How long did it take you potty train your pup

[joenali]

Obviously the pup is having some accidents. But she is doing well. To get in the backyard, we have to open the basement door, go downstairs which she won't do, and then open the backdoor. I'm almost thinking that the front door might be easier, one door no stairs. We live in a very quiet street. She pooped out there this morning when I took her on a walk. We have a big patio area, then driveway, then street. What do you think front door or backdoor?

[thinkofthesoldiers]

Doesn't matter which door, IME. However, if you want to make it easier on yourself, bell train her. From the sounds of it, it will have to be your front door for that.

[Deleted]

Is your backyard fenced? I'd plan on doing back door because I don't let my dogs off lead in an unfenced area ever and I don't want to go out with them if it's raining.

Are you working on teaching her to use the stairs? That's a major puppy life skill she needs to learn!

As for your question, it took us a couple days to train our younger dog, but he was an adult and partially trained from being in a track kennel and fostered in a prison program for a couple weeks.

[joenali]

Yeah I'm thinking a bell might be an answer. Right now she is frightened to go down the stairs, but she can go up.

[compassrose]

Is your backyard fenced in? IMO, the only benefit of the backdoor is that you can let her out off her leash.

My doxie took forever to housetrain, but they are notoriously stubborn.

[joenali]

We tried to help her yesterday. She just cried and cried. ?

[thinkofthesoldiers]

I assume you are leashing her in the front. If not, then backdoor only.

Is your stairwell well lit? She may not trust it going down if she can't see well.

[rockpaperscissors]

We've had our 4month old pup for about a month. I got a bell after researching a bit. It works wonders. He still has accidents sometimes when we don't get to him fast enough but overall it's been a huge success. I just started ringing it every time I would take him out until he started doing it himself.

Good luck!

[joenali]

Apr 27, 2015 8:56:58 GMT -5 thinkofthesoldiers said:

I assume you are leashing her in the front. If not, then backdoor only.

Is your stairwell well lit? She may not trust it going down if she can't see well.

Yes leashing in the front. Stairs are fairly steep and she's pretty tiny yet. We have a lighted stair area.

[Deleted]

We live on the second floor of a small condo building and take our pup out the backstairs to our fenced yard.

When we first got her she didn't know how to do stairs, so we carried her up/down for the first few weeks. After she settled in with us we started "practicing" stairs by using lots of treats and rewarding her after she did even one step.. It took a bit for her to get the hang of it and we still had to carry her occasionally, but after a month she was a pro.

[nomad100]

It took both our dogs, as adults, to figure out how to navigate down the stairs. We figure they had never been exposed to them before (they are both rescues). Strangely, they managed to go up just fine after we carried them down.

We found that using a high value treat (in our case, chicken breast) to coax them down the stairs one at a time, made all the difference in the world. It still took a couple of days but after less than a week, they were going up and down like champs.

[EmilieMadison]

I wouldn't worry about which door. 
How old is your pup? Are you crate training?

My puppy just turned 11 weeks and we got her at 8 weeks. She has only had one accident in the house and that was because I wasn't watching her.  We have crate trained her and its been very low stress (for both of us!) and she learned so quickly. We dont let her have free reign of the house, but she will whine or bark if she has to go out because the kennel training has been so successful. 


We have a front door and back door, but use the back because it leads to a yard, whereas our front door has a porch and a busy road with a small strip of grass. You may want to just carry the pup outside for now when you're dealing with puppy bladder and stairs. 

[5thofjuly]

Our dog trained really quickly. What worked for us was:

- we bell trained
- he was either literally leashed to me or in his crate all the time (leashed to me so he couldn't sneak off to poop behind the dining room table and I could better learn his signs)
- we wrote a schedule on a marker board of when he went for a couple of days, then started taking him out 15 minutes earlier than his pattern (so, if he had to go every 2 hours, we'd take him out every hour and 45 minutes) and treating him for going to the bathroom in order to set him up for success.

Stairs were a whole other issue. He wouldn't go up them until about 5 months or down them until about 6 months.

[nikki25]

Apr 27, 2015 8:52:05 GMT -5 thinkofthesoldiers said:

Doesn't matter which door, IME. However, if you want to make it easier on yourself, bell train her. From the sounds of it, it will have to be your front door for that.

My dog took forever to be completely potty trained. To his credit, he was my first dog and was junior in college so I didn't have a clue what the hell I was doing. My neighbor suggested the bell and within a couple of weeks he was trained. My apartment only had one door so obviously it went there.

[Deleted]

We tried to bell train Luna since we we're on the second floor and it didn't go very well since H or I would end up jingling the bell when we were coming or going.

We just started out with taking her out every two hours and having her sit by the door before we went (and giving treats). Now she goes and sits by the door to let us know she needs to go.

We did crate training as well and had very few accidents in the house after the first week.

[FastHands]

For helping with the stairs, try when you are coming back IN (so she's not in gotta-pee mode, and is more relaxed), and just put her down on the bottom step and lure her to hop down to the floor with a treat. Give lots of praise, and then go up the stairs. Do that a few more times, then see if she'll do from 2 steps up. Increase GRADUALLY, don't force her if she doesn't look ready. Make it a fun challenge with a great reward, not something scary that she has to do, yeno?

[Deleted]

I got my dog at 13 weeks and she had no training whatsoever. I kept her close, watched her every second and crated her when I couldn't, and let her out very often - after sleeping, after playing, after eating. She never pooped in the house but had some pee accidents that I consider my fault because I didn't think she had to go. Her "sign" that she needed to go out was to rustle the vertical blinds at the back door. I praised her and gave her a treat after each successful potty. I would say I trusted her not to go in the house after 2-3 weeks. I was home with her for the first two weeks, so that made it easy to watch her cues.

The schedule looked like this: crated overnight, then out (immediately!) at 7 am, breakfast, out again immediately after eating, out again at 10 am, noon, 2:30 pm, 5 pm, dinner and out again immediately, 8:30 pm, and 11:30 pm. She could hold it overnight because she was already fairly big by then. Gradually I eliminated some of the potty breaks. Now she goes out 5 times a day.

I think you should train your pup to go out where you expect her to go as she gets older. If that's the back, then train her there even though the stairs are scary right now. She will get the hang of them and eventually it will be no big deal. Reward her generously each time she braves the stairs.

[joenali]

Thanks everyone!