Time scales?

Hi everyone,

Have been really enjoying Bella coming to join our family. She is so far behaving as expected and as a newbie to dog ownership I am not yet feeling overwhelmed, it has only been 10 days though so ask me again in a few weeks haha! She is picking up my vibes very well e.g. when she is mouthing or chewing something she shouldn't be is very quick to "leave" it when I make my shoosh sound at her. I use no for accidents in the house which I must say aren't anywhere near as many as I expected. My question is really about when I can expect her to have more bladder/bowel control and how will I know that she understands the concept or peeing/pooing outside is the correct thing to do? At the moment I'm able to notice the signs of needing a wee/poo and am taking her out frequently and then praising her when she does do it but realistically how long can I expect to be doing this until she is old enough to understand the point IYKWIM. She is 9 weeks so still very a baby I know. Also I have been attempting some very basic training/commands like sit...nothing else yet as her attention span is not very long, am I asking too much of her or should I be doing more? Thanks guys x

Just carry on as you are! Keep any training sessions short - just 5 minutes at a time & you'll be surprised at how much she can learn for a treat!

By working with the positives of lots of praise when she gets it right you should be there in no time. 30 minutes after feeding is a good time to take her outside for the big one. I used this method with Ty and only had one or two mishaps in the beginning.

Your lucky as I am learning now girls are much easier than boys and I'm sure Tommy just does it to be a pain sometimes as he will play out in the garden for ages then come in and do a little wee in the house (and sometimes if I've missed it he thinks oh well a number 2 wouldn't hurt as well then , the little grrrrrrrrrr

davemck3834 wrote:Your lucky as I am learning now girls are much easier than boys and I'm sure Tommy just does it to be a pain sometimes as he will play out in the garden for ages then come in and do a little wee in the house (and sometimes if I've missed it he thinks oh well a number 2 wouldn't hurt as well then , the little grrrrrrrrrr

Haha naughty Tommy, Bella can be the same though and I'm sure she knows its wrong. Hey ho we will get through it in time, I have laminate flooring and I can tell you if I had carpet I doubt i could have coped Unfortunately with my 2 kids its hard to have eyes everywhere so thinking it may take longer then I hoped

we will get there as you will . Already identified 1 issue as if he's out in the garden terrorising Tilly then he's way too busy to think about a wee , so we get one when he comes in instead So now we make sure he gets 15 mins outside after , but I think a big mistake we are making as the house is so busy there's not always the time to stand outside to watch him and praise him every single time

Just carry on as you are, sounds like things are going Ok. Just let Bella outside every hour to go pee if needed. You will then, eventually start to see the signs of when she needs to go outside, she will most probably look at the door to be opened. Just after she has been fed, slept or played with are normally the times to watch for her wanting to go outside.

Caley is 13 weeks today and has already greatly improved with her wees and poos. We got her when she was 8 weeks old and she was like a weeing machine, I actually thought something was wrong with her, but the last two weeks she has been holding her wee more and more. We have been lucky though she has only ever done two poos indoors, she hops around wanting to go so it is easy to tell lol..now 9 times out of 10 she asks to go out, its only in the evening when she is tired we might get an odd wee

We have also taught her to sit, stay, paw and lay down and she picked it up very quickly, I am sooooo impressed with how quickly they learn..

I never thought I could fall madly in love with her , she was meant to be my OH's dog, but I absolutely adore her and love training with her and taking her for walks, my OH is not happy as she appears to like me more at the moment and the kids moan at me as I spend so much time with her ha ha....Caley doesn't answer back that is why.

kathytake2 wrote:Just carry on as you are, sounds like things are going Ok. Just let Bella outside every hour to go pee if needed. You will then, eventually start to see the signs of when she needs to go outside, she will most probably look at the door to be opened. Just after she has been fed, slept or played with are normally the times to watch for her wanting to go outside.

Agreed with this