Do you need to go out?
really? In the bed?
Picked up the little rascal (Parker) right when he turned 8 weeks. Started using my apartment as his bathroom right when he turned 8 weeks. He is now 5 months, and I have begun to narrow down how not to potty train him.
Here is a list of things that I have done that you should refrain from doing if you ever want your puppy to be potty trained.
- "Just because your puppy can't jump off your bed does not mean that he is not going to pee in it." I would sit on the bed with Parker while I watched TV or played video games and he would nap for most of the time, and I would regularly take him out, but he would just wake up and pee without me noticing.
- "Just because your puppy is not pooping in the house, does not mean that he does not poop in the house." For the first couple of weeks, Parker might pee in the house, but he wouldn't ever poop. I thought he just KNEW he should not do that and was pretty smart....WRONG, he just has to poop less often than he has to pee in general.
- "Just because you took the puppy out 5 minutes ago, does not mean that he is good for the next full episode of Sportscenter." I have taken him out multiple times only to find a wet spot on the carpet 2 minutes later.
- "Feed him human food." I have heard that in some cases, the "herding" breeds are not going to be interested in food when they are young and you almost have to trick them into eating more calories. So I would give him some milk, some meat, other human foods, which he would eat a little of, and then squirt out other end in half an hour. (solution was to sprinkle a small amount of oil on your puppies food, adds some extra calories and wont upset their stomach as long as you do not give them too much.)
- "Let him run around the apartment with the other dogs." Consistently finding puddles of urine on the carpet.
- "The puppy sounds so sad in the kennel that he should definitely come and sleep with us in the bed." This is one of my favorites because it is the most well known don't do as far as potty training your dog, and I fell for it anyways. In my defense, when you get back from the bar at 2am and your girlfriend wants to sleep with the puppy in the bed, me falling asleep is about the only thing that I care about.
