[Oceanside]

Hi,

We have a new puppy at home (our first), Pika, who's now 11 week old. She's a delight and is fairly easy. She's now learning to walk on a leash, to sit before crossing streets, etc.

We're using the "How to raise a puppy" book as a template for training her, and the authors are strong advocates of crate training, so we're doing that. Basically, the puppy is in her crate for periods of 2hrs or so, then is walked (hopefully to go potty), played with outdoors, and fed 3x a day. If we stick to this we have no accident. All accidents we've had were cases when we deviated from this.

My question is how and when should we transition away from this strict schedule? How do we assess that the puppy is safe to have indoors out of her crate, maybe napping on a doggy bed, and won't go potty indoors? Same for overnight.

Thank you!

The key at first is to keep taking her out on a frequent schedule. For some, it could be every 30 mins, every hour, etc. so play it safe at first and slowly build up time as you learn her patterns. Always keep close supervision and if you see any signs that she may need to go, like sniffing, scoop her up immediately and take her out. As far as overnight, I’d stick to the crate for a long time.

 

[sam34]

I'm a big fan of hanging a bell set at the door. Ring it every time you take her out and she'll quickly learn to ring it herself when she needs to go out. Ours was doing this at 9 weeks, and we had no issues with housebreaking her. Concerning the crate, our 7 month old is confined to hers any time we leave the house, at nights and in the car. This keeps her safe and out of trouble. All our previous dogs had crates into old age, though we generally left the door open so they could come and go at will once they could be trusted.

Also, take her out after any play times and after any meal.

 

[caninelover]

My pup is also coming up in her 11 week birthday! I do have to take her out frequently but we hung the potty bells from day 1, so whenever the slider opened the bells rang. She eventually connected the dots herself and started ringing them herself last week (although we still watch her). That's important because it shows she is understanding her bathroom is outside and she is telling us she needs to go out there. I'm expecting over the next couple / few weeks we can ease off on the frequency that we take her out and rely more in her signaling us.

I like the potty bells, some people just let their dogs bark at the door - but I don't want a barky dog so I'm using the bells.

So I guess to answer your question, you can ease off when she is reliably alerting you to when she needs to go out.