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Speaking of housebreaking, and maybe this will encourage puppysmasher, I wanted to share our recent successes...by way of background, I have posted several times about housebreaking issues. We rescued Abby at 5.5 months old and she is now almost 10 months old. Despite being amazingly smart (like all our dogs are :wink: ), housetraining was not going so well. She just was not picking up on it. We sought as much information as we possibly could to help her along and got to the point where there was nothing else we could do but be patient and continue doing what we were already doing.
We are extremely strict about taking her out and basically barricading her in the room with us to keep an eye on her...immediately after going outside, if she hasn't recently drank a lot, we allow her to go to her playroom for a few minutes without supervision. Although she still hasn't learned to give us a signal or ring the bell, it's been dawning on her lately that she can try to get our attention (which she normally has anyways)...if we try to lead her to another room, she will stand there and not move, looking at us slightly crooked until we "get it." Once even my husband was in the kitchen (where the door is that we use for them) and she was following me around...all of a sudden she ran into the kitchen, stood a few feet from the door and stared at my husband. Oh, did we give her praises!!! She did it again the following day! This has been a long road and things are far from perfect, but it seems lately that she has finally decided that going outside gets her praises/treats and going inside only makes mommy and daddy ignore me while they scrub the floor. The former is definitely more fun! This is a huge step. She also seems more willing to wait a few minutes for someone to take her out (she'll pace a bit while she sees us popping our shoes on or rushing to get to the door, like she knows that we are headed out there) rather than just poppin' a squat..maybe she has learned that if she waits, someone WILL take her out.
We have had recent let downs...she learned to "hide" her poop when she goes inside by eating it...we have tried a couple products to stop this but she is not deterred yet. The unfortunate thing is now she is going in her crate bc she knows she doesn't have to deal with it! Maybe we will put the barrier back in her crate for a couple weeks.
But major steps have occurred and we are so proud of her! At 10 months old, this has been a long housebreaking road, but it seems like we have had some definite progress in the past 2 weeks...knock on wood!
We are extremely strict about taking her out and basically barricading her in the room with us to keep an eye on her...immediately after going outside, if she hasn't recently drank a lot, we allow her to go to her playroom for a few minutes without supervision. Although she still hasn't learned to give us a signal or ring the bell, it's been dawning on her lately that she can try to get our attention (which she normally has anyways)...if we try to lead her to another room, she will stand there and not move, looking at us slightly crooked until we "get it." Once even my husband was in the kitchen (where the door is that we use for them) and she was following me around...all of a sudden she ran into the kitchen, stood a few feet from the door and stared at my husband. Oh, did we give her praises!!! She did it again the following day! This has been a long road and things are far from perfect, but it seems lately that she has finally decided that going outside gets her praises/treats and going inside only makes mommy and daddy ignore me while they scrub the floor. The former is definitely more fun! This is a huge step. She also seems more willing to wait a few minutes for someone to take her out (she'll pace a bit while she sees us popping our shoes on or rushing to get to the door, like she knows that we are headed out there) rather than just poppin' a squat..maybe she has learned that if she waits, someone WILL take her out.
We have had recent let downs...she learned to "hide" her poop when she goes inside by eating it...we have tried a couple products to stop this but she is not deterred yet. The unfortunate thing is now she is going in her crate bc she knows she doesn't have to deal with it! Maybe we will put the barrier back in her crate for a couple weeks.
But major steps have occurred and we are so proud of her! At 10 months old, this has been a long housebreaking road, but it seems like we have had some definite progress in the past 2 weeks...knock on wood!
