Having problems with my new puppy

Manalm

Hey, all! I got a 2 months old Coton de tulear two weeks ago. I live in an upper portion and have no access to a garden yet and she's too young to be taken out for a walk. Everything else is perfect except for her house training! I've tried crate training, I've tried leash training, I've tried positive reinforcement, classical conditioning..nothing seems to work. She's just not relieving herself where she's supposed to. I take her to her litter box every ten minutes and she just stands there and then pees as soon as she's back in her crate. She would also pee anywhere else but the litter box. This can't be normal. She pees every 15 minutes and I'm so close to losing my sanity cleaning her mess all day. Please help!

seamus

She's too young for any kind of toilet training. You should start around 13/14 weeks (so in 2-3 weeks time) and it can take anything between six months and a year for the pup to get it properly.

But at this stage, she's way too young. Just keep her in an area with plenty of newspaper/puppy pads and change them a lot. Don't waste your time trying to correct or train her, you'll just create behaviour problems for yourself.

Ms Doubtfire1

Vet. now. check for any kind of urine tract infection. Keep in carrier as she's not immune yet. Where did you get her from?

tk123

I'd disagree that she's too young. How long have you had her OP her because at 2 months/8 weeks there's no way you could have mastered all the different training methods you've listed(!) All of your different methods also highlight where you're going wrong too in that you need to be consistent. What are you using in the tray? Cat litter? Turf/grass? Possibly she doesn't like what you're using - I know my two would prefer to go on grass over cement - my boy will wee on slabs/cement in our back garden but prefers to poo in the flowerbed our the front lol! Have you tried lifting her onto the tray mid week so her scent is there? Also what are you cleaning the bedding in the crate with - you need to use something like biological washing powder to break down the enzymes so she doesn't keep going back to it.

andreac

seamus wrote: »

She's too young for any kind of toilet training. You should start around 13/14 weeks (so in 2-3 weeks time) and it can take anything between six months and a year for the pup to get it properly.

But at this stage, she's way too young. Just keep her in an area with plenty of newspaper/puppy pads and change them a lot. Don't waste your time trying to correct or train her, you'll just create behaviour problems for yourself.

Sorry but i disagree. Toilet training can begin now for sure.

It's going to be very difficult with your situation. Toilet training is a full time job and is even harder when you have no outside space.
Firstly, you have only had the pup 2 weeks, that's no time at all. It sounds like you are doing way too much with the pup trying to get it trained. Stick to one method and be consistent.It's only a baby. Give it a chance.

You need to be very patient. It can take months to fully train a pup. At this age they can't hold it for very long so will just go whenever they feel the need.
You need to be consistent and keep taking the pup to where ever you want it to go and encourage the pup and reward once it does.

Pups are like babies, they don't just get trained over night, it will take a long time to do so there is no point getting frustrated now as it's not fair on the pup.

Bring the pup to the area after every sleep, drink, mealtime and play session. You need to recognise the signs when your pup wants to go and try to anticipate that.

volchitsa

She's probably too young for "training" as in "expecting her to have any degree of control" but she shouldn't be peeing in her crate, that's strange. Our pup always went as far from her sleeping place as possible, even when she was tiny and was sleeping in a playpen. In the morning we's see that she'd gone to the "end" of the playpen during the night. I remember reading that they do that right nearly from the start, with their mothers, they just stagger out a few little steps from their bed to pee.

So I think yes, vet first, to be sure there's no physical problem.

I wonder also if it could be about where she came from - if she was in some sort of puppy farm where the mothers can't get out of the pen, perhaps she just never learned to do that? If that's the case I have no expertise there, but I'm sure there are posters on here who do.

Also, maybe the crate is just too big? They're small dogs, and she's only young, so maybe it feels to her like she's gone far enough away from her bed?

ETA : I put a big cardboard box inside the crate initially, cut it down to half its size. That worked well.

Rubberchikken

Don't try to do all that in one go.
She's so young and needs time. The toilet training takes patience and time. Positive reinforcement and you bringing her to where you want her to go especially after meals and games.
She'll get there. When she's vaccinated you can start with things outdoors.
For now relax and enjoy the puppiness. It's georgeous:p

Cherry Blossom

My Sheltie came to me reverse crate trained. Hed go first and then cry to get out. I ended up not using a crate for him and just brought him outside from the off. As you are not in a position to bring your pup out I would consider putting the litter tray in the crate and leaving it open and basicly using the crate as the toilet area only. The down side of this of course is that you won't be able to leave him in the crate. You'll have to have a puppy proofed room to leave him in instead.

kylith

I'd be inclined to go the way of taking the pup where you want them to toilet (I'm guessing the balcony of your apartment?) and staying there til they toilet, then treat and let back in. Keep doing that every 60-90 minutes.

The one thing I can guarantee thogh is that you'll need to give it longer than you have been. There is no way that you can be claiming that four methods haven't worked when the pup is only 10 weeks old; you can't have tried anything for more than a couple of days.