Hello,
I just recently aquired two little puppies, one male and one female, fourteen and twenty weeks old respectfully. Anyway, I am having problems with training them. We secured an area in the kitchen for them, using a baby gate, to keep them, since we do not wish to have them crate trained. There pin is lined with newspaper, to help with thier training. When they are out, sometime they will go on the newspaper, but for the mostpart, they do not. I was wondering if there is something I am doing wrong? I take them every so often to the paper and tell them to potty. They sit there and look at me, then I leave, they sit a little longer, then go back to playing. The second problem, is when left alone at night in thier pin, they chew all the wallpaper down, and through the drywall! I have caught them once and corrected them, but since they do this when I am asleep, its hard to catch. And last but not least, they like to use the restroom, then "clean up after themselves" by consuming thier products....please help!

Well I recently looked through a lot of post and found information on the eating thier own poop problem, however the house training and the eating of the wallpaper, I could still use a little advice. Thanks.

You could try bitter apple spray on the wall; they won't like the taste. What do they have in the way of things to do? Toys, kongs, that kind of thing? Puppies will be destructive but if you leave them to their own devices they will get bored.

Why are you training them to go on newspaper? Take them outside regularly: when they wake up, after eating, after playing etc etc and praise them copiously when they go outside. If they go inside, just clean it up, don't fuss about it, or scold them. Do away with the newspapers, it will just tell them that peeing/pooing on paper is fine. A friend tried this method with ever decreasing sizes of paper, and thought this was a great idea - til his dog peed on an envelope shoved through the letterbox - it contained a cheque! With regular trips out, and praise when they do well, they will learn, but it may take quite a bit of time and there will be the odd mishap along the way.

I would certainly crate train them. My pups go into their crates even when the door is left open - they see it as their bed. Basically any dog will be reluctant to mess in their bed, and so this aids house training (so long as the pup is not left too long as too NEED to 'go' in their crate), more importantly though, it will mean that they cannot distroy the wallpaper etc and you know that they are safe and not getting to wires and putting themselves at risk. Provide them with kongs and toys to entertain themselves when you cannot be with them.
Also, if you find they have a favourite area to wee in - try placing the newspaper in this area so that they can link the newspaper to the area for toileting. And as mentioned before take them out when they first wake up, when they have eaten etc, and if poss, in good weather leave the back door open - you will find they prefer to go outdoors anyhow - and lots and lots of praise when they get it right!!! :)