We brought home our sweet Hope last week Wednesday at exactly 8 weeks of age. She is doing well with most things. She chews on everything, of course...lol. But she is much different than my other goldens in regards to her potty behaviors.
I took 4 days off with her, but had to return to work to finish out the school year. She has taken to the crate beautifully and only gets up once a night to potty. She also goes potty outside on command.
I know she is too old to be crated during the day so I created a containment area with an xpen and crate attached. I have a potty pad tray in the corner and her food and water. When she is in this, she will use the pad try exclusively and not soil the area.
However, we can take her out potty and she will go, but five minutes later she will try to go on the floor when she is not in her xpen. I watch her like a hawk and always catch her before she is done. I make a noise to distract her and take her to her potty spot. I use special treats that she only gets when she goes potty outside. I am wondering if she could have a uti since she goes all the time in tiny amounts. The vet gave me a cup to try and get a sample...yeah...that's fun. LOL
On June 10th I will be home 24/7 with her and am going to remove the potty pad tray from the equation. She has taken so well to learning her potty spot and command outside and to using the xpen potty pad when contained. I am baffled why she is struggling with the floor when I am with her. Any suggestions would be great!
Personally I don't think you have issues. Pups start having more bladder control at 12 weeks. I think the area you have set up is fine. Just don't have a potty pad down if your home. Only use it when your gone.
Thanks. That is what I am doing. I just pick it up when I get home and keep her out with us unless she needs a break, or we are not able to supervise her directly.
Your doing the right things. We didn't crate so chloes area was a small part of the kitchen closed off with the baby gate. We used pee pads at night and if we had to leave. We had no issues with house breaking so you should be fine. Usually after the first couple of weeks home you will get in a good routine and recognize when your pup needs to go and accidents will start to stop. If you are taking her out about every thirty minutes when you are home then your in good shape.
She's not too old to be crated during the day. My pup will be a year old next Saturday and he's still crated during the day. I think that potty pads make potty training so much harder than it needs to be. She won't be able to tell the difference between the potty pad and the floor of your house - it's one in the same to her. You'd probably be better off getting rid of the potty pads and crating her while you're away, and then having someone come home to let her out to pee every hour or so. Potty training goes by faster that way imo
This is not true. We used potty pads at night or we had to leave to run errands. We only uses them for maybe a month at those times. By 3.5 months Chloe was sleeping upstairs in the bed with my parents. First couple of weeks she might of had 6 or seven accidents. After that it went to almost none. By 4 months she was going to the door and asking out every time. She was so easy. The key is to only use them in certain situations. We are home all day so they were never down unless we had to leave and at night. We only used them for a few weeks.
I bet most of those people were using them at all times. I think that is ridiculous to use them all the time. But in very limited use they shouldn't cause a issue. We are home all day so they were never used unless we had to run out for a errand which wasn't that often. The key is to not be lazy and use them so you don't have to take your pup outside. At night Chloe never cried. She would use it and either go back to sleep or after she went let us know she wanted someone to get up. Once we learned when she was waking up and using it we would get up and take her out before she had s chance to use it. It took a few weeks to figure her out at night. It's just like people saying you have to crate your puppy or they won't ever be housebroke. Yes crates work and are fine. But two Goldens neither of them crated and neither one had issues. Jake never had one accident and came home housebroke at 10 weeks.
Sorry! It has been a LONG day and we had a loss in our family so I didn't catch my typo. Yes, I meant too young to be in a crate all day. I don't have anyone that can let her out every couple of hours so we have to do the best we can with the xpen for a couple of weeks. But I figured it was better to teach her to use that over the floor. Then she should be old enough to really dig in when I am off for the summer.
I do appreciate all of the support. I want to do right by her. She is such a sweet girl. We love her to pieces.
With our first golden Jake my mom worked about four hours at that time. We used the kitchen with a baby gate. He was fine. Although the first day my mom comes home from work and he climbed the gate and was sleeping by the front door lol. She had to turn the gate around so the bar was on outside. If your able to get home for lunch it would be good. But since your schedule is changing soon it won't be to many times.
SO glad that I decided to take her to the vet and get a urine sample. Poor girl has a raging uti. We start antibiotics today and she said we should notice a HUGE difference! Thanks for all the helpful advice.
Such a darling little fur baby! I miss this puppy look. Poor guy though, UTI :-/ But once he finishes his course of antibiotics he'll be all better and a champ at potty training!
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