I was wondering if anyone out there has ever raised this kind of dog and if you have could you give me any pointers on house breaking? we are trying the way ED says to house break a dog but we haven't went too many days without at least 2 accidents a day. When he is out of his crate we take him out ever hour if not more but this just don't seem to be working.( he is almost 10 weeks old) If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. Thanks

There have been some good threads on this subject with some good advice. I'll go over some basics with you.

First rule of thumb is patience. This is huge when it comes dealing with a dog. Housetraining is certainly no exception.

Your pup is 10 weeks old. I am going to assume that you have had the puppy for about 2-3 weeks. You need to get the puppy on as much of a consistantly regular schedule as possible. That means his meals should be around the same time each day. You should cut his water between 6pm and 8pm each night, depending upon how early in the morning you awake. A puppy will need to relieve himself quite often at first and especially right after a meal and also right after he wakes from a nap. You need to keep a close eye on him. If you catch him in the act of eliminating inside the house or in the crate you should verbally reprimand him with a firm "No" and immediately take him outside. Only reprimand him if you catch him in the act. If you find an accident after the fact just clean it up and do not correct the pup. He will not know what you are scolding him for.

On the positive end of things, when he does eliminate outside, you need to make him think that the greatest thing in the world has just happened. Praise him and reward him with a treat. After a while he will eliminate and then run over to you looking for his treat. As time goes by, you can phase out the treats and just use praise. Do this by treating all the time, then 2/3 of the time then 1/2 of the time then 1/3 of the time and so on until you are just praising.

It is important the you keep his crate very clean. When he does have an accident, clean it up with a nutralizer like a Natures Miracle or something like it. Do not use amonia. Amonia will encourage him to go in the same spot again. Make sure that the crate is not too big for him, otherwise he may eliminate in one end of the crate and have enough room to sleep in the other.

Lastly, don't be discouraged when accidents happen. Some pups catch on faster than others. You may run into people that tell you that they housebroke their pup in 10 days. While this may be somewhat true, what they are probably not telling you is that their pup still has an accident from time to time. Puppies do not have full adult control over themselves until they are 6-8 months of age. Until then, accidents may happen. Just be consistant and all will work out. I certainly haven't re-invented the wheel here and there are a few other things that can be touched upon as you run into specific problems but for now I've covered the basics.

Thank You for your advice. I have been doing the treat thing and you are right he does come right over to me or he knows he will get it as soon as we come in from the outside. The one good thing we do have going for us is that he does not (knock on Wood)go in his crate and i really hope he never starts that. I'm trying to teach him to ring a bell when he needs to go outside and i think he is finally starting to get the hang of it i just hope he learns to ring it before he goes. I'm trying not to get discouraged but some times it just seems that he will never catch on.
I pick the water up around 7:00 pm since we go to bed around 9:00 and we are working on a schedual. But it isn't alway possible to keep everything going at the same time everyday but we try to stay as close as possible. Again Thank You and if you have any other information for me please let me know.

My advice was very general. As you run into specific bumps in the road, do not hesitate to ask for help. There are plenty of people here that will be happy to help. Also feel free to private email me with any other questions if you want. Welcome aboard and good luck. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />