Hiya

  I have a 6 month old Westie, which I have had since he was 9 weeks. He had been going to the toilet fine on paper and I think really I got a bit lazy. 3 weeks ago I thought it was time he went outside. This has been going ok but sometimes he still wee's indoors, mostly when we are in. If we go out he does it outside! Any clues?

Thanks

Go back to basics, as if you had just got him. Take him out regularly, every half hour if need be More walks should help as well. Have you learnt his body language enough to know when he is thinking of weeing? You will have to watch him like a hawk for a while, but you will both learn very quickly ;) Don't shout at him when he goes in the house, just quickly take him outside (yes, you have to go out with him :) )and praise him when he does anything outside. He is young enough to re-learn. Especially as I hear regularly of dogs that have been outdoor dogs all their lives and are then brought in for their old age. They are clean indoors, so your pup should learn :)

Its never too late so just be consistent and persevere with the 'back to basics' method that has been described by LindyLou :)

Ditto that it's never too late - I've retrained older dogs successfully. But you do need to go absolutely back to basics which means out every 30 minutes or so and after meals and almost certainly up in the wee small hours. Excuse the pun!  However, given his age his bladder is certainly capable of "holding on" so night-time training should be much quicker.

Just out of interest, hasn't it been a tad unpleasant having the pup performing indoors all this time?

Thanks for all your help.

I just don't understand why he goes in the garden when we are out and when we are in doors he does it there!

I think we got used to him going on the paper, and it was coming up to Christmas, so we were all rushed off out feet and I just put it on a list of things to do after Christmas.

Shall I stay outside with him every half an hour?

Unfortunately it sounds like you have let him toilet on paper for far too long, and he has now learned that it is acceptable to toilet inside.

I advise that paper training at ALL is a bad idea, because it is teaching the dog that it is OK to toilet inside.  Which isn't what you want him to learn.

You have not only paper trained, but paper trained for 6 months, so this is now a very ingrained behaviour and will be hard to break.

It is far better with toilet training to put a lot of effort in for 2 weeks, and not use paper, than it is to use paper and have the toilet training spread out over months and months.

You are going to have to treat him like a 9 week old puppy being toilet trained for the first time.  Remove the paper.  If he messes inside say nothing and clean it up.  Take him outside often and wait with him out there to reward him with a treat immediately after he has gone outside.  He needs to learn that there is a difference between toileting inside and toileting outside, and the difference is that he will get a treat if he goes outside - so he will save himself up to get a treat.  If you don't reward when he toilets outside, there will be no difference and he will continue to go inside.

Yes, you will have to go out with him and stay out with him until he has performed. Being male, even though only a baby still, he should want to pee every time he goes out ;) Otherwise he will start to feel that you are punishing him. It really shouldn't take long if you persevere. He just doesn't realise that you want him to go outside :D Once it clicks your life will be a lot easier.