[AbbyandBrady]

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!

 

[caillou]

Well done for sticking with it - i can imagine how long and frustrating it all is.
Voltaire stands by the door when he wants out and tries to get our attention by staying silent and using his powers of telepathy... :wink:

 

[AbbyandBrady]

Thank you! It is frustrating when we can't give her the freedom she wants bc we have to watch her every move...she will want to run upstairs to their playroom but bc it may not be a good time for me to go up and play or watch her, I can't let her...I have turned their playroom into our 2nd office though so she can be up there more while I do work! (by the way...ironing boards don't make for very sturdy desks!)

 

[tootsie]

Patience is the key! I know it is extremely hard sometimes. I rescued Maddie when she was 16 months old. You would think she would have been potty trained by then. NOPE!! She didn't have a clue. Luckily it really didn't take her that long. Abby will get it. They all do,,,,just some take a little longer than others. Hang in there!  

 

[boxer2crazy]

I AM CRATE TRAINING AND MTRYING TO HOUSE BREAK A 15 WEEK OLD BOXER FEMALE. BOY IT IS HARD..

 

[Deltalongear]

If I could lend some words of advice, cuz of course I suffered the same problem!!  Routine, routine, routine.  I take her out in the morning at the same time (even on weekends, what a drag), every time after she eats, and always before bed (not so much at the exact time every night but you get the idea).  And of course thru out the day on our walks.  So now she just goes to the door and sits or just gives me the look if its been along time since she's been out.   All of this after cleaning up messes for 6 months.  But it sounds like you're on the right track.  Good luck.

 

[puppysmasher]

Here's our routine with Petey, tell me what you think. In the morning when we wake up (6:00) we take him out and he gets a drink, unless he is whining and has to go out at 4:30 or 5:00, in which case we still take him out at 6 to keep the routine going. But tonight we're going to cut his water off a little early so he's not pretending to be a small water truck when we put him to bed at midnight. Oh, and his accomodations are the laundry room with a baby gate. It's a good sized laundry room, but not to big. We trained our bassetts with crates, but we're limited on space. And he still has yet to go in the laundry room, he always tells us if he's in there (yay!!!). Ok, back to his routine, then before I leave to go to work I take him out again at 7:45 (right now we live in an apartment and I'm the maintenance man here, so I check up on him regularly). Even though I check up on all three, they don't get to go out until 12:15 (lunchtime) and then he gets his lunch which is a kinda small amount of food to tide him over until dinner. then at 12:50 I take him out again and then when I return at 5:00 and then we just keep an eye on him.  I bet that cutting his water off a little early will help with the early morning needs. We'll see--Rich

 

[BoxerMom07]

My 14 week does just like cailou said.. waits by the door quietly and using telepthy to let us know, but drinking alot Gus tries real hard not to go in the house and when he has sort of an accident he is starting to feel sorry about what he has done ( looks real sad and licks your face and snuggles while your cleaning up his mess ) I know he is still a baby but it does get frustrating... but I just hope one day we will wake up and he will be house broke.... Just takes a long time.

 

[samsonsmom]

Well done for sticking with it - i can imagine how long and frustrating it all is.
Voltaire stands by the door when he wants out and tries to get our attention by staying silent and using his powers of telepathy... :wink:

Oh, I love that......

It sounds to me that you are making a lot of progress with Abby, so don't get too discouraged...I have found that I have a harder time housebreaking females than males....Like Tootsie said( we have the same situation). We got Angel at 18 mos and she was totally clueless, and i was pulling my hair out...Lol, but slowly it gets better....

Puppysmasher, your routine sounds very good and that's the key really, get a routine set and things go much smoother...I've noticed that boxers are very schedule orientated and they will let you know when they want or need something