How long to housebreak dog

[isabel]

Winnie is about five months old. We’ve only had her a couple of weeks. I would say she is mostly housebroken in that if we take her out regularly, we aren’t having issues. She has a doorbell to ring when she wants to go out and she understands how to use it, but is not consistent at using it. She is having occasional accidents in the house if we don’t take her out frequently enough and/or are not watching her closely enough. I feel like we’re close, but not there yet.

How long did it take to fully trust your dog to be in the house not closely observed?

[mccallister84]

We got our dog at about 3.5 months. Now at almost six months, we trust her. It probably took until just about 5 months. We have figured out her schedule though.

[isabel]

Mar 27, 2024 19:38:57 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

We got our dog at about 3.5 months. Now at almost six months, we trust her. It probably took until just about 5 months. We have figured out her schedule though.

If you for some reason miss her schedule is she still trustworthy? I think that’s my concern. We’ve more or less figured out a schedule and she does well as long as we stick to it. If she has to go outside of that, sometimes she rings the bell, but sometimes she doesn’t. Yesterday she sat by it a couple times, which I noticed because I’m watching her closely, but she didn’t ring it. We’re working on that more now - making sure she actually rings it and having her do so when we’re outside the room so she feels more confident in ringing it when we’re not standing right there.

Overall I’m happy with her progress. Just hoping this doesn’t take six months or something. 😅

[mccallister84]

Mar 27, 2024 19:59:53 GMT -5 isabel said:

Mar 27, 2024 19:38:57 GMT -5 mccallister84 said:

We got our dog at about 3.5 months. Now at almost six months, we trust her. It probably took until just about 5 months. We have figured out her schedule though.

If you for some reason miss her schedule is she still trustworthy? I think that’s my concern. We’ve more or less figured out a schedule and she does well as long as we stick to it. If she has to go outside of that, sometimes she rings the bell, but sometimes she doesn’t. Yesterday she sat by it a couple times, which I noticed because I’m watching her closely, but she didn’t ring it. We’re working on that more now - making sure she actually rings it and having her do so when we’re outside the room so she feels more confident in ringing it when we’re not standing right there.

Overall I’m happy with her progress. Just hoping this doesn’t take six months or something. 😅

We don’t leave her unattended for long at all. Like I might go to the bathroom or change the laundry but if I am going to be out of the room for more than 5 minutes we crate her.

We have a fully fenced back yard so now that she’s a bit bigger we do let her go outside unsupervised so basically whenever she rings the bell we let her go out.

Personally, I am much more concerned with poop accidents than pee (although she doesn’t have either type anymore). I know she poops at wake up, on our 1 pm walk and in the evening. Today it was pouring rain and she wouldn’t poop out back so I took her out for a quick walk up and down the block at 2 and she pooped then. Usually we go out for about an hour at 1.

[mcmel]

5-6 months

[mccallister84]

I will say in the beginning we really struggled because she would ring the bell all.the.damn.time. because she loves being outside. It makes it a lot easier now that we basically let her go out whenever she wants. Most of the time she just wants to run around.

[sofamonkey]

Also, treats and praise for going outside. She’ll make the connection soon!

[namasteak]

We got Penny at 4 months old and it took a couple of months for her to be fully house trained. Even then she still peed a little (if she got excited) for another year.

[isabel]

Mar 27, 2024 20:23:55 GMT -5 sofamonkey said:

Also, treats and praise for going outside. She’ll make the connection soon!

Definitely doing this! And trying to make the connection with the word “potty.” She seems to pick up words quickly. I’m taking her out on a leash and telling her to potty before letting her run around the yard. She’s been really good about going in the side yard when we first get out there.

namasteak, thankfully no excited peeing! Good to know it took a couple of months.

[fancynewbeesly]

My 2 year old dachshund is STILL not trained. It completely infuriates me. He will go outside when we take him out, so that is not the issue. He just WILL never give ANY cues that he has to go out---so it is still guess work-and he seems to go out all the time.

[sadie]

Took my border collie a looooong time. Totally infuriating given the perception that bcs are so smart and very trainable.

My cattle dog mix was very reliably trained by 6m old. He also took to his crate much quicker than the bc did, also.

[MrsAxilla]

It takes 3 months at least for a new dog to learn the routines of the household, including when and where to potty. Sounds like this doggo got a late start on some of the basics (5 months is a tad old to not have some house training). Puppies can typically hold it 1 hour for each month old plus one, so she can only hold her bladder about 6 hours. I’d recommend frequent potty breaks with a code word or phrase (we always use “Good boy outside!!! Not sure why - lol!) then praise and treats when she goes. Also crating her when you’re not home or unavailable to supervise (on calls in your home office, for example). Just be consistent and she’ll pick it up soon enough!

[sdlaura]

Our Scottish Terrier puppy just turned 4 months. We got her at 8 weeks. She is pretty well housetrained and rarely has accidents on our first level, where she spends most of her time, but isn’t yet fully reliable on our second level. I’m looking forward to her being more reliable so she can hang out when I WFH upstairs.

Previously I adopted a year old dog and she was house trained within a week. She was a lab/border collie mix.

[deadwing]

It's going to vary based on the dog. At 5 months, I'm not surprised that she's having accidents if you get off schedule. With puppies, a good rule of thumb is to take them out immediately after a meal, playtime or nap time. I think your dog is going to be on the small side, right? Smaller dogs have smaller bladders. She'll get there.

[tiki]

Since you have a fenced backyard, would you consider a dog door so she has free access to the "right" place to go?

[Susie]

Our current puppy has been a nightmare with this, he still has (very) occasional accidents at 13m.  He is an excitement pee-er.  He understood housebreaking, but struggled to control it.  

We saw some good improvements around 7-8 months, and again around his neuter at just shy of 11m.

[Leeham Rimes]

Cosmo is just over a year old and he’s just recently become trustworthy in the house. He was “housebroken” at probably 5 months, meaning he didn’t just pee and poo whenever and wherever he wanted but he’d still have an accident randomly once a week for quite some time. That’s pretty normal as far as I’ve seen in my dog sitting experience. There’s a dog I sit that’s almost 2 and will still have an occasional accident if left uncrated for more than a few hours.

[isabel]

Mar 28, 2024 6:36:12 GMT -5 tiki said:

Since you have a fenced backyard, would you consider a dog door so she has free access to the "right" place to go?

We’ve always had dog doors, but there’s no good place to put one in this house that goes out to the yard. Our main level that leads to the backyard is brick exterior. We could do a sliding glass door insert, but those are so drafty. She’s also really small and while she hasn’t tried to escape, I don’t fully trust her with free rein of the backyard without some observation. We still have a couple spots that need to be shored up.

[isabel]

These anecdotes and details are helpful. Thanks you guys!

I know she’ll get there, but it helps to sort of level out my expectations. DH and I haven’t had a puppy since our own childhoods so it’s been awhile.

Also she’s just the best girl. I took her out when she whined at 6:45 and brought her back to bed with me. Even though I know she wanted to play, she snuggled in and snoozed another couple hours with me. Now for coffee and ball in the yard!

[wambam]

She was like 90% there from 6 months to 10 months. Then finally we turned a corner. It was frustrating because her biological brother was solidly trained by 6 months. We were so consistent and it was kind of demoralizing not to see those results for a few more months.

[purplepenguin7]

We got a 5 month old puppy in October and boy was he rough to potty train. I have a much older dog who was so much better at it when we got her around the same age. Our new puppy is about 10 months old and he's finally gotten the hang of it...i think. He's basically not allowed to be unsupervised ever and will still pee or poop in the house if we don't catch him but at least we've gotten past the hourly pee breaks.

[Jalapeñomel]

More pics please!

[isabel]

Mar 28, 2024 12:11:16 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

More pics please!

She’s so sweet and really well behaved. Aside from needing to keep a close eye on her in the house, she’s kinda perfect.

[Jalapeñomel]

She has such dark eyes! So adorable! And I’m glad she’s getting on with your household. 🧡

[bunnies]

Potty bells and potty treats were a big thing! Honestly though, I can't remember how long it took our girl.