Struggling with housebreaking...

Hello everyone!

I'm new to this wonderful forum, and would appreciate any advice you could give me for housebreaking my new puppy.

We adopted Kiko, a 13 week old black lab mix, from the pound 3 weeks ago. Mostly housebreaking has been going well - we keep Kiko puppygated in the kitchen where he can clearly see us in the living room, take him out frequently, always after eating, sleeping and playing, never punish him for mistakes and praise him profusely when he goes outside. He is sleeping through the night and whines in the morning when he needs to go. We've not had any mistakes in his kitchen area for over 2 weeks

The problem is that he doesn't seem to understand that he can't go in other areas of the apartment or of our apartment building, even though we watch him closely, scoop him up and take him out as soon as he starts to go. Nor will he whine to let us know he needs to go during the day, although he does this at night... :? Do we have this problem because we live on the 3rd floor and he doesn't understand what "outside" is? We do neutralize any odor with Nature's Miracle, but he still thinks its fine to pee on the carpet...

Any advice you have would be sooooo appreciated! Thanks!

 

Welcome to the forum! Awwwww! The not so wonderful part of puppyhood the dreaded potty training. It sounds as if you are doing everything right as far as taking him out enough some puppies just take longer then others to catch on. I would like to suggest crate training 99% of the time crate training proves to be a successful method in potty training especially for night time accidents. It's important however not to get a crate that is to large for the puppy because the larger the crate the stronger the temptation to potty in it. Crate training is great for a lot of reasons mainly though it keeps your puppy safe while sleeping or away from home. My dogs look at their crates as their own personal space and would probably be lost without them as would I. Good Luck with the furbaby and post pictures if you have any!

 

Sounds like you're doing everything perfectly. I would continue doing just as you are doing but when allowing her access to other rooms start with one room and at a time. Keep your eyes glued to her and do exactly what you did when you began training her in the kitchen...she will catch on.
Teaching her to "speak"at the door before bringing her outside might help her learn to give you a signal when she needs to go outside. Good luck.

 

Thanks!

Thanks so much for the advice - we are working on crate training, slowly building up the time that Kiko spends in there (up to 20 min now!), although he will voluntarily sleep in his crate for naps. As for his accidents, we'll just be patient and keep doing what we're doing.

I'd love to try training him to "speak" (he already knows sit, down, shake and stay)! Any tips on how to do this?

As for photos, I'll upload some as soon as I figure out how to!!! :lol:

 

i think a crate sounds great for this, too.
i'd like to add that it may be until age 6 months before he really gets the idea. often it takes puppies a long time for it too "click."
i don't know how to teach speak. my lab very rarely barks, so i just can't do it! :lol:
i think you're doing all the right things, too.

 

One way to teach speak is to use clicker training. First, condition him to the clicker - click, treat, click, treat, click, treat. The treat must follow IMMEDIATELY after the click. Once he gets the idea that every time he hears the click he gets a treat, you can move on to teaching something. (You follow this rule forever in clicker training - if you click, you treat. Every time.)

One way to teach speak is to wait for him to bark, then click and treat. You have to have the clicker and treats on you at all times for this to work. Once he figures out that every time he barks he gets clicked, start randomizing it - meaning only click and treat some of the time, but make sure you vary the schedule. So maybe, skip clicking and treating one time, then click and treat the next two, then skip one or two, then reward the next four, skip one, reward 2, skip 2 - you get the idea. It needs to be unpredictable.

Finally, start saying the word "speak" right before he does it. Soon you will be able to give the command first and he will follow with the behavior. At that point, I would definitely quit rewarding for random barks - ONLY click and treat when he responds to the command. Then put those rewards on an intermittent schedule as well and you are done!

I have never actually done this with "speak", but that's the way you train any behavior with the clicker.

 

Update...

Just wanted to thank you all for your advice once more and to give you a quick update on Kiko's progress... he's not had any accidents in our apartment for more than a week and he really seems to have the idea that he's not to go on the carpet. We're such proud parents! :lol: Also, he's actually younger than the vet originally thought (just turning 14 weeks), so we may have been expecting too much of the little thing.

I do have another question, but it's unrelated to I'll start a new thread. Thanks!