House Training

Hello

I have five pups who are now eight weeks old and i need to start the house training. When i let them out of their pen they just go to toilet anywhere, i have tried the Puppy Training Pads but it don't work.

I live on the second floor so i cannot use the outside space unfortunately, apart from that how would i go about getting five pup's to go into one area? I was thinking of putting a tray with pads near the front door and try and make that the focal point for toilet time.

It was chaos trying to train them from six weeks with the pads and being two weeks older and Dutch and Belgian Shepherd puppies they have become a lot stronger and bigger. I suppose i will have to let one out at a time to train?

Any advice will be most welcome.

Many thanks

Cath

If you don't mind me asking, why do you have five puppies all aged 8 weeks? Did you breed them yourself? Are they not ready for their new homes now?

The only way to toilet train puppies is to watch them, in my experience. When they circle, nose to the ground, scoop them up FAST and only put them down again in the place you want them to go. Wait until they have gone, then praise like mad.

Puppies need to go when they wake up, after playing, after food, and more or less every hour, if not half-hour.
Trying to do this with five puppies on your own is going to be next to impossible, and two floors up? I really can't see how you can succeed.

I don't really like puppy-pads or even newspaper because once the puppy has learned to use them, you have to UNtrain them go on grass/outside! It's a lot easier just to train them to use the grass in the first place! Newspaper is worse than puppy pads - sometimes months or years later, the dog will still squat onto your morning daily, and you will really have no-one to blame but yourself if it does.

In your case, two floors up, and with no quick-access grass area you can use, you really are fighting a losing battle. I would get them into their new forever homes
as soon as possible - they are going to need socializing very soon and you can't possibly do that for all five of them!

If you cant do all of the selecting of new homes, find a rescue society or a shelter - puppies will go ultra fast, and all the dog work (excuse the pun) of checking homes for their suitability will have been done for you.

They really should go to their new homes as soon as possible - preferably within the next two to four weeks.

Good luck!

Oh gosh that sounds challenging. I can't imagine. Yes, hopefully you can get them to homes soon so each one can have a person or family dedicated to training them. In the meantime, hopefully you can at least get them to go potty on some newspapers or pads in one small area of your apartment. Not ideal, but better than going everywhere.

Like the above poster said, I would try scooping them up and placing them in the correct spot for a treat.

I'm sure there are also some breeders and rescue volunteers who can offer some tips. I know some people who regularly volunteer to foster litters of puppies, and I don't know how they do it! It would be easier of course with a house and access to grass.

Good luck to you!

I start paper and pad training my puppies the minute they are walking around at about 3/4 weeks, by 8 weeks they know where to go and I have very few accidents, and it is big plus for their new familys that they are house trained. I hae never had to untrain my dogs, and all of them have started off that way, gradually they go outside more and stop bothering about puppy pads etc. Although when they have been in the house overnight for some purpose I do leave a pad on top of paper down and sometimes they have used it, somettmes there has been no need, if a dog is poorly or you can't get out for any reason it is a bonus if you know they will use a pad or paper. Like has been said, watch them, and they will circle when they are going to do something, also when they have been playing they will stop and wee, so watch for the squat, I too would have expected them to have been on the way to their new families by now, so hope you are able to home them all very soon.

Hello

Thank you all that replied.


PONlady wrote: It was a case of re-homing 2 dogs and and my son's friend left a door open at a time i was out and that was that.The pup's are fit and healthy and ready to go.

Thanks

Cath,
We love puppy pics

Oops! Well, it happens!
Glad to hear the pups are doing well and are ready to go.
Best of luck with everything.

Are you using decent puppy pads with a scent (pheromones?) on them or the cheap ones?
I've never used puppy pads with a dog before, although we did try to teach Cookie as he was getting older. We had no success.
I do however use them for our pet ferrets, work great for such tiny creatures and I've noticed a massive difference in price and quality. The ferrets don't need the lure so I can pick up a pack of 30 pads for less than 5 pounds (pound sign on my keyboard not working), but if I go to the decent petshop that only stocks decent pads with the attraction thing, and really absorbent then it at least double the cost.

(Back in the olden days) I used to use newspaper. We always put one soiled (urine only) piece in the middle of the new sheets, to attract them to the spot. Mind you - I'm only talking about toydogs, so it may not work for such large puppies!

I know in "the olden days" it was standard practice to house train puppies using newspaper .... no new fangled puppy pads or even disposable nappies for babies! My parents always had Labradors and newspaper worked for them.