Housebreaking help!

[Brassy]

Hi! First time Dog owner here. we just got our little sheltie in February. His name is Louie. He’s 15 weeks old and initially we started with pee mats in the house. He caught on really fast and so far has done great with it. Our house has a weird set up so we thought that would be best until he could manage stairs and the weather got warmer... well we are there now but he will not go outside. He olds it for so long until he can get back to his pee mat. Any help on retraining? It was so simple with the mats cause we were starting from square one... but I’ve tried everything I can think of/read with no luck. Keeping him
Outside, taking breaks and going in briefly, moving mats closer to doors. Would love some help in this.

Thanks so much
Amanda

Hi Amanda-you posted a long time ago so I'm not sure you will even see my question. I was wondering if you eventually transitioned your dog to go potty outside (hopefully)! I'm getting a new puppy next week and like you we have a weird house set up with lots of stairs and using pee pads or potty grass seems so much easier for the time being. Any thoughts? Thanks

 

[Calliesmom]

Hi Amanda-you posted a long time ago so I'm not sure you will even see my question. I was wondering if you eventually transitioned your dog to go potty outside (hopefully)! I'm getting a new puppy next week and like you we have a weird house set up with lots of stairs and using pee pads or potty grass seems so much easier for the time being. Any thoughts? Thanks

there are some more recent housetraining threads that you might want to look at...................

 

[Caro]

Hi Amanda-you posted a long time ago so I'm not sure you will even see my question. I was wondering if you eventually transitioned your dog to go potty outside (hopefully)! I'm getting a new puppy next week and like you we have a weird house set up with lots of stairs and using pee pads or potty grass seems so much easier for the time being. Any thoughts? Thanks

Hi Brassy. You might want to start a new thread. However, I can tell you I have a 4.5mth puppy and also have a difficult set up with outside stairs and a long house with one exit to the backyard through a seperate laundry. On top of that, I had an injury and have trouble walking. The puppy came from the breeder using the potty grass. I put pee pads under the grass so I didn't need to carry it all the time to empty the pee, and then I just transitioned her to the pee pads on top of the indoor toilet (if I put the pee pad flat she doesn't tend to use it), and I put the pieces of peed on fake-grass from the indoor toilet in the backyard and she started by peeing on that grass. Currently she goes outside pretty consistently, as long as she isn't distracted, and as long as I notice she needs to go. She will poop inside on the pads, but I had that issue with previous puppies. I have a pee pad/toilet near the back door so often, if I dont notice her and get her outside in time, she will pee on that pad. She's had a few carpet accidents - when she was too busy playing and just peed where she stood.

Probably some key suggestions, keep a timetable to note when your pup pees and poops, have a pee pad or toilet near the back door, don't let them get distracted when you go outside and be willing to wait the puppy out (or take them out 5min later). Put a used pee pad/fake grass outside with the smell of pee to start transitioning. I carried her outside when I know she will definitely need to pee (Like first thing in the morning) and put her on the toilet grass so she had no choice but to go outside.

And remember most of all, it takes months to get them toilet trained, esp if you don't have a dog door. My girl is still going out every 2 hours although she's just now holding on for a little longer. I don't expect a puppy without access to a dog door to be trained until they are 6mths old, sometimes older. It just takes that long for the bladder/bowel sphincters to develop, and some dogs take longer than others. And then when they hit adolescence they sometimes regress. Puppies are great, but toilet training can be exhausting.