So for some ungodly reason I decided to get a puppy. Last dog was a breeze to house break. That was 8 years ago… This puppy refuses to potty outside. During the week I can understand accidents as she is a puppy and my schedule has her in the house for 8 hour while I’m at work, but weekends (Friday Saturday and Sunday) she has no excuse! She stays with me out at the barn all day… If I can’t take her with me I take her to my parents house and put her in the fence to play with their dogs, but as soon as we get home, she goes straight to my kitchen and uses the bathroom. She just won’t go outside! How do I fix this? 3 weeks in and I’m losing my mind. Not sure if it matters, she is 4 months old and lab/German Shepard mix… HELP!!!
Eight hours alone with no breaks during the week is what’s killing you here. She’s learned to potty in the house. You HAVE to do something different to get her out more during the day. I’m guessing you restrict her to the kitchen when you’re not home?
I would crate, get home at LEAST once during the day to let her out (twice would be better) and PARTY PARTY PARTY when she goes potty outside. Stay outside as long as you have to to get her to go. And it’s not “toss her out and let her play and assume she’ll go”–because you KNOW that doesn’t work. Take her out, stay with her and praise and treat heavily when she goes.
And I would tether her to you when you are home, so there is no sneaking off and going in the house.
This is a problem you created with your work schedule. Why would you expect the dog to be housebroken on the weekends when she’s not during the week?
Her excuse on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is that she just had four days that erased any progress you’d made the previous weekend. Puppies can’t hold it eight hours. One of the tricks to potty-training is consistency - and not letting them potty in the house. You are - unintentionally, due to her schedule - consistently lettering her potty in the house. She gets home from playing with her friends and pottys in the house because she doesn’t understand that isn’t okay. After all - she does it almost every other day!
You need, in my humble opinion, to figure out a way to break the weekdays into smaller amounts of time within which she can succeed. I’m sorry - I know that isn’t an easy answer - or the one you wanted : (
Is she crated? Does she have unlimited or restricted water intake? Is there anyone who can come by during the day to let her out?
I sincerely hope you are not leaving a 4 month old puppy alone at home for 8 hours with not a single potty break. At that age she should have AT LEAST ONE, and probably more potty breaks in 8 hours. It is totally unfair to the dog to expect her to hold it that long. Get her crate trained, and get yourself/someone home a few times a day to let her out, play with her, and praise/treat like crazy every time she goes outside.
She has restricted water. I feed and water and take out. Same when I get home from work and at night before bed. Obviously if she has been running around ill give her some water. Coming home during the day isn’t an option. Neither is anyone coming over. I never had this problem with my other dog. She isn’t crated. Just restricted to the kitchen. I have a pee pad down and would be tickled pink if she would use that, but she won’t even use that!
This problem won’t go away until someone can come let the dog out during the day. If that’s just not possible, then you’re never going to have a house broken dog. You’re going to have a very difficult time housebreaking her at this point, because she’s learned that when she needs to go potty, she goes in the kitchen.
If there are no other options here, you should consider rehoming the dog. It is exceedingly unfair to expect a puppy to be confined for eight hours, and were I in that situation, I would never even consider having a puppy.
[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;6951937]
Coming home during the day isn’t an option. Neither is anyone coming over. [/QUOTE]
Then you have no business having a puppy. Seriously. Do the poor thing a favor and rehome.
There is nothing wrong with working full time and having pets (I work more than full time and have a dog), but when they are young, you have to be able to make allowances. It is absolutely, ridiculously unreasonable to expect a puppy to be potty trained when it is home alone for 8 hours a day.
Anyone want to know the number one reason dogs get turned into the shelter I work for? Unreasonable expectations by their owners who think dogs should KNOW whatever it is they want them too without bothering to take the time and energy to teach them what it is they should know.
Housebreaking can NOT occur if there isn’t a consistent schedule 7 days a week that includes taking the 4 month old puppy out at least twice during the day. My 7 month old puppy still needs a midday potty break. I too work 8 to 9 hour days and I make concessions to make sure that dog gets out.
If you can’t get someone there to walk the puppy mid day, find her a home now while she is still cute and puppy-ish. It will be much easier than when you get fed up with your 9 month old, unhousetrained, mixed breed dog who is now not only peeing in the house, but is chewing your cabinets, the linoleum, and your baseboards. Then she’ll end up in my shelter, where we get to spend the time and money to train your dog like she should have been in the first place before we find her a new home.
I’m sorry if I’m sounding harsh, but I deal with this EVERY DAY at work, and it gets old. Dogs do NOT know what you want just because you want them too. You have to work within their physical and mental limitations and train them to do what you ask. They are amazingly intelligent, willing animals who will turn themselves inside out for us, and we repay them by placing unrealistic expectations on them, then dumping them for someone else to deal with when the poor animal can’t keep up with those expectations.
The general rule of thumb is a puppy can “hold it” for one hour per month in age so four hours should be the max at this point. Add me to the list of those who think you are asking a dog to do something it can not physically do and may want to rethink your arrangements.
First my dog won’t end up in a shelter… Second is pee pad training just not an option?
How big of a pee pad do you have? Do you have any idea how much a LARGE dog can urinate at one time? They don’t make pee pads that big. And you can’t train the dog to pee on the pad if you aren’t there to supervise it. If the dog is loose in a kitchen with a pee pad and no supervision, how is it supposed to know it’s supposed to pee on the pad? It doesn’t speak English, it can’t read minds, and it doesn’t just “know” what to do with a pee pad. You pee pad train the same way you housetrain. Confine, provide timely, regular “breaks”, supervise, and praise wise pottying choices. You have stated you can not/will not allow for the dog to have timely, regular breaks, so you are sabotaging yourself.
I can tell you, a lot of people inform me upon bringing me their dog, that they never meant for this to happen.
[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;6952012]
First my dog won’t end up in a shelter… Second is pee pad training just not an option?[/QUOTE]
Why is it impossible to hire a dog walker to let her out every day, or take her to doggy day care? You took on the dog so you need to take responsibility for her. She cannot continue as she is right now.
(a) crate her
(b) have someone let her out at lunch time every day
© keep her on a leash every second that she is not in her crate
(d) make a big deal out of going to the bathroom outside (treats, toy, happy voice)
(e) never punish accidents in the house because ACCIDENTS ARE YOUR FAULT.
Your puppy has no clue what “inside” and “outside” signify so any time that she goes inside she is taking a step backwards in learning that difference and it is your job to help her learn
I’m sorry that you had a puppy who managed to hold it at 16 weeks for 8 hours but that is not normal or healthy.
I also think that offering water to a puppy 2x a day is absolutely absurd. She is not old enough to understand that she needs to drink enough in one sitting to satisfy her thirst for 8 hours and even if she did, then she is expected to hold 8 hours worth of the resulting pee without accident?
Poor baby
[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;6952012]
First my dog won’t end up in a shelter… Second is pee pad training just not an option?[/QUOTE]
Why do you WANT to train the dog to pee inside? Pee pads might be realistic for tiny toys, but they’re generally woefully inadequate for bigger dogs.
You’re in a tough place here, because you’ve taught your dog to pee in the kitchen. You’re going to have to make some significant changes and work very hard at this point to get her housebroken.
I’d look harder for someone to come once–twice would be better–and let her out during the day.
“Unbearable” “No excuse” “3 weeks in” “she won’t even use that (the pee pad)!”
It’s a freaking PUPPY! You can’t seriously expect it to potty break itself with an inconsistent schedule where it is physically unable to hold its bladder during most days of the week. She IS, in her mind, pottying where she is supposed to. She pees in the kitchen during the day, so when she’s out playing, she’s holding it in to go pee inside, where she’s ‘supposed’ to go during the week.
Either hire someone to let it out all day, live with a permanently unhousebroken dog, or rehome the puppy and maybe get an already potty trained adult. Furthermore, change the way you think of her. She’s a baby animal who has no idea what she should/shouldn’t do. It’s your job to show her what to do by being fair, consistent, and positive. Not by calling her ‘unbearable!’ after 3 weeks, then griping about the issue YOU created.
Maybe I am crazy but I swear that you posted recently about charging to look at horses for clients. If you are a trainer why can’t you arrange a lunch break or bring the puppy with you and crate it in a tackroom when you are riding?
Not sure where you are located. In Maine, it is still cool enough for this for a bit. Can you put a crate in your car and put her on a regular schedule where she gets out every three to four hours?
Just buy a book on housebreaking puppies, and put it in the pen with her for her to read…you’ll have just as much of a chance of getting her housebroken as you do now.
Seriously…it’s a puppy. they physically can NOT hold their bladder for 8 hrs. And since you let her pee inside most of the week, she isn’t TRAINED. Either invest the time and money in training her, or rehome her.
Not to add insult to injury, but what do you mean by “restricted water”? I would be very careful doing that, especially if you are trying to do it at night and during the day when you are at work.
On pee pads, personally I would not do it. They are teaching her to go to the bathroom inside, which is going to be very hard to undo, even as she gets larger and more able to hold it. Really you are trying to teach her inside vs. outside, and the pee pads are muddling the issue. I know that others have said this, but I think that you are making a big mistake by digging in your heels on the issue of having someone else let her out during the day. If you don’t do something drastic, this is going to be an ongoing issue and it sounds like she will be a big dog. Right now I have to agree that your expectations are unrealistic. She needs to be taken out every 4 hours at least during the day, and kept on a leash when she is in the house. She is a baby. She needs water not just when she is running around playing. I would be careful restricting it at night, and never during the day.
[QUOTE=jetsmom;6952156]
Seriously…it’s a puppy. they physically can NOT hold their bladder for 8 hrs. And since you let her pee inside most of the week, she isn’t TRAINED. Either invest the time and money in training her, or rehome her.[/QUOTE]
She is trained–to pee in the kitchen. Which will make teaching her to pee outside very, very difficult. It’s so much more difficult to retrain a dog that truly thinks okay to go potty inside than to just housebreak them properly from the beginning, but that’s water under the bridge.
I hope the OP is up for the task ahead of her, because it’s not going to be fun 
