Correct....while housetraining your pup should always be in your view....and when you see him/her sniffing around like it needs to go immediately take outside.

Thanks.

Also anytime your pup has been in crate, immediately take outside, anytime your pup has eaten take outside. After your pup has napped take outside. Basically you must constantly take the dog outside...the point is to try to make sure there are no accidents in the house....young pups need to be taken out every couple of hours. That means ideally that even at night you get up every two hours and take pup out. Lots of work. Which is why I prefer to adopt older dogs.

Thanks. I wish the puppies for service organizations were older when fostered!

If you pick up a pup who is in the middle of a stream, they should stop peeing as you pick them up, then take the dog outside - as soon as you get outside, say your pp command. When you walk your pup in the morning, as your puppy is peeing, give your pup the pp command you choose. Anything will do. Soon enough your pup will associate what you are saying with its actions. You can do this with #2 as well. When the pup gets older, you can actually ask them if they need to go pp outside or make a meadow muffin and they will respond or ignore you. My dog knows the difference between walkies, going out for a pp or a touchdown (dont use this command in a footbal lovers home) for me association is the quickest most effective way to train a pup to do business outside. And when I am in a hurry I can tell my dog, he is there to do business and not just out for a sniff. I love it.
Praise your dog just afterwards and off you go.
When your dog gets a bit older taake the pup out for longer walks to get things moving, not so much just potty runs. Leash walking is one of the most important aspects of dog bonding you can have. Good luck with your pup.

Need to be taken out every two hours LOL
More like every 30 minutes with mine and I could eagle eye him 29.75 of those 30 minutes and in the .25 seconds I blinked he could pee or poop on the carpet. Almost always the carpet, never on the mostly tiled floors in the house LOL

Thanks for your positive input, pkguy. That will be a big help in teaching anyone how to raise a puppy. You should have come here to learn about crate training, LOL.

Mazer, I was hoping your hand was better, and I appreciate your guidance. These dogs (Canine Companions for Independence) are indeed supposed to be trained to pee/poop on command, with the word "hurry," attached to the act, as you described.

Still not sure if I will do it.

I have a 2 year old and a 4 month old dog. I use the term "hurry,hurry" to get my dogs to go to the bathroom. I think the most important thing to know is never leave them unattended. You need to catch them before they go. I also use bells at my door. When it's time to take them out or if I catch the puppy sniffing around, I hold the puppy place her front paws to hit the bells and say,"hurry,hurry" and go to the spot for her to pee or poop. As she is doing her business I repeat "good hurry,hurry" and give her a treat right after she is done. My puppy is pretty good now and will go pee and poop on command.

my nephew just brought an 8 week old lab pup home. i took the crate to him last night and explained how he should go about crate training. his first question..."what can i put under the crate to soak up the pee?" **rolls eyes** i told him NO, that is NOT the idea! i expect this pup will last about as long as the last one did, maybe 3 or 4 weeks, before he decides it's too much trouble. *sigh*

I see that many people on here say that a pup should be watched constantly and taken out every 2 hours, etc.

I raised my current dog when I had a lot of help, so she wasn't alone much as a pup. Now she is 11 years old and a wonderfully trained dog. However, now I live with just me and my partner, and we both work 9-5 (although her schedule is more flexible than mine...she usually leaves later and comes home earlier). When we get our next pup (which is something I have to prepare for in order for me to survive without my dog when the time eventually comes), it's just a reality that the pup will be alone for several hours at a time. There is someone I already know of who will come during the day to walk the pup, and my partner could probably sneak a trip home in during the day (occasionally, that is). On the weekends, we are around the whole time. Oh, and of course the pup will be crate trained.

So my question for the trainers on here is...what do you say to those who are great pet owners but simply are not home full time? (And no, I do not want an adult dog...as I'm sure many will suggest :)).

Thanks..

I feel like I have to post on this thread, because Elly put my name on it...

Everyone has already posted lots of great advice. Not sure what I could add.

As for people who work all day...which is most people...you do need to make provisions for someone to let a pup out during the day, they simply cannot hold it that long. Other than that, everything else is pretty much the same.

I would say to for people who have to leave the dog home during the day, to think about getting a breed that isn't high strung or doesn't need a lot of mental stimulation. (ie. herding breeds) Find a breed that likes to sleep a lot and will wait patiently for you to come home (hounds, retrievers, toys).

When my hubs and I both worked (hubs is retired now), he worked from 7-3. I worked from 8-5 and was able to go home every day at lunch time. The most time our dogs spent in a crate was between 7:30 and Noon. They would be crated again from 12:30 to 3:30... and after they are potty trained and past the chewing phase, the doors on their crates were no longer closed, but they still would use them to sleep in.

Joepyeweed,

That makes me feel a lot better. I always see people posting about not leaving a pup home for more than a few hours, and it's just not a reality for me. But now that I think about it (and thanks to your last paragraph), I only work 15 minutes from home - so I get to work at 9, can go home at 12:30, then my partner or the dog "care-taker" in the co-op can go at 3ish, and then I'm home at 5:15.
PERFECT!
Thanks..

I probably should clarify; a new pup, like 8 to 10 weeks old, may not be able to hold it until lunch time either...

Whenever I get a baby pup, I end up working half days or taking a weeks vacation - at least until I am sure they can hold it through the night...once they can hold it through the night, then I know they can hold it for four hours.

Personally, my puppy days are over. We are getting too old to be up during the night. The last dog we adopted, was 18 months old. She wasn't potty trained either. And she was the hardest to train - before we got her,she was crated a lot and learned to potty in her crate. So that is an entire different potty training scenario, because a crate wasn't much help. she was also very submissive and timid, you couldn't raise your voice or use a stern tone either, without creating submissive uriniation. She was tough. I still don't consider her 100% potty trained... I'd say she is at about 90% right now...

The other hardest dog to potty train was the stubborn old hound who was a stray, he was almost feral when I got him. We had a battle of wills but eventually I won, of course.

Thanks JPW,

Yes, I was already planning on taking 2 weeks off after bringing the pup home. I agree, working full days after first bringing a pup home isn't a good idea.

I guess I'm spoiled, because my current dog was already pretty much housebroken when I got her home (at 8 weeks). She grew up on a farm, so maybe that was the reason. So I always got to sleep through the whole night, lucky me! I'm sure I won't get lucky twice though..

Wow, you've had some tough training times. Good for you though, because I don't know how many people would put up with that. You must have a lot of patience (and skill). My dog is back to basics now that she has incontinence (both types), and it's so frustrating sometimes that I want to just pull my hair out!!

Well, we do a lot for them...but they do twice as much for us :)

I wrote a short story once about training the feral dog...

He came to me in his youth, he wasnt a baby, but he wasnÂt an adult yet.

Allen, my coworker, and I found him in the alley behind his duplex. Allen thought raccoons were sabotaging his garbage. Animal traps werenÂt catching anything large enough to knock over a garbage can, so we decide to do a stakeout. I remember it was 1994, a hot summer night, near the end of August. Late at night, sitting on the back porch, drinking beers, smoking cigars and quietly watching the garbage cans, we spotted him. The garbage can scoundrel was a dog. We couldnÂt get close at first. But we enticed him with peanut butter. First a few dollops tossed into the alley, he licked Âem up; then a few more dollops, closer and closer. Finally a big spoonful of peanut butter had him coming right up to us, so we could get hand on him. He was a hound dog, black and tan. Somewhat like a coon dog, but perhaps with some shepherd and an upturned tail that pointed forward when he walked.

He liked to be scratched more than petted. He smelled bad, he had fleas, his ribs stuck out, and our hands were dirty from petting him. He seemed friendly but timid. We didnÂt dare let him go, or he would bolt. We gave him a bath and brushed his teeth. He hated it. His filthy collar had an address written inside. The next day, we drove him over there. We were expecting a thank you from some grateful pet owners. "Thank you for finding our dog." Instead we got strange look. They looked at him and said, "Well, he was never really ours. Our sonÂs girlfriend came to live with us, with a baby and a puppy. We told her one or the other, but not both."

We learned that the girlfriend came to live with them last April. The pup, at that time, was 8 or 9 weeks old. They thought she had given the dog to the pound. But apparently she dumped the dog. It didnÂt surprise them; because since then, the girlfriend was gone. Their son was now caring for the baby alone. They estimated that the dog was now about 9 months old and had probably been living on the streets for about 7 of those months.

AllenÂs landlord said they couldnÂt have dogs in the duplex. I was renting too. We checked out the pound and they said they knew that dog. The animal control officer had been trying to catch him, for a few weeks. Animal Control said the dog would be feral, and that he would be better off euthanized. We decided not to leave the dog at the pound.

Still unsure what to do with this dog, we took him to the vet. The vet confirmed the dogs age by his teeth. She tested him for aggression. He obviously was a bit fearful of being handled, but he wasnÂt aggressive. She wouldnÂt advertise him as adoptable in her office because of his past. She mentioned a rescue group. The rescue group was past full. The Vet offered a discount on the neuter, which we did. After some heart to heart talks, and an extra security deposit, the landlord reluctantly agreed to allow me to keep the dog.

He was almost feral, but not quite. If you were going to touch him it was on his terms. He liked to be scratched, but only so much, then he would walk away. He didnÂt know how to play without biting and scratching. He would sniff your face, but not lick it. We had a definite power struggle. Potty training was a nightmare. He chewed the windowsill completely off in the kitchen. (There went the security deposit.) He pooped and peed in every room of the house. He chewed my beautiful fichus tree into stumps, as if he was a beaver. He ripped up the stuffing out of my favorite chair and then the ottoman. I screamed and yelled. He cowered. He knew I was regretting ever taking him into my home. I knew I was a terrible dog owner.

We walked and walked and walked. He took quickly to walking properly on a leash. Walking was one of his favorite things, right up there with garbage can tipping and rolling in dead things.

He was an escape artist too, bolting out of doors, busting through screens, climbing out of windows. If he did escape, I could always find him in an alley somewhere, knocking over garbage cans. ItÂs a behavior that always had rewards, and he never got over. Garbage night was a tense time for both of us. He could smell it in the air. I could sense he was determined to run. He hated me. His nuts were gone, he smelled like soap, he hadnÂt eaten garbage or ran wild in weeks. You could see it in his eyes. He was wondering why I kept him captive. DidnÂt I know that he needed to run the streets at night and eat garbage?

For that first year, and for many years thereafter, we stretched each otherÂs patience thin. We had a love / hate relationship.

Eventually I felt him accepting his captivity. Late at night, he would give up his sentinel at the door and he would sneak into the far side of the bed. When I stirred, he would jump down, pretending not to be there. He would let his food set in his dish all day; until I sat down to eat, then he would start eating.

It took years before he would cuddle. It just happened one night, as if it had always been. He climbed up on the couch, laid his head on my lap, and asked me to pet him. He did it so casually, as if he belonged there, as if it was no big deal. Wyatt had finally established himself as a fixture in my life, part of my pack.

Thanks Joepyeweed, I enjoyed that very much, a nice story before bed. Goodnight!
Nancy