I bought a dog 3 weeks ago and put bells beside the door. I've been training her to tap them when she needs to go but it has not been working. Help?

Question

Good morning, Ed.

    I read your site, and especially your article on crate training. I bought a dog 3 weeks ago - she was a rescue. Overall, I think her training has gone pretty well. She doesn't go to the bathroom in the home, but I believe that's mostly because I've been watching her constantly when she's not in her crate.

    I put bells beside the door, and have been training her to tap them with her nose when she needs to go to the bathroom. She's doing that MOST of the time now. Although, when it has been a couple of hours and she hasn't judged them, I take her out anyway.

    My problem is this. She's been going poop in her crate almost every night for the past 5 days. The crate is small, in that she can hardly stretch out. It JUST fits her. The first night, she had diarrhea from her Parvo vaccination. I figured she simply couldn't hold it. The next night, I took her out in the middle of the night because she still had loose stools. She didn't poop, but she went pee. That morning, I discovered she had pooped in her crate.

    The next night, she didn't have an accident. The following night (two nights ago) she pooped before she went to bed, and I woke in the morning to poop in her crate. Same with this morning.

    I'm feeding her a puppy dry dog food called Organix.

    She is a Pekingese mix. We believe her father was a Jack Russel Terrier. She weighs 6lbs, and she gets fed ? cup of dry in the morning, cup dry in the afternoon, and cup dry in the evening. She also gets a minimal amount of boiled chicken or pork for her training. (I have her in puppy training classes).

    My crate routine truthfully hasn't been anything like your site, and I?m concerned because I may be doing it wrong. I'd love your opinion. Basically, I crate her all night. In the morning first thing I take her out. She usually pees. I bring her back in, feed her, and put down her water. I re-crate her and leave for the gym. I typically come back after an hour and a half, and take her out of her crate, and take her to the bathroom. She usually pees, almost never goes poo. I bring her in and play with her a little, and let her have the run of the living room area which is gated off. After about an hour, I take the gate down to see if she asks me to go out by ringing the bell. Sometimes she does, sometimes she doesn't.

    If she doesn't, I re-crate her, and have my lunch. I then take her out of her crate and feed her lunch. Take her out again afterward, then once again allow her free time. By this time, she sometimes poops, but not always. I allow her a couple of hours of free time, and I take her out, then re-crate her around 3:00 or so for about a half hour to an hour. I then remove her from her crate and take her out again, then feed her about 5:30. She's usually free all evening at this point.

    She doesn't pee in the house or poo, as I said. Just poops in her crate at night.

    Is my routine with her the cause of this? I don't know if she doesn't care to hold it til morning, or if she simply can't. What do you think? Just do you know, Sophie is 4 months old. Thank you so much for your time. I wish I could just hire you to crate train her? but I doubt you offer those services to dogs that aren't your own.

    Have a good day.

    Carrie

Accepted Answer

You need to stay outside with the pup until she poops, and if she doesn’t bring her back in, keep her on leash or in a crate and then take her out again at short intervals until you get success. The key to housetraining dogs is to be super persistent and do not allow a dog an opportunity to make a mistake at first. You want to set up a pattern of using the outdoors as a bathroom. I’m housetraining a puppy that is now almost 12 weeks and I’ve made it my full time job for the last 4 weeks to make sure she doesn’t have the opportunity to make a mistake. This means getting up with her in the night and making sure we stay outside until she goes to the bathroom. She’s now going to the bathroom on a verbal cue which is pretty good for a 12 week old! I really have dedicated a huge amount of time to this, because in my experience investing the time now saves a lot of problems later.

We have a section on the website about house training.

We also have a number of eBooks, which include topics that may help you.

You don’t mention if she has loose stools or if they are normal now. I might recommend switching her to a food without fillers like grain, as that can cause more stool volume and more urgency to eliminate. You may also want to look at changing the feeding schedule you have her on. ¾ of a cup daily plus treats for a 6 pound puppy seems like a lot of food to me. Are you sure she’s not being overfed? If you feed her on a schedule you should notice a pattern of elimination, keep a diary of when she eats, drinks and eliminates if you need to. This will help you see how long after a meal she needs to go.

I wouldn’t be too worried about expecting her to ring a bell, I would be more focused on keeping her clean in the crate.

I’d read the article Ed wrote on The Groundwork to Becoming your Puppy’s Pack Leader. I’d also recommend Your Puppy 8 weeks to 8 Months and Pack Structure for the Family Pet.

We give these videos to all our puppy customers and rarely get questions on how to raise a pup.

This could be your routine, the diet or a combination of things.

I hope this helps.

Cindy Rhodes