Potty training

Hi there spongebobs_wife and welcome to myLot!! I hope you will enjoy it here. Also, congratulations on the new addition to your family. I bet she is beautiful!

What you are referring to, in wanting to housebreak your dog, is called crate training. It's actually considered a very effective and humane method. It works on the premise that a dog is not inclined to soil its own area or "den." One of the animal rescue agencies close to where I live is a strong advocate for crate training and they ask on their guardian application form if you will be using this practice.

Here are some links to some websites that might be of interest to you:

http://www.pets.ca/articles/article-cratetrain.htm
http://cfhs.ca/athome/housebreaking_your_new_puppy/

Also, this one is just about providing a crate in general for your dog, not just for the purpose of housebreaking:

http://www.inch.com/~dogs/cratetraining.html

Good luck with your mini dobie:) I hope she has a long, happy lifetime with you!

We got a 6 week old Shih Tzu puppy a couple of weeks ago and started how we meant to go on in terms of housetraining. For the first 3 or 4 days of training We took her out once every hour or so, especially after every nap, first thing in the morning and late at night plus about 20 minutes to half an hour after every meal. Pretty soon she realised what she had to do outside and after the first few days she sort of got in a routine and we could tell more when she needed out. We have a crate that she sleeps in at night which also helps the training through the night.

It has definitely paid off as she is practically trained and has only had a couple of accidents in the last couple of weeks. The first few days are tough and you are in and out of the house, but it's worth it and does get easier.

Best of luck with it and let me know how you get on.

it depends on the dog yours is a year which is alittle more difficult,and if you are gone alot makes a difference what i did with mine is after she ate about 20 min. i would take her out and stay out for about 10 min if she didnt do anythin i would take her out in another 10 i had her fixed which i noticed that if you dont take her when she needs to go you take her out or she will pee of course my dont like being in rain snow so she gets done quik

Crate-training should help if she is not used to peeing where she sleeps. Most dogs don't, but if she ever was in a place (like a puppymill or similar) where she had no other choice crate training isn't going to work.

In either case, whenever you are not keeping your eyes directly at her, she should be crated. Keep her on a leash tethered to you so she has to follow you at all times. You cannot let her get any opportunities to go inside the house. Since she's gotten used to doing that so it will take some time to break her out of the habit, but if she gets no other chances to go anywhere but outside (and when she goes outside praise her with treats, food, toys, whatever she likes best) she will eventually catch on. It will just take time and consistency.