Hello,
Malik is almost 9 months old, and I wonder how long he can really hold it. We usually take him out one more time around 10:30 pm, and he goes out again around 6:30 am. Do you think he could hold it longer than that even?

Also, we have a minimal problem: we have trained him to go into the deeper grass at the end of the yard, and he does great with that. The problem is that he really doesn't like to go unless one of us usually accompanies him - specially when it's dark out. He'll ring his bell to go out, but then will just hang out in the garage until one of us goes with him (he has a dog door). Any suggestions as far as making him independent here?

Thanks for the posts.
Aude

Try getting some urine from another dog...carefully <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. Put it on a cotton ball, rag, etc and place that in the area you want him to go. Although he may be a little young to be concerned about marking, it may get his interest enough to try and mark over it. Also, teach him a command that he can associate with eliminating. Some tell their dogs to "go potty" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. I don't want no wussy potty dogs, so I tell mine to take a $#!+. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

You're not answering my question, I'm afraid. Malik doesn't have a problem going, only he wants to have someone with him.
Any input on Q #1?
Thks.

I think i wouldnt give in. The more times u go out with him the more times hes gonna catch on and wait for someone to come with him. Have u tried putting him in the garage before u take him on the last 10.30 round, and try to coax him thro the dog door so he goes out on his own? Does he ever use the dog door or is he afraid of it?

As far as how long he can hold it, that depends onthe dog. There was a day where I thought my grilfriend was going home and letting the dogs out and she thought I was doing it that my 9 mos. male went almost 12 hours. I wouldnt advise doing that, but he did make it that long. Of course, he peed for almost 5 full minutes when he did get to go. Its the only time Ive asked him to hold it that long. We kennel our dogs mostly during the day so they can go whenever the need arises. As far as making him go outside alone, its going to be hard. I assume that you have been going out with him up unto this point and if that is the case, you have a 7 month old habit that you want to change. Your best option (as I see it) would be to leave him inside and go out with some tasty treats. Anything like raw meat scraps, hotdogs pieces, cheese cubes, whatever, and toss them around in the back yard, all the way by the back fence. Then take him out and wait untill he gets interested in finding the treats before you go back inside. ventually (you only need to tos 5 or 6 pieces a good distance apart from one another) he'll get the idea that he WNATS to go outside and he WANTS to sniff around back there. You just start fazing out the number of treats, add a toy instead once in awhile, etc. untill he is going out and going back there out of habit. Hope this helps.

I actually had this same problem. I inadvertently trained it, as I made a point to go out with him as a puppy because I wanted to make sure he went and to reward him going outside. We then got to the point, that I wanted him to go outside alone and he would wait for me.

What has worked with my boy, is first thing in the morning when he REALLY has to go, I open the door and tell him to 'go potty' when he waited for me, I just didn't go any further than the door. Very shortly he would dash off on his own to go potty and ran right back, and he got his reward then. Took only a few times for him to figure out that I didn't HAVE to be with him. I did have to wean my distance, as initially if I closed the door or moved away from the door he would come right back in without going potty. Now he will go outside on his own independent of whatever I am doing.

If you can set up the situation to 'wait him out', he knows he is supposed to go outside, perhaps start off by you staying in the garage while he goes outside on his own then once he figures out that he CAN potty on his own it will go quickly. My guess is yours is the same as mine, a training issue <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Good luck.

Linda

Ok, that helps a lot, thanks to all of you. We're going to try all suggestions. On another site, I discovered that it's not good to let a dog hold it too long as they could potentially develop an UTI issue. Makes sense since us humans shouldn't hold it, why should they?
For training, I'm sure we'll make him go. In fact, he's already better as in the morning, we can stand at the door, he knows where to go on his own as he's held it all night. But at 10:30 at night, it's different. We'll work on that.

We had a Gun Dog(Yellow Lab) like that and what we did was use his play drive (retrieving a tug) to break that. He wanted one of us with him to potty but retrieved like a maniac. So the more we threw the tug the more he explored and brought it back, since it was potty time he had to stop and go. Gradually over a week he learned it was okay to potty by himself and we actually could stay inside (we watched to make sure he went). I guess you could actually say we built his confidence as well.
Carol

I should also say that it did not affect his retrieve of the birds when hunting or the other decoys when training. I worried about that but since we only did it for a week it seemed to not have an effect on his hunting ability.