peeing & pooping in yard

Question
Our minature schnauzer (5 yrs. old) will ONLY pee & poop on walks which she LOVES!  We are trying to train her to pee/poop in a certain area of our yard in the morning, first thing.  We are out there for 1/2 hr. Sometimes she will but mostly, she will not.  She just sits & looks at us! I think it abnormal that a dog doesn't have to relieve itself first thing in the morning. How can we train her to go pee/poop in our yard?  We have tried giving her a treat when she does it...but today she didn't go at all until 5:30pm!!!  But if we had taken her on a walk, she would begin w/in 1/2 block!
Thank you for any help you can offer.

Answer
Pat -

I suspect a lot fo the pottying you see on your walks is a function of her marking. Yes, female dogs mark too, and we jokingly call it pee-mail that dogs leave for each other.

I do have a couple of suggestions - One would be to get a friend's dog to potty in your yard in the special spot.  If they could do it once a day for like a week, I bet your dog would start going there too.

Human urine can also serve this purpose sometimes.

Then, if you have her clicker trained, you should click as soon as she squats and then treat.  If not, then just treat her when she does go.

Another important factor is the "value" level of a treat. Just like humans, they get more reenforcement from some things than from others.  Cheese is my major training treat. I give tiny pieces that are about the size of a pencil eraser.

The other thing to know about treating is that dogs get more reenforcement from a number of small treats in a row - one right after another - than they do from one larger treat. It's about frequency, not volume. This means you can do what a trainer friend of mine calls "have a party."  This means you give good praise while feeding like 10 tiny treats one right after another.  This has a very strong influence on a dog.

The other thought that came to mind was the little pee posts they make for male dogs to train them.  It contains pheromones that are supposed to encourage them to potty, and I bet either gender would react. I've never used them, but I know they exist.

http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2751998

I sure hope this gives you some ideas to try.  And I certainly wish you the best for the New York with your girlie.

-Beth