I have a 14 week old pup who is now well on the way to being toilet trained. The only problem is that when she needs to go outside she subtly goes to the door and if I don't notice this accidents happen, (very rarely as I am vigilent) Does anyone have advice on how to get her to vocalise that she needs out -a whine or a bark etc. as obviously I cannot keep my eye on her constantly.Also, she is in a crate at night and usually goes to bed at about 10.30pm and sleeps through till we get up at 7.15am. No whining or anything. I put newspaper down inside her crate at the other side and some mornings there is just 1 wee, or just a poo and sometimes nothing. The wee etc if done is usually reasonably fresh (hasn't soaked into the newspaper totally, sorry for being so graphic) Should I continue as I am doing and as she grows and gets older she will eventually become completely clean or should I be getting up earlier and letting her out. I am worried by doing this she will premanently want up earlier in the morning and get into this habit? It is so difficult to know what to do for the best. She is a cocker spaniel bitch and is still quite small. Thanks

You are doing exactly the right thing by leaving paper down and letting her out around 7.30 - at 14 weeks she won't have control over her bladder or bowels for a while yet and I agree that getting up in the night, could encourage her to learn to ask to go out when she doesn't really need to ( as she gets older )....I have an aunts yorky who has her on the go all the time asking to go out when there's no need - all through the night !

As regards her actually vocalising - when she's near the door - tell her what a good girl she is and ask " do you want to go out ? " or something in an excited tone - you must be really up beat about it - you will find she will probably wag her tail quicker, hop from one fron foot to the other and possibly you may get a noise - HOWEVER small that nosie is praise IMMEDIATELY AND LIBERALLY AND OPEN THE DOOR - again, in an gushing way, say " go, on then...out you go .....wee wee's ....good girl !

I train all my dogs this way and find that even if I don't get the vocalisation with some dogs, I do at least get frantic running backwards and forwards between the door and me !

Good luck..I'm sure you'll get it sorted before long - you already well on the way.

I trained my Springer cross Collie to 'speak' before she got her dinner at about the 10 week stage, by using the 'are you excited?' happy voice, then when she barked, gave her the food. From then on it was easy to train her to 'speak' before I opened the door for her to go out. She was very quick to pick up the idea of barking to signal she wanted to be let out - but beware - she now uses her voice to indicate anything and everything she thinks she wants and should have.........

I disagree with putting paper in her crate. My idea of a crate is not only for the dog to have it's own "den" but to aid with toilet training. When I was house training my dogs I never put paper down anywhere because I didn't want them to get the idea that it was okay to go to the loo in certain parts of my house, i.e. wherever there was paper down, if they were in their crates at night and needed the loo they would whine, I would let them out into the garden, give them a command "hurry up" when they went I would praise them then I would take them straight back to their crate and go back to bed myself. I found the gaps of needing the loo got longer and longer. If they continued to whine which was rare (apart from the very first few days) I ignored it and it quickly stopped.

During the day if an accident happened it was my fault because I had left it too long before letting them into the garden or I had not let them out after eating, sleeping or playing. My dogs will now either whine to go out or run back and forth but to be honest they rarely need to tell me they need out because I usually get there first. My male pup took longer to house train than my bitch but we got there. I found being proactive and letting them into the garden before they asked really helped speed up the process infact you could almost see the light bulb come on when they realised what was expected of them :-)

P.S. Forgot to say that my bitch was completely house trained by the time she was 10 weeks old but my boy was quite a bit slower and we were still having the odd accident at 6 mths old, he's now nearly 10 mths old and I can't remember when we last had an accident. Bless him boys will be boys ;-)

I wouldn't encourage toiletting in the crate, as I too feel it can aid housetraining and most dogs only go in their crate if they are desperate, having said that certain breeds (don't know which breeds though, sorry! :) ) apparently will soil their own crate with no problems.

I didn't use paper when housetraining mypup as, I think Clare points out, it can lead to pup thinking it's OK to go in the house, although not always!!!

I know what you mean about the subtlety of asking to go out and missing it, my previous Terv would come and sit in fornt of me like Cleopatra, very erect (good posture LOL!!) and ears up, staring at me, willing me to take notice. My pup Banya wanders up and down the room but sometimes does this anyway, there is a difference in the way she walks (no jokes about crossed legs please <g>) but just barely.

Hee hee - they all have their 'funny little ways' don't they? Missy asks by pawing at you, this can be a bit misleading as she paws at you for affection too - so you have to be aware of the intensity of the pawing, and if she won't stop or go away - it usually means she 'needs to go' Another funny thing she does before a bm is to scurry flat out round the garden, oblivious to anything in her way!, Bonnie on the other hand will wander sedatly around until she finds 'just the right place'.........

I have to agree that leaving paper is encouraging toileting indoors (to a certain extent)
Bessie (my 6 month old Bully) was also fully house trained at 10 weeks and has only had the odd accident when she was left alone.
Bodie (my 4 yr old Staffie) was terrible to train, he wasen't clean much before 5 months old and always had accidents whenever I turned my back 4 a second(men a?!) lol
Anyways Bessie always stands at the door and bays, this is how she used to wake me up when she needed to go during the night and Bodie makes a kind of "arff" noises at the back door when he needs to go out.

I think its all down to practice, the first few months for me was difficalt to tell weather they needed to go or not but now Im usually there b4 them both!

Good Luck

As far as to leave paper down or not goes - as far as I'm concerned a pup of 14 weeks is most likely to have accidents at night, so it might as well be on paper to help the poor owner dispose of the mess. I've never had any trouble switching from paper to no paper when I'm confident the dog is capable of holding it's bladder/bowels all night ( ie no mess on paper )....