Two days ago I bought a 3 month old Shih Tzu (mix) – teddy bear. I have done a lot of research regarding potty training for this type of pup. I know that it is going to take time, but I am conflicted, but I am sure it is too soon to get discouraged. If you could please let me know your thoughts on inside and/or outside potty training. Should you do both? Mix the times up through out the day? I have taken her outside about 4 times, and she has only went once, but she was with my daughter. The other 2 times I took her out and she just looked at me, as if she didn’t know what to do. I have praised, then said “go potty”, again, she just sat there, after 15 minutes I took her in the house. Leash or no leash?

For the inside potty training I was thinking about getting a litter box w/litter for dogs. Have you tried that or has known anyone that has?

I am just looking for any advise on this stinky situation. And yes, she is using my carpet right now, she is very sneaky.

Thanks,
AJ

Hi Alson,

Did you get a chance to read this article? One of the biggest mistakes people make when potty training is not keeping an eye on their puppy 24/7 when the pup is roaming the house. We do this by either keeping them on leash or using our crate.

Hopefully this helps.

Take care,
Colby

I had a 5 month white terrier that always pee and poo around the house. I do trains her, but its still remain the same. Please help me.

Hi Steve,

Congratulations on your new puppy! We use our crate as a tool for potty training and make the space only big enough for our puppy to stand up and turn around in. To answer your question we do use the divider to make the space smaller when our puppy is young. Our puppies usually can hold it through the night when they are about 9-10 weeks old.

Good luck with your training!
Colby

I’ve just come across your excellent site while researching puppy training. We have a 10 week old Border Collie puppy who so far has been a little star. I too am crate training her and it is going pretty well. We’ve had her 2 weeks and although she doesn’t go to her bed on command, she is generally happy enough to sleep in there. The crate is big enough for a full size BC and although I have a divider to make it smaller (as some suggest), I have not used it as I don’t want her stressed if she needs to go potty. Instead, I put a plastic litter tray lined with a puppy training pad in there at night. At least then she has somewhere to go if she has to and it seems to work ok. When you crate train do you have a ‘soiling’ area or do you recommend keeping their bedspace nice and small so they feel more secure..

Thanks
Steve

Hi Jessica,

We’ve always crated trained our puppies and have had very great success training our puppies. Here are a couple articles we wrote on crate training and potty training:

https://puppyintraining.com/how-to-potty-train-a-puppy/
https://puppyintraining.com/crate-training-puppies/

Hopefully those two articles help. All of our puppies have been different. Some have figured out potty training inside the first weeks while others have taken a few months. Every puppy is a little different. Good luck with your training.

Colby

I have an extreamly smart pup named Dexter. Dexter is a verbose mountain dog / Basset hound. He is an amazing little Guy ( not so little) but my family and I are having a hard time potty training him. He’s about 3 months old and we have had him since he was 8 weeks. We have had him in a crate, buy I guess he needs a smaller one because he keeps having accidents. He goes in his crate at night and he hates it and hides ay night, but he no longer crys. We just need to get him to go potty outside. We have considered the bell method and were gonna try it tonight after I pick up a bell, but I’m curious what methods have worked for you? Please contact me through email oneluckymommy1@Gmail.com thanks!

Is this a bed out in the open and your puppy is just going over to it to pee on? The first thing I would do is get rid of the bed because if your puppy has pee’d on it multiple times there’s a good chance that he learned this is the place to go and he can probably smell the odor of urine in the bed. The second thing I would consider is keeping your puppy on leash around the house until he learns where the appropriate place is to potty. We keep all of our puppies on leash and supervised throughout the day until they are potty trained.

Good luck with your training!