Take your little one for a walk. Outside on a leash, if you can keep the other two dogs in the yard and take your new pup out by herself, that would be best. As soon as she ppes, give her a command for peeing, like "pp outside" or "go tinkle" or whatever you choose. Praise her while she is going, so she associates going to the bathroom with the command and as a good thing. Same thing with #2, when she is going giver her the command "park it", or "touchdown" or whatever you want to use, when she is in the act praise her...your new pup should be leash walked about 15 to 30 minutes everyday at least twice a day. Often puppies wont go in a backyard or in a crate. With the crate, you might want to put your pup in the crate, leave the door open after it has fallen asleep, a crate should be a place of comfort not a time away from everyone else. Throw some treats in there, a favorite toy. Some dogs hate crates, they dont like the closed in feeling, my dog never took to a crate and hates being under blankets. Some dogs love the closed in feeling and find it comforting. Your dog will let you know. Try to keep things on the positive side when interoducing your pup to new things. Good luck

Is your yard really grassy, or not so much?? We learned ery quick that our beagle would NOT go anywhere without a ton of grass. She needed a whole patch to pick from, not just a small little spot, and she was definately not going if there was no grass at all. Made it tough to travel with her to see family as they all lived in brand-new houses with no landscaping. We went on some adventures trying to find grassy areas that weren't private properties, thats for sure. She'd only piddle on carpet, or grass. Thankfully our yard is all grass, so we didn't have the problem too often.

She's better now, though. She'll go wherever she has to, when she's really gotta go. She'll still pick and choose if she can, but she won't hold it for an entire day anymore.

The crate needs to be a rewarding place to be. Like Dinseyland. I started my pup out last year with a shower of treats for going in the crate. Literally dropping a handful of kibbles at a time down the top. Let him out then repeat. Over and over. I'd smear a little peanut butter in there to to let him discover.

Ignore the whining and crying it shouldn't last that long.

I agree with a lot of the above posters' points: grassier is always better; take her out insanely often; praise ridiculously when she potties; start slow with the crate - leave the door open on it for a day or two for her to investigate, give her the *BEST* treats for poking her head in, her front legs, and so on - some folks feed their food-motivated dogs their regular kibble in there so they associate it with good things. Once she is going in on her own, start small and increase time in small increments; don't let her out of her crate when she cries - she's training you!

I really recommend crate-training. It helps immensely with house-training. If you aren't willing to deal with the crate thing, keep her off the carpet and let her out every 20 minutes until she goes. If left with free reign of the house and not yet house-trained, they will *always* go for the carpet... Murphy's Law, I think. ;)

Hope some of this helps. Good Luck!

Hi Vicki,
Here's how it's working for my little 6 month old Havanese. Right from the beginning I used the crate method mostly for the potty training. He still would rather be on the 'otherside' of the crate but here's what worked for us. Lay a towel or small cotton folded rug on the bottom for the pup to lie on with one of it's small soft (non-squeak) toys. Then put the pup inside close the door and give him a very favorite treat or two, then I place my shoe or piece of my clothing in front of the door for a familiar security smell. Sometimes I cover the crate with a light blanket for a 'den' effect though not covering the door. Another thing I do is leave the TV or radio on at low volume. This all has works great for me and now that he's use to this he might reminds if I forget something with a few soft barks. Only on rare occasion's will he bark in spite of all the above but this only last for about 5 minutes till he relax and settles down, but at this time Do-Not talk to the puppy as once they know how to get your attention it's "all over". Walk away, or go outside and ignore the noise till he settles down. When he wakes up remove the pup from the crate carry him outside to go for a walk and potty, usually the pup is ready to potty after an hour or two inside the crate, and like the poster above stated use lots of praise when they go outside., dogs like to please their owners. Toby sleeps all night in his crate also a couple of times during the day, he also settles down and goes right to sleep when traveling in the crate which is a blessing when traveling alone, during this time I have the crate where he can see me and I can pop in another treat or two after WE have a quick potty stop. Toby still has a 'wet' accident on occasion but it's usually when I'm not alert enough to notice that he's been sitting close and starring at me LOL. But at least at this point he do use the bathroom floor not the carpet as a potty.
Keep trying and Good Luck Wendy

You need Simple Solution or Nature's Miracle to save your carpets.

You have good advice above. Another thing to try is to keep him leashed to you at all times when he is not in his crate. Tie the leash to your belt loops or belt, whatever. The idea is that you will pay more attention to him and will notice him starting to get restless or start sniffing. Right then, snatch him up in your arms and carry him outside, set him on the grass and give him your verbal cue (mine is "tinkle, tinkle, tinkle!") and then praise him like crazy when he does his business.

I did all of the above to get my super-stubborn Husky housetrained- leash only outside, tethered indoors, crated when I wasn't home, praise, treats. "Only" took about 9 months to get him completely housebroken.

I don't recommend papers inside the house because you are simply training the dog to potty inside. Then you have to untrain that behavior and retrain her to go outside.

Some of the best puppy training advice I ever got was to always train your dog for perfection. Never allow anything that you don't want your dog to do for ever. That includes potty inside, nipping, yipping, jumping on people, etc.

You got great advice already. I'm a fan of using every method in the book. Good luck!

Hey Meghane, you did pretty well with your Husky! We has a similarly stubborn Husky girl. :)

Where are pictures of Willow the puppy? Must have cute fix!

I like how I mention in my post that coda will go anywhere now, just to discover this weekend I was sorely mistaken. I take it back, lol.