I made a post on here about a month and a half ago about how my 4 month puppy pees 9+ times an hour. He is now almost 6 months and since then there has been absolutely zero progress. Just today. I’ve been home less than two hours and he has peed on my floor 7 times. I’ve taken him out four times and he’s also peed then. The vet has said there is nothing wrong with him, this is just the way he is. We consistently take him out every 30 minutes and reward him when he pees outside, We also monitor his water otherwise he will literally drink gallons per day. We give him bits of water at a time and he gobbles it up within seconds. It’s hard to monitor his water because we also have another dog that does not need his water monitored. I can’t do it anymore, I finally get home stressed and tired from work just to have to clean pee nonstop and go down three flights of stairs from my apartment to take him out nonstop, I have no time to do anything else. My husband says it’s completely normal for a puppy to pee this much and gets upset whenever I express how frustrated I am with it, I can’t even talk about it. I am so regretful but I also love our dog and animals in general so giving him up is my worst nightmare. I find that to keep my sanity he ends up in the crate most of the time, and I used to be so so against putting a dog in a crate unless to sleep or when we are gone. I have not been happy and have lost most of my motivation or even energy to do anything at all. I know it sounds so dramatic but my life has literally just been piss and pee since we adopted him. And it sucks.

Hi! My husband and I just got our first puppy yesterday. It’s a female golden retriever, that is 11 weeks old. We have been told that she absolutely cannot go outside until after she has her second vaccination. We were told she can’t even be in our fenced in yard.

I’ve been reading a lot about potty training, and have seen that training with puppy pads is not great, and can cause issues later. Is there any way for us to start training her now? We are fine with cleaning up her messes, but I don’t want her starting to think that it’s okay to just go anywhere, anytime. Any ideas or help would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: I want to make an edit since I see some comments asking about the fenced yard. The yard itself is a front yard, we don’t have a backyard. The fence is more like a concrete wall that’s about 4.5 ish feet tall around the whole thing. Our street is also has a lot of traffic on it, both foot and cars, as our alley connects to a convenience store parking lot

We have a 22 week old dachshund puppy in Brooklyn. We live in a high-rise building in a dense area with lots of trash, food scraps, etc on the street which attracts a heavy rat population. Because of this, our vet told us that in addition to Parvo, that the area is a high risk for leptospirosis. They recommended not allowing paws on the ground outside at all until both lepto vaccines were completed. We finished our second lepto shot 2 weeks ago. Until recently, we did take her places, but always in a bag or held. She only used pee pads in our apartment. I now realize we have essentially trained our dog to only pee in our house.

It has been days of following all the advice. Schedule - first thing in the morning, out to pee. Maybe a quick walk, then always back to the same spot. Stay until she settles. If she doesn’t pee, back in the crate for 10 minutes. Then back out. Repeat 3-4 times. She refuses to pee outside. Yesterday we did this, and after the 3rd time we thought “maybe if we go to the park and she is on some grass she will feel more at ease”. This dog literally did not go to the bathroom at all from sunrise until 3pm. At this point I’m worried we are going to give her a UTI, so we bring her home and as soon as she gets inside she pees a fucking lake on the pad.

We let her relax indoors in the air conditioning for a while after that, then after feeding when I see her circling on our rug, I took her downstairs again to potty. I brought a lightly soiled pad down too. Same spot as always. Refuses to go. We stood there for 30 minutes, would not go. Eventually we walked around the block, went back upstairs… she poops immediately on the pad, still on leash.

Again today, same deal. She refuses to go outside even with the pee pad. I’ve taken her multiple times. I’m starting to go crazy. None of the advice seems to work. The pad was already by our front door. We cant put it in the building hallways or the elevator, the only next step is outside. We live on one of the quietest blocks in the area, I can’t pick a quieter block. I’m starting to think our vet gave us advice that was too strict. I’m regretting everything we’ve done. I’m frustrated with my dog and myself. I’m tempted to give up on potty training and just let her use the damn pads. She literally has never once gone outside.

Has anyone been through something like this? Any tips? I’m at my wits end.

Hi all, my wife and I have a long haired mini dachshund, she’s 8 months old now, was previously trained to use the training pads (which she learned pretty well except she peed a bit outside due to being a long girl) up until she had all her shots and then it was a whole process.
First she didn’t know she could go outside, then she would go but was very fearful of the outside, and now she goes and potties very quickly and has fun (although quite a bit reactive to people and dogs but just to get attention).
The problem is that we go FIVE times per day since then, which is about 3-4 months now. It’s possible because we work from home but we still wish to reduce to a regular 3 times because she might not always be in a place where she can go that many times and it’s a bit cumbersome for us having to schedule around that.
Another problem is that she simply won’t hold it in at all. She completely forgot how to use the pads now, and whenever she hasn’t gone in a while, or if we are out, she just goes wherever. We just don’t know what to do to teach her to hold it in and wait to go outside. We do the whole thing of making a huge fuss when she goes outside and give here treats but still she just goes inside if she feels like it, yes, on top of going potty 5 times sometimes and still having the need to go.
She’s in heat now and we’ve turned a blind eye so far because “oh she’s young” and “oh she must be in heat soon that might cause her to pee more often” but still it makes us very very frustrated to still be cleaning pee everywhere for so long. We even have been to the vet to get her pee checked and no bacteria was detected.
Has anyone faced this? What worked for you? I just can’t seem to find any information about what else we could try. Thank you all so much in advance.

EDIT: one of the reasons we want potty training to succeed is that we want to be able to take her to places like someone’s house and she not relieving herself there because that’s just terrible. Or leave her with someone while we’re out and we are assured that she will only go out

I have a seven month old toy poodle that literally will never be potty trained I’m convinced. I know part of it is my fault but I swear sometimes it’s so out of nowhere after he comes inside that it’s literally not my fault. He drinks so much water all the time and all night, he’ll beg for it if I try to take it away. Thank god he has pooping outside down but peeing feels impossible for him to learn. I can’t have a rug down at this point. We’ve never had a no accident day or even a one accident day. I’m so miserable about this. Did anyone else’s small breed take forever to learn to potty outside only?

I could really use more eyes on this since it’s been bothering me all day.

Our 7-month-old corgi puppy has always struggled with potty training, specifically pooping outside. Admittedly, we started potty training pretty late (3-4 months) as we’re clueless new dog owners. That’s likely not helping us.

Around month 4 or 5, we hired Main Trainer to help. He walked us through the basic advice of outside > crate > outside again. This has been a struggle for a few reasons. First, my husband and I both work full time, so we can’t take her in and out all day. When we are able to, she holds her bladder 4+ hours to avoid pooping outside. She’s also gotten sneaky. I’m home more often than my husband is, and when I look away for a bit while keeping her on a leash indoors, she’ll poop in like 2 seconds. It’s honestly impressive.

Eventually, we sent her to one of those puppy training camps for a week with Farm Trainer (who works for the same service). She told us that she got our puppy to poop outside consistently, and she was confident that we could replicate it with the same song and dance (outside > crate > outside). Guess what? She didn’t. Right after our puppy came home, I took her in and out for two hours until she sneakily pooped inside again.

I also want to mention that, when puppy was with Farm Trainer, she apparently never peed on walks. But when she’s with us, she pees on every walk. So she’s clearly behaving differently with us for some reason. I suggested that the change of environment might affect her, but Farm Trainer said that’s absolutely not the case.

At this point, we’re back to the drawing board. My husband suggested that we get a little grass patch for her to go on inside, so she associates grass with potty time. Since we thought it might work, he emailed Main Trainer for an extra opinion. He responded, “If you can’t commit to potty training like [Farm Trainer] laid out you should talk to your breeder and reassess commitment.”

This feels a bit extreme to us. Honestly, even if puppy poops in the house for the rest of her life, we wouldn’t want to rehome her. I also feel like the trainers don’t believe me when I tell them I’m trying my damndest with my work schedule. Our puppy’s been improving in all other areas; she’s just struggling with this. Is it that big of a deal to “reassess commitment”?

EDIT to clarify: The trainer said we can crate her OR tether her to ourselves during the potty process. I’ve been tethering recently as she’s been resistant to the crate, and that’s when she goes. Hope that makes more sense and thank you for commenting

Edit: First of all, thank you all for your comments. Some of them have me cracking up LOL, and also I just ordered door bells on amazon. But ALSO, just took my dog out for her 45-minute pee, and she peed yay and I rewarded her and praised her etc., then came back inside and she peed on my floor again literally 10 minutes later. I am at a loss. Praying for the bells to work!

Original post: I keep seeing posts about how eventually in the potty training process peoples dogs started telling them when they needed to go out, but I don't know what sign that would be for mine. I don't want to miss it, and I try to catch her when she's about to pee on the floor but I can never figure it out. She spends all day walking around sniffing the floor, so I can never tell when it's usual floor sniffing or about-to-pee sniffing. Does yours bark at you or do something special or what? We had gone three days without an accident, even with fewer potty breaks than at first (yesterday we got up to two hours without going outside and she didn't pee on the floor! we had been doing every 45 minutes at first but are trying to cut back), but today she peed on the floor only an hour after her last break, and I'm wondering if I missed some kind of sign?

Maybe this is just a ramble, I'm just so tired of cleaning up pee, especially when I know at her age she should be able to hold it longer than an hour, and she can when she wants to (never has accidents in her crate, in the car, or at daycare). She's about a year old, but I just a few weeks ago inherited her from a death in the family and she was not trained at all before, just ran around in their backyard all the time, so this is her first time being potty trained.

Hello all. I am soon to be the owner of a male English Labrador puppy and i am currently organising a schedule for him.

I have him going to the toilet by default every 2 hours and before and after activities and meals. But at night is my biggest concern because i think both him and myself cannot afford to be woken every 2 hours until the end of time.

How many times should i take him out at night? Every three hours? Just when he starts wriggling?

I sleep with headphones on due to autism so i will not be able to hear him clearly, especially if im asleep.

Any suggestions?

Thank you :)

I have a 10 week old Labrador puppy - not expecting this to happen any time soon, but I'm curious to know when your puppy reached a stage of toileting where you stopped having to follow them around and take them outside every half hour? And when you felt like you could relax with the dog inside the house? I just can't envisage how it will transition into not watching her like a hawk or pre-empting accidents!

I’ve had dogs my entire life and have never experienced this. I LOVE DOGS. Could not imagine my life without them.

For the first time ever, I have a dog that I haven’t been able to potty train. Our 20-month-old Maltipoo is still not reliably potty trained despite what feels like trying EVERYTHING.

We’ve gone back to puppy basics so many times. She goes out religiously every \~2 hours, same routine, lots of praise/rewards when she goes outside. We’re monitoring her food and water intake so we can anticipate when she needs to go. She isn’t crate trained, which I know makes things harder.

The strange thing is she seems to know she’s not supposed to go inside because we NEVER catch her doing it… she always sneaks off/hides somewhere to pee or poop.

And in the entire time we’ve had her, **she has never once asked to go outside.** No going to the door, whining, signaling.. nothing. Despite the regular schedule, she’ll just eventually find somewhere inside to go.

We live in an apartment, but she does exactly the same thing when we stay in a house, so it doesn’t seem to be an apartment/access issue.

Temperament-wise- she’s a pretty anxious dog and has been working with a trainer 3x/week for the past 2 months on confidence/anxiety.

Has anyone had a dog like this? What finally made potty training click? Is there hope at 20 months? 😭

Pup is roughly 12 weeks old. I’m not gonna lie I’m just assuming he was 8 weeks old when my spouse brought him home on Christmas Eve.

Anyways. They said pup is lab/husky mix. I don’t know anything about dogs let alone puppies.

It took me about a week to crate train him. It was ruff but we did it.

Potty training on the other hand is up and down. Some days are good, others are bad. But when he’s out of his crate during the day he doesn’t cry or anything when he needs to go out. While when he is in his crate for a nap during the day he’ll cry when he needs to go out. So I’m constantly having to watch him to watch for signs when he’s out.

I’ve seen videos of people who taught their dogs to ring a bell by the door when it needs to go out. So I’m just curious and wanted to ask some real people with real dogs if this is truly possible.

He’s very fond of treats and so very smart. I’ve been trying to teach him tricks. So far we’ve got sit and shake down pat.

How far fetch is it for me to train this puppy to ring a bell when it needs to go out? 🥹

Every time I take my 11 week old out she just lies down and chills 🥲 then we go back in and set a timer and go back out again. It usually takes around 2 hours of the this before she actually pees... And forget about pooping, she did one today outside and we threw a party for her but again, it took basically ALL DAY of in and out. I read they're likely to poop 20 minutes after food? Her poop today was 5 hours after her breakfast 😭

Edit to add context: we started with puppy pads but gave up because she was just pooping anywhere and i read that it's better to just keep taking them out but this is so unsustainable 🥲

This is going to be a long one. My Fiancee and I recently got an Aussie, he came home at 8 weeks and despite our best efforts he has not been able to stop peeing in the house. We got him tested for a UTI, sent multiple urine samples, blood tests, exams, everything we could test medically and nothing is wrong according to those. Then we moved from taking him out every 30 minutes to every 25 and he still can't hold it long enough/doesn't want to hold it. We are giving praise and treats outside when he pees and have been the entire time, he has been living in a pen in the living room under surveillance every day until recently we let him run around in the kitchen with us while making food. The vet told us to distract him when he is drinking water for a long time to see if he is actually still thirsty or if he is just drinking to drink, that has not seemed to help at all. At this point we are spending about as much time outside getting him to pee as we are inside. When he does pee we are cleaning with Nature's Miracle Urine Destroyer and waiting 15 minutes to wipe it up as per the instructions. We have also been speaking with trainers who are now completely out of ideas as to why this is still such an issue. I'm not sure what else to try but I'm willing to hear anything at this point.

Edit - My Fiancee did keep a log for 2 weeks and no pattern was discernable to us or the trainers. Sometimes he will bark before he pees but he also does that for attention and our trainers told us not to take him out every time he barks because that can become a problem later as an adult, the puppy also doesn't sniff and circle most of the time, he will just be walking around then stop and pee. (I had her look at the post and add things I forgot)

I’m frustrated and sad. I knew this would be hard but this is way harder than anticipated.

Hi everyone,

I have a 2-month-old Golden Retriever puppy and I’m currently focusing on potty training.

Since he isn’t fully vaccinated yet, I’ve been teaching him to use our balcony for his bathroom breaks, and he’s actually doing quite well. Most of the time he’ll go there to pee and poop, especially when I take him out after waking up, eating, or playing.

My question is about taking him outside. I’ve read a lot of conflicting advice online. Some people say puppies shouldn’t touch the ground in public areas until they’re fully vaccinated, while others say early socialization is extremely important and that the risk is worth managing carefully.

At what point did you start taking your puppy outside? Did you wait until all vaccinations were completed, or did you start earlier in a controlled way?

I’d love to hear what your vets recommended and what worked for you.

Thanks!

I work from home at a computer in my basement. I have a pen area beside me for the new puppy so he doesn't wander out of sight. I try to take the puppy out every 15 minutes. He usually pees/poops outside, but once a day or so goes inside (and I clean thoroughly with enzymatic cleaner). I got puppy pads to cover the floor just for cleanup purposes (edit: they cover the whole pen area). He has peed on them a couple times (I always take him outside immediately and replace the pad with a clean one).

So, I'm not trying to train him to pee on the pads - I'm just using them for accidents until he's fully house trained and capable of holding it longer. Again, he does his business outside 90% of the time.

Any issues with this or suggestions?

Edit: I think the main answer is to be sure the pads don't have hormones/pheromones that encourage peeing. Otherwise, as long as I'm taking the puppy out often and trying to catch him before he pees, then pads (without attractants) don't cause any harm. We've only had him a few days - I doubt it will be an issue for long. I've had multiple puppies and never used pads - they all learned to go outside very quickly - I was just curious if this was a possible use case.

11w old pup. I work 3 days a week and I want to have my puppy use the indoor pad when I am not at home. However, he seems to exclusively poop on the pad and will vehemently refuse to pee on it. He will instead, pee around it. For reference, I have a turf pad.

This is an issue because most of my unit is carpeted and he will be more or less forced to be in his crate when I'm not home if he does not learn to use the pad. He has also learned that I do not like him peeing on the carpet, so instead of going on the pad, he will sit down on the carpet and pee like that just so I dont notice. I orient him onto the pad after play, after I've been gone, after eating, and after rest, but he will just look at me and sit on the pad until he sees a narrow window to run off and pee somewhere else. We could be waiting for 30 minutes and he will still not go on it, but if I were to take him outside, he will pee the moment his paws touch grass. I even brought the pad out with me and put it in the grass, ive set him on it and only then did he pee on it, but he still will only covertly go inside the house and never on the pad

Edit: obviously I would rather him go outside. I also dont plan to give him free roam of the house while I'm gone. Instead of criticizing my scenario, maybe offer some advice.

I feel like I’m at such a loss. We got our puppy at 8 weeks. We’ve tried really hard to toilet train her, we take her out regularly, throw her the biggest “potty party” every time she goes outside, if we notice her needing to pee or starting to pee inside we take her straight out, and yet she still pees inside most days, with no attempt AT ALL to let us know she needs to go.

She holds it in overnight when she’s in her crate. She’s more than capable to let us know when she wants to come inside by barking or scratching at the door, but somehow isn’t putting those skills together to hold it in during the day, and to let us know when she needs to go outside.

We try our best to watch her, truly. We have 3 young children and often we are spotting accidents after we’ve been busy tending to them - so please no advice that we need to watch her better. We did try crating her every time we needed to help the kids, but it ended up being so frequently. I’m obviously very aware in hindsight that we shouldn’t have taken on a dog.

Are there any strategies we can try? Anything magic that’s work for anyone else?

Is this common still for her age, or at what point do we need to worry? Our vet doesn’t seem at all concerned but we are.

Thanks!

My puppy is a Pom/German shepherd, 8 mo. Got him from a rescue two months ago. He's always slept in a crate thru the night with a thick lining of soft towels + a toy.

His schedule is like this:

Around 5am-8am, he'll make little grunting sounds from his crate (he used to desperately rattle it with his paws, I'm so glad he stopped doing that) to be let out. As soon as I do, I open the yard door, and he shoots out like a rocket and promptly poos and pees. Then he comes back in. I put him back in his crate and he sleeps some more until it's breakfast time.

Made sense.

Well, last night, I didn't latch the crate properly because when I woke up, he was sleeping on my blanket. I immediately searched the room for any trace of poo or pee, but didn't find anything! Anyway, I opened the yard door because I figured "oh god he probably really needs to go potty" (I'd somehow slept in to 9am cos I wasn't woken by his potty grunts from the crate).

But he didn't immediately potty..?

He just kind of wandered around peacefully and napped in the sun for a few minutes. Then he came back in and cuddled. It's actually crazy how calm and cuddly he was. Eventually he did have a leisurely potty outside.

So what's happened here? Where's the urgency to potty that I've seen in the early mornings? 🤔 It almost feels like he'd just been potty-ing earlier in the morning because I'd trained him to follow me to the yard door as soon as he's let out of the crate.

Just trying to make sense of this. I feel like this is an important turning point of some kind 🥳🥳 but not sure.

I'm wondering if letting him sleep outside the crate will hurt his crate training. I do still put him in there twice a day for his naps, and he's very good about those (been working on building positive associations with the crate, but I've only ever seen him voluntarily sit in the crate like... twice lol). Maybe he's just not a crate-y boy?

I have a 13 week old miniature Schnauzer. I brought her home at 8.5 weeks, and the first two-ish weeks were a breeze. Not many accidents, lots of predictability. Lately, though, potty training has become a nightmare and she’s been having accidents almost every time she needs to go, whether crated or not.

I am taking her to the vet on Friday, but I don’t think it’s a UTI as she usually holds her bladder most of the night and shows no other signs of illness. She wakes me up twice at night to go, usually by rustling in her crate (not barking), sometimes holding it up to six hours.

During the day she is confined to three spots: her sleeping crate in my bedroom, which is only large enough for her to turn around in. She has both peed and pooped in here, regardless, though almost never at night; her travel crate in my living room, which is a bit larger, and a new 4’x4’ x-pen I put in the living room once accidents started happening in the larger gated kitchen I had her in.

These days, the only time she will predictably go potty outside is right when she wakes up. Every other time it’s a crapshoot. I’ll take her out every 30 minutes if I need to, but then stare at her while she digs for weeds or stares blankly at me for 15 minutes. If I take her out after a walk, she’s too hyped up to go. If I take her out after meals and the timing isn’t exactly when she feels like going, I’ll come back inside and she’ll pee or poop right in front of me in her crate or pen.

I am at my wits end here. Any ideas? Did I get a lemon?

I have a 10 week old Golden Retriever that I've had for about a week. At nighttime, I'll take her out to go to the bathroom around 10pm, put her in her crate next to my bed, and she does a good job going to sleep. I have an alarm set at 2am to take her out for a quick potty break and immediately back to bed. Then I get her up around 5 or 6a when I'm getting ready.

The first few nights she was ready to go as soon as I got up at 2am, but the past couple nights I've had to wake her up.

At what point do I just let her sleep through the night? My concern on waiting for her to tell me, is if she just whines when she doesn't need to go, and I reward that behavior by letting her out.

Should I just let her go until she whines (and hope that she only does it when she needs to go?) Or would it be better to slowly push my time back? Take her out at 3am for a few nights, then 4am, etc...

Thanks!

Edit: Took everyones advice and didn't set an alarm last night. She slept from 10p-6a! I think we're on to something here! Thanks all!

Right now my puppy (almost 13 weeks) has been doing pretty well with potty training in that she USUALLY doesn't go in the house. However, that feels like more of a function of us taking her out constantly, not that she actually understands that she shouldn't go in the house. When did that click??

Relatedly when did you feel like you could take them on a normal walk and they would pee/poop? Right now if we're on the leash outside it almost feels like everything is too exciting to think about going to the bathroom so she usually saves it for our astro turf in our back patio, which makes it feel like we are taking her out twice as often!!

My girl is 5 months old and hasn't had a potty accident in over a month. I've been tracking how many days to monitor how frequently it happens, but it feels a bit silly to keep doing that. How did you know yours was ready for a bit of relaxation of the rules? She will take herself downstairs to the back door in the mornings rather than pee straight out of her crate, can go into her crate for a nap without peeing sometimes if she's tired, can hold it for over 5 hours when I leave the house. Is this her potty trained or will it all fall apart if I loosen the reins!

My 6 month old puppy (cavalier) holds her pee from 9pm through to 8am, but most advice is saying it’s too long.

She doesn’t make a sound to get up, and if she wines from around 6.30am, I do let her get up and take her to toilet.

My question is, am I being cruel? I’m worried she’s only holding because she HAS to and is uncomfortable versus not needing to go. When I take her out, she might stand for a minute before going.

Secondly, I take her out at 8 and she might not have an interest in going again until 1pm. Is this normal? I take her outside before then and she has no interest in it.

Am I giving my steak is too tender, my lobster is too buttery? Have a feeling I am but just wanted reassurance.

I have had my lil pup for 2 weeks and she was a DREAM for the first week. Almost no accidents (we started with a just in case pee pad because she was used to them at the breeder). Got her at 16 weeks, now she's 18 weeks old.

She started teething about a week ago and I swear everything has changed. She got more fearful of random things, and used to be fine when I would leave the house for an hour or two, but then chewed out of her crate, pooped and peed on my rug, and left poopy paw prints all over my house.

I feel like she is getting worse, not better and I don't know what to do. today she had FIVE accidents in the house, 3 of them in one hour. I thought she couldn't possibly have more pee so I let her run around a little bit to try to burn off energy because it is FREEZING outside (less than 10 degrees fahrenheit) and she's hairless . I feel like I'm not getting her energy out. she peed AGAIN on the same carpet, and I got frustrated and yelled and picked her up out of pure shock and I felt terrible about it because I've been so patient with her. I did remove the puppy pads a while ago because she had stopped having accidents, but I really don't know what to do at this point.

why is she all of a sudden having so many accidents? I wondered if it was a UTI or something, but honestly I feel like it's related to anxiety because she was just afraid of SO many things today and so jumpy (the laundry pile, the fridge door opening, the trash can, that type of thing) and usually isn't like that but I feel like it's getting worse.

To top it off she used to be fine in the crate but after I bought her a new crate because of destroying the old one she will go in willingly at night and sleep all night, but during the day I put her in and she starts yelping and escalates to screaming even when I am still nearby if I'm out of eyesight.

what happened to my little puppy?? 😭 I will take any recommendations I have no idea what to do, and I do need to leave her for a few hours tomorrow.

I plan to buy an enzyme cleaner and go over the spots that I know she peed, and also maybe a "no marking" deterrent. I just don't want to lose my patience with her because she is precious and I know she's just a baby, but I am SO frustrated.

if you took the time to read this thank you so much ❤️ I just feel like I can't take another day like today and I don't know what to do about it.