I write today as the frustrated father of a finicky pooper… Bitsy was doing so well, and then I had a lot of friends over for Thanksgiving and now she’s completely forgotten all of her house breaking… She’s gone inside since Thursday… What do I do???
I found several articles on how to house break a puppy, but they all talk about small bladders, etc. I did learn that putting her nose in it is not good… thanks a lot Dad…
I know that Bitsy CAN hold it, she’s just NOT holding it… And before I get messages about her being sick, she’s not sick. All of her “business” is normal.
I went through this once with a foster dog but I just couldn’t handle it, so I gave her to someone at the rescue who is still struggling to have her 100% housebroken… Suggestions??? Please someone tell me that this is just a phase!
I’ve gone through so many rolls of papertowels…
Pawsitively Dog Stuff by Brad Nierenberg 
So she’s an adult, right? (sorry new to your blog 🙂 )
Is there a specific time when she has accidents (eg. overnight, morning, after playing etc)? Predicting when she needs to go can be helpful in whisking her outside, so if she usually has an accident after drinking take her out after every slurp. Some dogs are pretty obvious before going to the loo and will sniff in circles etc, so watch her closely!
The best and quickest way to teach house training (and you’re probably already doing this, in which case I apologise 😀 ) is to go outside with the dog and keep a close eye on them. Watch as they do their business and, just as they are finishing (so you don’t interrupt them) tell her how good she is and offer exuberant praise with a high value reward. For my dogs this is a small piece of cheese, ham or a blob of peanut butter etc.
Then, once she seems to be going outside fairly reliably, you can start adding your cue as she’s finishing her business…such as “go potty”, “toilet” etc. The idea is that eventually, once she understands those words mean to go to the toilet, you can simply tell her to “go potty” and she will. You can also fade the reward when you’re sure she ‘gets it’ by using lower value treats, offering food rewards sporadically etc. My adult dogs don’t need rewards for peeing outside now, but our 5 months old puppy is at the point where he still gets the odd treat.
Oh, also make sure you’re using a special pet cleaner to clean up accidents – I think they’re called enzyme cleaners? Some dogs smell their previous accidents and are tempted to go there again and again.
Someone also told me this really cool idea once (well I thought so!) where you put one penny in a jar every time the dog goes to the toilet outside, and when they have an accident indoors you take three pennies out. When you have 100 pennies in the jar you can consider that dog completely house trained!
Good luck, you’ll get there and Bitsy is adorable 😀
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Thanks for the tips @scarlybob — I hadn’t thought about the “high value” treats! I just discovered she LOVES these awful smelling liver bites. I think I’ll try that when we go out. She’s been a little bit better in the past few days. The house has been pretty calm though too. I had been using lysol to clean up the messes… I’m going to head to Petsmart today to see if they have any of that enzyme cleaner. Thanks again for the words of advice!
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Hahaha my dogs always prefer the revolting smelling treats…they have jerky as a treat now and then, when we buy it in we have to open the window to empty the packet into the dogs treat tin because it STINKS!
She’ll get there with your love and patience. Our Staffy pup was a bit of a nightmare to house train but she’s wonderful now, and although our current pup only had a few accidents indoors it was a learning curve as we’d never had such a small dog before…he was so tiny he needed to pee every half hour during the day! 🙂
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