well guys my now going on 5 month old gsd female is dong great at her training. she is well out of the house training. has not had an accident in i don't know how long.when she needs to go out she goes and sits at the door. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> wonderful.!!
the only thing is this. if i have her out of the crate but i'm not doing anything with her she will go and sit at the door every 20 mins. no exageration. at first i was so happy she was doing this i just let her out every time and she would do her business every time so no complaints. well that's old now. she gets bored and goes to the door. how do i get her out of this? i don't want to un-house train her. i don't want her to think that if she has to go not to go to the door. but i'm not about to put up with this going out every 20 minutes any more. i have found that if i ignore her, or just look at her and not let her out she runs to the patio door and back to the back door a couple of times then she settles down and gets her toy or goes and lays down. should i keep with this? i can tell when she does have to go when i do this because if i keep ignoring her she will keep running back and forth and do her puppy dance. i just want her to know that she can not go to that door every time she gets bored or i will have to keep her crated for a lot of the time incase i misread her and she ends up having an accident in the house.

one more question is this. with giving all of this back ground with her putty use, she does seem to be totally house trained unless of course there is a true accident , like i don't see her at the door or something like that which, like i said has not happened in a very l;ong time. she will be 5 months on the 13th of May. she is still crated at night just incase she has to go and we are sleeping, untill she is how old should she be totally crated at night? is it most likely that if she is not crated at night and she has to go she will just go in the house? please give feed back anyone who can. and i'm so sorry for the book you have to read.

Well this is good to hear! Keep up the good training. As to your other question, I also had this problem with going to the door all the time. I solved it by putting him on leash and taking him out back, if he went pee right away great, right back inside after, if not, right back inside. This let's them know, if you go to the door, I will let you out but not to play. Soon after this training he will only go to the door when it's potty time.

Crate at night.... that's a tough call there, your going to have to test and see what happens...I started not crating at night at about 4 months with no problems. I would just allow access to kitchen at night with baby gates so if an accident does occur it's on the tile, see how that goes then you can open up the house at night for full roam access.

To crate for the whole night? I would rather not do this. Soon the pup will know that the crate is
her den and safe retreat and will go there by herself but the other rooms have certain regulations. What our guy learned since 3-4 month, that he should sleep either on ground floor or by the stairs on the second floor. But that is it. He now knows that access to other rooms and especially bedrooms is closed for him. On rare occasion he will go to our bedroom to wake us up (usually he starts licking the hand or face) to let him out in the night. Being even small guy he never had it happen in his crate and always tried to alert us and we tried to accompany him on those trips outside. The other benefit of going out for her needs is that you will teach her to do it only in one spot, so you will have a lot less trouble later with your backyard and her knowing what to do in this place.

well the thing is, she does go out and do her business first thing every time. then she either comes back to the door or starts sniffing around, but i usually get back to the door within 1 minute or just stand right there and call her back immediately and she comes running back.

with crating her at night: im comfortable with this because she sleepls the whole night with out having to go out.. but if she is out at night and able to roam around she might have to go out and honestly i would rather my night go by with out having to wake up to let her out to pee. i have a newborn that does that job superbly <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> another thing is if she does not try to wake me up , just stands at the door then gets restless and just relieves herself, i would like to have no accidents and set us back months, she has done so well so far.

I would think it best to continue crating her over night. Not only for housebreaking accidents but also because she is getting in to the teething stage of puppydom. It is best to restrict her activities to approved ones and not give her the chance to learn a wrong behavior, i.e. chewing the bed and sock and shoes, while you are sleeping. Although she has not had any accidents in a while I dont think I would call her housebroken.

As for the door slave thing, she has you trained. My friend had a Pit that did the same thing- it was annoying as hell. If you are sure she has done all of her business then dont let her out- If she stands by the door, and you know she does not have to go, call her back to you, praise her for coming back and re-focus her attention on a toy or a bone, and praise again for her doing something constructive. Then a few hours later let her out again and praise for the doing of the business outside- she will learn. Right now she is training you to do her will. You say you can tell when she "really" has to go, so use your judgement, and make sure you let her out when she "really " has to go.

thanks everyone for yoru prompt advice....
GSDSAR....so i'm officially trained huh <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

i'll take your advice with much thanks and we'll see how this thing goes.

thanks again....Bounette

Bounetteyvette,

Did I read right, did you say you also have a(human) newborn? WOW, I thought I was the only one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I have a 5 1/2 month old daughter and a 4 month old GSD male pup!

Both sleep in my room at night and the pup is in a crate all night sleeping quietly and happily. I only have some whining issues if I get up w/ my newborn and he thinks I'm leaving the room. Then he may whine until he realizes that I'm not going anywhere.

I also have 3 other children, 1 2yr.old female GSD,1 (outside)male mutt, 2 cats(indoor),1 dwarf hamster,my grandma,and also Hubby.

Because I live in a busy household and there may be toys out that could be chewed by a teething pup I will crate the pup overnight for quite a long time, as I did with my female.They both will go in the crate on their own during the day when the door is open.

I also will put the pup in the crate during the day if I am going out for an extended time period. He is fine with this and he just goes to sleep.

good luck with your new family!!! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Good luck to you- I am sure everything will work out fine- at least you caught it early. I have a friend whose Rott trained that way and 5 years later she is still a door slave.

And to both of you with baby humans and baby dogs, make sure you get plenty of sleep(yeah right) I would not want you to be so tired you crate the baby and diaper the dog.

Good luck!!!!

wow, you sure do have a full house hold.. yeah my son will be two months on the 16th of this month(may). then i have 2 young boys. one will be 3 in july. the other will be 5 in june..a soon to be two yr old white shepherd and of course the hubby.... sounds like i'm almost up there with you <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

but anyway the 5 month old puppy is crated all night and she is fine the whole night. she used to scream and whine when she was left by her self but now she will maybe bark 2 times and i tell her quiet and she hushes up. so i figure why mess up a good thing. like the rest of the guys said, she may get into some habits that may not be good.

oh by the way, about the teathing thing, how do you deal with that whole issue? she seems to be doing some whining now when she plays with her toy but i'm not sure if that is what is going on..

i had a Boxer puppy a couple of years ago that i unfortunately had to find another home for and i never noticed her teathing. she was 7 months by the time she left us. is it possible that she went through the teathing thing and i just did not notice? do the teeth actually fall out and new ones come in? wow! ooopppps <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />