Hi there! I am SUPER new at this. So i will post a few things on here I need some general adivce:

I have a shepherd mix that is about 11-12 weeks old. She is real smart and already sits, lays down, and walks by side on command (with a 20ft lead dragging, but she is always by my side). I want to eventually train her with Bite training and scent training, but i am fairly new at this and i am not sure at what age is a good time to start. Any one have any advice for me?

If you have any ideas of more things i can train her on now, that would be great! Because she is so young, i dont want to push the training as well.

She seems to understand that i am the pack leader, but sometimes when she is really excited she barks and jumps and stops listening. Typical puppy. I walk away and ignore her until she calms down. But she sits before i go out the door, and before i go in, and doesnt walk in front of me going down the stairs. She is a biter now, and i try to redirect her to her toys so i can keep her drive. I clicker train her on a daily basis. I am working on her understanding that if she needs to go out to go potty, she pushes her nose onto a string of bells at the door, i am having a hard time getting her to understand she cannot go potty in the house. We have a 3 year old Boston Terrier as well. In the begining we let them play, but the more i read up i realized that they were trying to find their place in the pack, so now we keep her on an 'umbilical cord' to me when i go around the house. It is helping a lot so far. She is never playing with our other dog (thats when the accidents and fighting happens). During the day while we are at work, we have no choice but to keep both of them in a spare room with a baby gate. Being as the puppy cant hold her bladder, she pees. THere is no way for either of us to go home on lunch to take them out. Or anyone available to do it. So that is a fun headache We can crate the Boston while we are gone, but the puppy starts crying, and according to neighbors, cries all day and doesnt give up. So we resorted to them being out together since we cannot crate her for 8+ hours. Lots of carpet cleaning... We usually leave 2 toys with them, but no kongs because they fight over them.

I think that is it, so if you have advice on anything above, please let me know! THanks a BUNCH!!!

First things first.

You need someone to let the puppy out midday.

Also, are you saying that the two dogs are loose together all day?

"So we resorted to them being out together since we cannot crate her for 8+ hours. Lots of carpet cleaning..."


P.S. Welcome to the board.

Your problems with potty training are not going to be resolved if the puppy is forced to go indoors every day, which is the case.

What was your initial plan for getting the puppy outside regularly for potty?

Also, have you considered getting a crate for the pup instead of letting her have an entire room? Welcome, by the way!

Yes, they are loose together all day. When we are home, we constantly take her outside. She is fairly good in the house when we are there, it is our fault if she goes in front of us. We tried the training pads, and she just shred those up. My husband had a dog in the past that they trained to go on the pads, and that was what they did when they were gone. So that was our initial plan, obviously, now that i had really read up, that was not the right idea. Unfortunatly, there really is no one to take the dogs out for us while we are away. I will definatly look into options, we are in a 3rd floor apartment building, that makes things really tough They seem to do fine when we are away in the room together. We have filmed seversal days and they really keep to themselves, each with their own toy. When we are home they go crazy trying to play, which is nipped in the butt now. THe more i read up, the more frustrated I am because we really dont have many options!

I think that your first job is to get relief for the puppy (for both) midday.

Training to go on pee pads is training to go indoors. The longer it goes on, the more the pup accepts it as "the way it's supposed to be."

I don't know where in the bay area that you might be, but I do know that there is a neverending amount of people who are dog walkers here. I am sure you can find one of them that can help you out and offer reasonable prices for their services. And by this, dog walkers don't have to walk the dog. They do just bathroom breaks as well.

That is good to know, i can look into dog walkers. I just get nervous about giving them a key to our apartment. Hard not worry about that I will definatly be looking into getting someone there to help out. As for a crate for the puppy. I do have one for her, but leaving her in there for 8+ hours at the moment doesnt seem reasonable. She cant hold anything, so she will just deficate all over herself. I do understand she needs minimal room to learn to be potty trained.

 Quote: Lamarr Couttien

I don't know where in the bay area that you might be, but I do know that there is a neverending amount of people who are dog walkers here. I am sure you can find one of them that can help you out and offer reasonable prices for their services. And by this, dog walkers don't have to walk the dog. They do just bathroom breaks as well.

Oh, good catch! I didn't even notice the geo area!

Whether it's the SF Bay or Monterey Bay, you are so right. Dog-walkers and dog-feeders abound!

 Quote: michelle musto

That is good to know, i can look into dog walkers. I just get nervous about giving them a key to our apartment. Hard not worry about that I will definatly be looking into getting someone there to help out. As for a crate for the puppy. I do have one for her, but leaving her in there for 8+ hours at the moment doesnt seem reasonable. She cant hold anything, so she will just deficate all over herself. I do understand she needs minimal room to learn to be potty trained.

Bonded dog-walkers also abound. You'll see.

She needs relief first. Nothing else as far as potty work is going to "take" until she has a reliable schedule with lots of trips out.

The pooping can be logged and then modified if need be with mealtime changes.