselves voluntarily from their vet bed onto paper at 2 weeks to eliminate - however I did not get carried away and fool myself that they had somehow become "paper trained" ;)

>so can you explain why the pups ONLY do the toilet in the cage???

Yes, because they don't like to soil their bedding :)

>does that not show they have conscious bladder control???

No, that only demonstrates that instinctively they remove themselves from the area in which they sleep :)

Hopefully that clarifies my previous post.  Regards, Teri

If you have a secure garden, fit a large cat flap and teach him to use it, I have never had much problem with yorkies and house training, always having a flap.

Thanks for your advice Teri, I was beginning to lose the plot a bit as the posts went on!!! LOL. I ought to say that Rory is trained because he knows he has to go in the garden, and can wee etc on command but he still has accidents on the carpet. Sometimes I think he is doing it on purpose!! for instance, if I am doing something in the kitchen and he is not getting attention I find a puddle directly behind me. Today I went upstairs to get changed and Rory whined at the bottom of the stairs (he cant climb yet -wimp) he then went into the kitchen and wee'd, but the back door was open on both occasions. I will try leaving him for short periods of time like you suggest when I'm not at work. Still hoping for laminate flooring (sigh)

I wont use a dog flap because if someone came through the back gate ie postman, and then left it open .............also want him to be able to hold on which he wont if he has access all the time, he would then cause probs if we stayed elsewhere.

Hi June,

You'll get there - with Rory ;)  It can be an incredibly stressful time and made even harder if you hear at puppy classes etc about lots of success stories so try not to get too uptight (easier said than done sometimes).   I know that when I first used a crate making the judgement of when to allow free access was done with more than a little trepidation but at least you know you're not alone.

Good luck with it, I'm sure all your hard work will pay off.  Best wishes, Teri :)