Post by lucymom on Nov 20, 2006 0:03:25 GMT -5
Hi all -
I'm a newbie to the board and a fairly new dog owner - we had one when I was living at home about 15 years ago and I've had cats since then, so Lucy is "my" first dog. I'm sorry for the long post, but I felt I should explain our whole situation so there won't be as much of a need for questions to get a response.
Lucy is a 3-month old Shih Tzu/Maltese we got about a month ago, and I'd been reading up on the breed and about training before we found her. The person we bought her from had her mostly paper trained, so right away when we got her home we started training her outside and I'm hoping we're doing things right.
Lucy is a little stinker, though - she will go potty outside if we take her out (and I'm taking her out all the time - about every two hours, sometimes more in between, and she at the max has had to wait 4 hours if we can't get home to her sooner). I've set alarms in the middle of the night to take her out, even when she's tired, hoping the repetition of the time intervals and the same place each time will teach her where she needs to go and to "tell" us when she has to. But today I took her out 3 times in an hour, waiting 10-15 minutes each time, knowing she would have to go because she ate, and we had to leave for a few hours, and she wouldn't go - then pooped in her kennel before we got back. My stupid question is, do they just "get" it or how does a dog finally understand? I don't remember my parents doing this when we had our family dog and I know it can take months, so I'm not expecting her to know what to do already, but am I doing it right?
Lucy is more often out of her crate than in; she goes in for a few hours at night to sleep in between potty times, and for most of the past month, she's been in for 3 hours max between our coming and going to work - my husband and I have been working opposite shifts to try and make this work.
However, Lucy has had quite a few accidents in her crate - sometimes a couple times a week, even if she's been taken outside and put in her crate for 15 minutes (I've had to put her in there when I've taken a shower and can't watch her). I wait her out - even if she acts like she wants to go inside right away, I'll walk with her a little to see if she'll go potty, and sometimes she actually will. Sometimes if we exercise her for long periods of time, she will go about 6 hours without needing to go potty - so is she mad at us and pooping in her kennel to get back at us or are we just having bad timing?
Lucy gets at least a couple hours of outside time and running a day- our 2 1/2 year old loves to run with her and when we've had really nice days, she will be out running for 3-4 hours minimum. She's loving being outside now since we got her and sometimes will refuse to come back in!
I want to train our puppy the right way and not be constantly on edge, expecting her to have accidents at every sniff of my carpet. Sometimes I'm so paranoid from her few accidents on the floor that I'll take her out every 15 minutes, when she'll squat a little or fake me out. When she poops in her kennel I put her outside when I find her, and clean it out with dog/cat mess cleaner, and don't say anything - my husband yells about it, which I've tried to explain doesn't help, but he hates finding poop all over the crate and on the dog as much as I do. Her kennel is in our kitchen where she has a view of the back yard (away from the sun - she's in a space under a shelf area that the kennel fits in perfectly, and has a bumper pad and kennel cover on and in it) and is nice and dark at night, but she hates being away from us for any period of time and will bark like crazy for about 10 minutes until she finally quiets down. Like I said, we put her in there for sleeping time and when either of us are at work, but I come home during the day so she doesn't have to wait for more than 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
SO - the long and short of it is, are we doing things right or what should we change to have results in the long run? She's a little cutie that I think fits in to our family well - my son adores her and she seems to like having a running partner. I really appreciate anyone's advice and thank you for reading all the way through this!
I'm a newbie to the board and a fairly new dog owner - we had one when I was living at home about 15 years ago and I've had cats since then, so Lucy is "my" first dog. I'm sorry for the long post, but I felt I should explain our whole situation so there won't be as much of a need for questions to get a response.
Lucy is a 3-month old Shih Tzu/Maltese we got about a month ago, and I'd been reading up on the breed and about training before we found her. The person we bought her from had her mostly paper trained, so right away when we got her home we started training her outside and I'm hoping we're doing things right.
Lucy is a little stinker, though - she will go potty outside if we take her out (and I'm taking her out all the time - about every two hours, sometimes more in between, and she at the max has had to wait 4 hours if we can't get home to her sooner). I've set alarms in the middle of the night to take her out, even when she's tired, hoping the repetition of the time intervals and the same place each time will teach her where she needs to go and to "tell" us when she has to. But today I took her out 3 times in an hour, waiting 10-15 minutes each time, knowing she would have to go because she ate, and we had to leave for a few hours, and she wouldn't go - then pooped in her kennel before we got back. My stupid question is, do they just "get" it or how does a dog finally understand? I don't remember my parents doing this when we had our family dog and I know it can take months, so I'm not expecting her to know what to do already, but am I doing it right?
Lucy is more often out of her crate than in; she goes in for a few hours at night to sleep in between potty times, and for most of the past month, she's been in for 3 hours max between our coming and going to work - my husband and I have been working opposite shifts to try and make this work.
However, Lucy has had quite a few accidents in her crate - sometimes a couple times a week, even if she's been taken outside and put in her crate for 15 minutes (I've had to put her in there when I've taken a shower and can't watch her). I wait her out - even if she acts like she wants to go inside right away, I'll walk with her a little to see if she'll go potty, and sometimes she actually will. Sometimes if we exercise her for long periods of time, she will go about 6 hours without needing to go potty - so is she mad at us and pooping in her kennel to get back at us or are we just having bad timing?
Lucy gets at least a couple hours of outside time and running a day- our 2 1/2 year old loves to run with her and when we've had really nice days, she will be out running for 3-4 hours minimum. She's loving being outside now since we got her and sometimes will refuse to come back in!
I want to train our puppy the right way and not be constantly on edge, expecting her to have accidents at every sniff of my carpet. Sometimes I'm so paranoid from her few accidents on the floor that I'll take her out every 15 minutes, when she'll squat a little or fake me out. When she poops in her kennel I put her outside when I find her, and clean it out with dog/cat mess cleaner, and don't say anything - my husband yells about it, which I've tried to explain doesn't help, but he hates finding poop all over the crate and on the dog as much as I do. Her kennel is in our kitchen where she has a view of the back yard (away from the sun - she's in a space under a shelf area that the kennel fits in perfectly, and has a bumper pad and kennel cover on and in it) and is nice and dark at night, but she hates being away from us for any period of time and will bark like crazy for about 10 minutes until she finally quiets down. Like I said, we put her in there for sleeping time and when either of us are at work, but I come home during the day so she doesn't have to wait for more than 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
SO - the long and short of it is, are we doing things right or what should we change to have results in the long run? She's a little cutie that I think fits in to our family well - my son adores her and she seems to like having a running partner. I really appreciate anyone's advice and thank you for reading all the way through this!