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potty training a 2 year old dog
I adopted a shi tzu back in june and shes still not housebroken and she doesnt let me know when to go out most of the time. what can i do?
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I was a sentry dog handler in the Army and then attended the Mandelyn Kennels school for training in Bakersfield, CA. (Before the shooting that took the lives of the owners, Ray Marcois and his wife Diane.)
I ended up working in IT for a living, but the following process has proven effective for our two dogs and those of family members. It's simple, but requires that someone be attentive throughout the day during the time that training is taking place.
It should be noted that this is assuming that there is nothing physically wrong with your dog such as sickness or a "plumbing" issue that prevents her from successful housebreaking.
- A crate that is large enough to allow her free movement will be required, or an enclosure of some sort that will be able to keep her confined to a space that allows comfortable movement - the ability to easily turn around and stand, and food and water bowls, but not much more.
Make sure that she's comfortable with a pet bed, or soft blankets and has a toy(s). A radio softly playing nearby is nice, if possible. (Nothing crazy, you want soothing music for this.)
- She'll be in the crate/enclosure all the time until training has been completed.
- At two years old, her internals are fully developed, so you should be able to start with every 2 hours. NIGHT time will be addressed a bit later in this...
You should be able to increase the time, but you'll want to keep it around the 2 hour mark to increase the interaction, which will help expedite the training.
- Every 2 hours, let her out of the crate and walk her to the door, sticking with a key phrase. We always used "out." For example, "Annie, do you want to go OUT? Annie is going OUT.'
Pause at the door to get her excited about going out. Be kind of nutty about it; 'Annie, want to go OUT!!! Yeah, let's go OUT!!
You get the idea. You want to get her excited about getting to the door and getting out. The more she wants to get out there, the more she'll be frustrated at your slowness to open the door and will bark, scratch or both.
When the dog is actually outside and starts to bathroom, make sure to proclaim, over and over throughout, that 'ANNIE is OUT, good girl is OUT.'
- When she's done, LOTS of praise, a little play time, vigorous petting, whatever your dog enjoys most.
- Once that's done, back into the crate to be repeated throughout the day.
- At least 3 hours before bedtime, remove food and water. At bedtime, not too much before, make sure to go OUT again, following the same "Annie is OUT' chant. (Grin)
- Once all of that is done, into the crate for the night.
- Get an early start and let her out of the crate to go OUT. Especially at first, as she's not used to exercising control. This is not a good time to sleep in!
Our Golden Retriever was trained and never had an accident after within 3 days. Our Black Lab mix had to be watched a little more, but was completely trained in about 1 week.
I hope this helps. It can be kind of a pain during the training, but it does go pretty quick and is obviously worth the effort.
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