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How Long Does It Take To Toilet Train A Puppy?


kmaci
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Just wondering how long it could take to toilet train our 8 1/2 week cocker spaniel puppy? We take her out after each meal and every time she wakes up and so far we only miss 1 or 2 wees a day.

I am not bothered how long it takes, but would like an idea on what to expect.

thanks

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how long is a piece of string? :)

it takes what it takes, it depends on the pup and the owner, most pups could sleep 8 hr overnight by around 12 weeks, some can't. Day time takes longer, I reckon up to 6 months old. So saying that my 7 month old pup has never ever had an accident in the house or on the carpet on the back verandah and has slept loose in the house for around 2 months now.

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You need to take her out a lot more than just after waking & eating. There's also after playing & every hour in between. When she's going outside where you want her to give lots of praise & some treats. Also give it a name as she's going. I use get busy, others use hurry up, go toilet etc. It only took my son's mixed breed dog 9 weeks to be trained but my border collie was a lot longer & so is my 6.5 m/o JS. I also now use a crate at night because I was sick of waking up to puddles on the floor where he sleeps. He now waits until he's let out to go.

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Mine have all been trained and reliable by about 14 weeks but I don't relax the training until I have had 6 weeks with no accidents at all. Some of my Border Collies have been trained by 9 weeks but I start training the litter at 4 weeks. My Jap Spitz was completely reliable by about 13-14 weeks.

I find females usually take a few weeks longer than the males because they often don't get full bladder control until about 12 weeks.

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I think the major mistake people make is presuming its toilet trained to early & don't follow through on reliability.

People also chop & change the routine as pup gets older expecting it to just "get it".

Do you plan to use a doggy door.ring a bell.bark to be let out ??

What ever method you plan start training it now,don't think at 15/16 weeks as pup is now older to introduce a whole new concept of toilet training.

All our pups are trained to use the doggy door from 6 weeks & will also bark to be let out if in the pen

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There are a lot of different factors involved in how fast a puppy will learn. How and where the breeder kept them, how smart the puppy is, how naturally clean it is and how observant and consistant the owner is.

A pet shop puppy that has been used to toileting in an enclosed space where it lives may take months to work out what you want it to do. An inconsistant owner that allows the puppy too much freedom and therefore lots of mistakes can set the puppy up to fail too.

Every time the puppy toilets indoors it will set the progress back because you are teaching it that is ok. Try to avoid mistakes at all costs by confining the puppy when you cannot watch it closely and the puppy will learn much faster.

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Elsie is 14 weeks and has been accident free for awhile, door is open at the moment as it's summer so she takes herself out, when it's closed she stands by the door to be let out so we have to be vigilant about that.

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I'd say my boy is about 90% trained. We have our accidents, but not often. He's almost 15 weeks old. I wouldn't relax the training until we've gone a month or so without ANY accidents :)

The accidents are becoming less, and at night he can almost hold the whole way through. Occassionally we'll get up once in the night (That's usually when I wake up to go, and take him with me to his training mat regardless if he thinks he needs to go or not - He goes on command, which is only a recent development that it has become a reliable method. He's learning :thumbsup: )

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Add to all those variables, a dog's body language! When my Dalmatian needs to go outside he just stands quietly looking dreadfully pathetic. Occasionally he will sigh :laugh: You have to really know him to understand that he needs to go out - this made toilet training a little harder when he was younger and I would just take him outside routinely. My young ESS has been much easier as she goes straight to the door, scrapes it with her paw, trots around the room and repeats that until you let her out.

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Add to all those variables, a dog's body language! When my Dalmatian needs to go outside he just stands quietly looking dreadfully pathetic. Occasionally he will sigh :laugh: You have to really know him to understand that he needs to go out - this made toilet training a little harder when he was younger and I would just take him outside routinely. My young ESS has been much easier as she goes straight to the door, scrapes it with her paw, trots around the room and repeats that until you let her out.

I have a bell set up that I trained my young dogs on, but one of my older girls just vaguely wanders into the room and looks at you then wonders back out. I now recognise it, but it did make toilet training a very long process because I didn't realise that was her 'sign'.

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My cocker pup is 6 months and I'd say about 90% trained now. I'm not the most consistent because I have 2 small kids to look after and it's very hard to find enough time to do everything!

His bladder control is very good now though so no more accidents overnight.

We're getting there. Thank goodness for wooden floorboards :-)

Good luck with your pup, post up a pic!

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thank you all for your replys, very much appreciated.

Having more accidents at the moment as she stuggles outside in the heat (flops in the shade and wont move), just have to keep going and hope the hot weather goes away so our pup can go to the toilet outside :laugh:

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