Encouraging a dog to "ask" to be let out.

[Dizzy]

How can we encourage Fred to let us know when he needs to go out?

He will sometimes, and other times.... Just pees. We are letting him out all the time to combat it. But he can literally pee for England, and can go again mins after he's been out.

The only thing that's actually making a difference is restricting his water intake during the day, or he will drink like a fish, and pee like a horse.

To add, he will cry to go out if he is in a crate. But not with 100% accuracy, and we have had to wash his bedding quite often. It's so hit and miss.

 

[Barbara!]

This probably sounds horrible, but when were training Chevelle, we got bells to hang on the door. And EVERY TIME we would go out, would push her face against them to make them ring. Eventually she started doing it on her own. Lol. This is before I really knew anything about dog training, but it worked because she associated the bells with us opening the door to outside.

 

[Lyzelle]

We train with bells on the doors, too, but it's more of a target. Bell rings, you go potty. Most dogs pick it up pretty quick. We started doing it with Macie, and that was nearly 9 years ago now. It started with her because she would just stand and stare at the door...for...ever. And if you weren't on that side of the house, you'd never know.

Every dog sans Zander(because he's vocal) knew how to ring the bell to go outside. Once you establish it with one dog, all the others follow and pick it up quickly.

 

[Dizzy]

Hmm... It's worth a try, but our house is lots of little rooms, so we'd need a bell in every one!

Bodhi whined very early on as a puppy when she wanted to go - she's very clean. Boys smell. Literally... he pees on his own feet most of the time

 

[mollygirl1975]

You don't need a bell in every room, just by the door that you let him outside to go potty. I bell trained my pittie pup when she was 6 months old. She was consistent with ringing the bell after a couple of weeks. One thing that was a big motivator for her not only to ring the bell, but to potty outside was I would give her a squirt of that EZ cheese stuff that is made for dogs every time she rang the bell and every time she went potty outside. I went outside with her all the time so she could instantly get her reward for going potty. If you do decide to bell train your dog, make sure that the bell that you get is big enough that he can't swallow it, and loud enough that when he does ring it you can hear it from any room. We use a big Christmas bell that is hung by strong fishing line at nose level for my dog. Here is the article that I went by to bell train. http://www.ehow.com/facts_4796617_potty-training-dogs-bell.html Hope this helps.

 

[CaliTerp07]

Regarding the bell thing, make sure that if you do that it's a leashed/restricted time for potty only. Otherwise the bell can easily become "I want to go outside and playyyyyyyyyy!"

If you don't think you'd hear dangling bells, could you put a doorbell on the floor that he'd step on, so you'd hear it in ever room?

 

[Dizzy]

Yeah, I can't describe the inside of this house, but it's an 18th century cottage, and the walls are about a metre thick slate..... the door he goes OUT to the outside world is through 4 other doors alone from the front room. And various doors will be open or closed depending on the temperature outside

The door bell idea is a good one!

Unless he can associate ringing a bell with pottying, REGARDLESS of where the bell is placed? Then we could just move it between rooms.

 

[CaliTerp07]

Unless he can associate ringing a bell with pottying, REGARDLESS of where the bell is placed? Then we could just move it between rooms.

I'm sure he could, but do you really want to have to remember to bring the bells with you? It would probably be easier to have multiple sets throughout the house.

 

[StephyMei1112]

Katalin is pretty good about making it known that she needs to go. She'll sort of hang around the door/talk abit. She's got good bladder control though and can hold it for unbelievable amounts of time - she's more insistent about going out to be sick though. She paced around and barked in her ex pen one night when alone home with my dad - she never usually does anything in her ex pen so my dad didn't know what was up; yellow puke covered everything about 5 minutes later. The bells thing sound like a good idea though....

 

[Gypsydals]

We used the bells on the door we wanted Ivan to go out. Now he touches the door knob with his nose. If you miss him at the back door he will run to the front. Touch the front door knob and run to the back door.

I think we started out with the bells on the front door (cause he was too little to make it out back), then we moved the bells to the baby gate in the living room. And once he got old enough that he could be trusted with out the baby gate, we moved them to the back door.

 

[yoko]

For yoshi we said do you want to go out? Every time we let her out. She will come and get out attention now and we can ask her. So... I mean she isn't telling us but we can ask her now and know.

 

[Dizzy]

I think I have just taken it for granted that Bodhi is so good! Little smart arse

 

[Renee750il]

As soon as Tallulah realized doing her business outside got her a cookie she got really good at letting me know she wanted out. Different dogs have different ways -- Kharma whacks me with her paw and yaws at me, Bimmer prances and yodels, and Tallulah pokes me with her nose and then puts her chin on my leg and looks at me until I ask her if she has to go out -- and then she jumps up and kisses me on the mouth , which is a lot handier than having to listen for bells in an old house!

The magic was putting together the cause and effect -- potty outside = cookie. Of course, that means she expects me to go watch her pee

I'd honestly forgotten how frustrating house training could be, since neither Bear, Bimmer nor any of the Filas had to be taught.

 

[misfitz]

If sounds are a problem in an old house, what about a bringsel? They teach it to search dogs sometimes as an alert - it's just a thing that hangs on the collar, and the dog takes it in his mouth when he finds whatever he's searching for and brings it to the handler.

Since he's a retriever, maybe he'd get the idea of bringing you a specific object (a roll of poo bags? LOL) when he needs to go out.

 

[Dizzy]

Good ideas! We had a little success today (i think). He whined at least once to be let out... I'm basically shoving him out the door whenever he makes a peep at the moment lol

 

[yoko]

I realized mine is kind of hard to describe on how Yoshi 'answers' me.

I have some vid of it. *It's cell phone vid and they are only about 3-4 seconds so it's not going to be too taxing on anyone's computer*

This is her Yes answer:

http://youtu.be/oIXqH3IwN6E

This is her No answer:

http://youtu.be/4KIxo9Jr10E

 

[Barbara!]

Lol I love how Yoshi's yes is just leaving. Haha. Mine do that, too.

 

[yoko]

Lol I love how Yoshi's yes is just leaving. Haha. Mine do that, too.

LOL

She has to jump and run like she did there. Sometimes she'll try to fake you out by just getting up and kind of wandering to the door. You need to wait for the super excited sprint to know she really has to go.

 

[Lyzelle]

Zander does that too. He gets the zoomies when he has to go. If I don't move fast enough, he'll go back and forth...like, I've obviously forgotten where the door is and he has to show me.

With tons of yelling. So. Much. Yelling.

 

[Kyllobernese]

My dogs are like Yoko's. They don't really ask to go out, I ask them. If they just sit and look at me, they don't have to go, if they race to the door, out they go. Kiska is the only one who barks to go out but she has to be really desperate as she seems to hold it forever so seldom has to bark.