he wont go in front of us

Question
my yorkie won't go potty in front of us -- beleive me, he can out-wait us - the longest I'VE lasted was 1 1/2 hours - soon as I turn my back, he goes - we're pad training him - can't praise him if never can catch him - which is extremely rare anyway - had him since he was 10 wks old - is now 24 weeks old - although he's going more often lately in front of us, still a problem - read all kinds of materials, nothing addresses this - can you help?  -- Debie

Answer
While I've never trained a dog to potty on pads, I would do it exactly the same way as though I was housebreaking. I would crate the dog at night and whenever I could not watch it. I would have the pads in a small fenced area, such as in an exercise pen... (the spot where you ultimately want to keep the pads and want the dog to potty).

I would put the dog in the pen on the pads immediately after waking in the morning, after eating, after playing, after napping, and before bedtime. Of course, the dog would be praised to high heaven every time it used the pads.

The dog should not have run of the house until it is using the pads reliably, and then its range should be expanded a little bit at a time.

Eventually, once the dog seems to be using the pads fairly well, I would open up the pen a little bit so that the dog could go in there on its own, but supervised, of course. Ultimately, the pen would be removed.