Bell and potty question

[heavyjay]

Hi All,
Baloo, our new Border Collie pup is now 17 wks old. We've had him for 2 weeks now. He's very good about doing his business outside when we take him out, but we still have the occasional accident when I miscalculate (like waiting a little too long after he eats or not keeping him outside long enough when I know he has to have a poop ready to come out). Today, he came and sat in front of me and barked, so I took him out and he peed and pooped. Maybe it was just a coincidence because it's the first time he's ever done it, but it also wasn't his normal poop time so maybe he really was telling me he had to go. He might be giving subtle signals at other times that we're just not picking up on, so I was thinking of trying the bell on the doorknob thing and I was wondering if anyone here has tried it lately and what results you've had. I searched on it but didn't find any recent posts. Thanks.

[Herschel]

Hi All,
Baloo, our new Border Collie pup is now 17 wks old. We've had him for 2 weeks now. He's very good about doing his business outside when we take him out, but we still have the occasional accident when I miscalculate (like waiting a little too long after he eats or not keeping him outside long enough when I know he has to have a poop ready to come out). Today, he came and sat in front of me and barked, so I took him out and he peed and pooped. Maybe it was just a coincidence because it's the first time he's ever done it, but it also wasn't his normal poop time so maybe he really was telling me he had to go. He might be giving subtle signals at other times that we're just not picking up on, so I was thinking of trying the bell on the doorknob thing and I was wondering if anyone here has tried it lately and what results you've had. I searched on it but didn't find any recent posts. Thanks.

A couple people on here do that. Just tie some bells to the door and every time you take him out to go to the bathroom, hit the bells with his paw (or with your hand if he's not comfortable with you touching his paws).

Herschel and Nala sit in front of the door (very patiently) if they need to go out. We thought about the bell but we figured it would get annoying after a while.

[heavyjay]

I'd love it if Baloo would at least scratch on the door. Maybe someday.

[dandandat]

If you don’t mind door scratch, you can teach him to do that in place of the bells. Its what my wife and I did when our dog would only give obscure clues that she wanted to go out. All we did was stand on the out side of the door and placed her on the inside. Of course she wanted to be with us so would do the normal dog things to get attention. But it wasn’t until she scratched the door that we would open it. After a few days of that she learned that scratching the door would cause it to open. Over a longer period of time she has gotten to the point where she will wait by the door for it to open and will only scratch when we are ignoring her. Our house is parity open so its easy to see when she has moved over to the back door, but the scratching helps when we are paying attention to something else or in a room where its not easy to see the back door.

[ApacheLAA]

Hi,

We use cow bells on our back doors. Apache knows to touch them/ring them with her nose and then we know to let her out.

We did this from day one, and she was house trained in about 3 weeks.

Good Luck ;)

[EbonyDal]

Yep, cowbells on doors here too! =0) Ebony already is ringing them to go out.

[heavyjay]

Thanks to all for the replies.

[StevePax]

We have a sliding glass door for a back door, so scratching pretty much would make no noise at all. Also, much of the time the door is covered with curtains, so hanging bells wouldn't help, because they'd be covered by curtains all the time. Leo, because he's only 10.5 weeks old, usually just gets taken out by a clock schedule (every 30-45 minutes when he's out of the crate). But when he has told me he wants to go out, he just goes over by the door and sits, staring outside. In the long run, I don't know how hard that will be to always notice, especially if we're not in the room at the time.

[EbonyDal]

You can get the type of bell like that sits on a teacher's desk that they can tap wih their paw to ding it, and set it by the door. I got mine at an office supply place.

[Cattrah]

You can get the type of bell like that sits on a teacher's desk that they can tap wih their paw to ding it, and set it by the door. I got mine at an office supply place.


oh man that's a great idea! *runs out to store*

[StevePax]

oh man that's a great idea! *runs out to store*

You can get the type of bell like that sits on a teacher's desk that they can tap wih their paw to ding it, and set it by the door. I got mine at an office supply place.

Wow, that is a really good idea. I can't believe I didn't think of that! Of course, I'd also then have to train my kids to not ring the bell. Definitely something to think about.