# Fully housebroken at what age?



## zooeysmom (Jan 3, 2014)

I'm just curious at what age your dogs were fully housebroken. Maizie just turned 13 weeks today and I think she's close. She sleeps through the night in her crate and during the day if a door is open to the yard, she goes out to potty. I worked vigilantly with her the first couple of weeks, following her every move (if she sniffed the ground at all, I'd take her right out), and I rewarded her with treats and abundant praise for going potty outside. Now I'm backing off and giving her a little more "responsibility" (less treats, but still praise, and letting her go outside by herself). I hope she continues on this successful track!


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## Summerhouse (Jun 12, 2015)

Does size have any effect as well ? I've read some toy breeds can take along time to get the hang of it.

I think a lot depends upon what the breeder did as well


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## zooeysmom (Jan 3, 2014)

I want to hear results for all sizes of poodle. As a breed, they are much easier to train than toys of other breeds. 

I definitely agree the breeder plays a role in how easy they are to housebreak. My breeder does a fabulous job with her pups.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

Timi was perfect, maybe a week after she came home, so around 15 weeks.
But my advice, don't back off too much on the treats nor the vigilance! I did not consider her "take my eyes off reliable" until around 9-10 months, and she still gets potty treats a couple of times a day because why not keep her motivated!


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## MiniPoo (Mar 6, 2014)

zooeysmom said:


> I'm just curious at what age your dogs were fully housebroken. Maizie just turned 13 weeks today and I think she's close. She sleeps through the night in her crate and during the day if a door is open to the yard, she goes out to potty. I worked vigilantly with her the first couple of weeks, following her every move (if she sniffed the ground at all, I'd take her right out), and I rewarded her with treats and abundant praise for going potty outside. Now I'm backing off and giving her a little more "responsibility" (less treats, but still praise, and letting her go outside by herself). I hope she continues on this successful track!


I am glad that Maizie is doing so well at 13 weeks. My puppy Dakota did well also at the beginning and for a long time after that. Then I started relaxing and letting him play with my other dog and BAM! just peed in the middle of my living room while playing. Then peed another time when exploring around the edges of the room. 

So do not relax and do not consider your puppy REALLY house trained for a long time. Getting the idea that going outside is the thing to do and getting the idea that INSIDE is NOT the thing to do is not the same thing.

Dakota is a little over 6 months and hasn't had an accident in the house in months, however, he is not asking to go outside when he needs to go, except on rare occasions. So until he does that consistently, I will not consider him completely house trained.

I also agree with TP. I will continue to reward with treats probably off and on forever. I used their kibble as treats. So it is just part of their daily food intake.


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## zooeysmom (Jan 3, 2014)

Really good points--thank you. I will try not get too complacent


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

"So do not relax and do not consider your puppy REALLY house trained for a long time. Getting the idea that going outside is the thing to do and getting the idea that INSIDE is NOT the thing to do is not the same thing."
That statement bares repeating!
And I will also add that folks can also slip up being good about training them not to potty in the main living areas of the home, and expecting that to translate to the lesser traveled areas of the home - big mistake!


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## MiniPoo (Mar 6, 2014)

Another good point, TP. I was restricting Dakota a lot to the tiled areas of the house and keeping him off the carpet a lot. About 1/2 of our main floor is tiled. So he had a lot of room to roam around. Then he peed on the carpeted areas when I was relaxing my diligence. A friend mentioned that he might have considered this "less traveled area" to not be part of his "home". So I started tethering him to me when in the carpeted area but giving him more time there. That way I would know if he slipped up. 

Having him get more access to all areas of the house has seemed to help, but I am starting to relax again and have to keep reminding myself not to. Thus, the potty log that my husband and I started so that we can refer to it and be sure to take him outside every couples of hours.


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## Tiny Poodles (Jun 20, 2013)

MiniPoo said:


> Another good point, TP. I was restricting Dakota a lot to the tiled areas of the house and keeping him off the carpet a lot. About 1/2 of our main floor is tiled. So he had a lot of room to roam around. Then he peed on the carpeted areas when I was relaxing my diligence. A friend mentioned that he might have considered this "less traveled area" to not be part of his "home". So I started tethering him to me when in the carpeted area but giving him more time there. That way I would know if he slipped up.
> 
> Having him get more access to all areas of the house has seemed to help, but I am starting to relax again and have to keep reminding myself not to. Thus, the potty log that my husband and I started so that we can refer to it and be sure to take him outside every couples of hours.



Perhaps even sit on the floor and play some games with him in the carpeted area - do some obedience training there, even give him a meal there - really let him know that it is part of your living space!


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Lily was easy to housebreak. She is very fastidious and was really solid by about 4 months. Peeves took longer but it was probably a combination of him having too much freedom too soon and him not giving any really good potty signs.


I am going to use the Ian Dunbar method of a tray with sod in it with Javelin. I just bought a hunk of sod this morning as the last thing I needed to get for baby brother's homecoming on Friday. I will take a picture of it all when I have it set up. He will step onto real grass (our ultimate preferred substrate) before anything else when he gets out of his crate.


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## N2Mischief (Dec 3, 2012)

Misha was amazing. Brought her home at 8 weeks, showed her the piddle pads and she never had another accident after the first week. In fact I don't think there was more than a couple of accidents total.


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## mom2Zoe (Jun 17, 2014)

Zoe was housebroken by 5 months with the occasional accident . never had an accident again after 8 months.


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## Naira (Jan 9, 2015)

Naira never had an accident since I brought her home at 12 weeks. 

I had other puppies that did well but I have high standards for calling a pup fully housebroken. I think in the beginning most people are preventing accidents from happening, which is why I hesitated to call her fully housebroken. I never gave her the opportunity to fail, so she didn't. 

Fully house broken to me is leaving a pup unsupervised for a length of time where they have every opportunity to make a mistake, but instead they hold it and wait to be let outside where they prefer to go. I would say at around 18 weeks when I ditched her crate was when I started testing her, giving her the opportunity to mess up...and she was going several hours with no mistakes. 

Because of my job, unfortunately there are 1 sometimes 2 days a week when she was 4-6 months where she had to hold it for 8-10h and she did beautifully. Now at 8 months, for 2 days a week she holds it uncrated for 13 hours. She also asks to go out..I think I taught her that at 20 weeks and she's kept with it. 

With my other dogs, they were at least a year old before I started testing them and still it was only for short intervals.


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