# toilet training method: Dunbar vs others?



## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

You might have already read this but here it is. Every dog is a little different. But vigilance and consistency will always prevail.

http://www.poodleforum.com/23-gener...842-how-train-your-new-puppy.html#post1615058

Eric


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## nifty (Aug 2, 2013)

Hi JJane! I think as Eric said, every dog is an individual and so the approach you take will quickly be tailored to fit your new puppy's needs and personality.

With Dulcie, I kind of used a combination of Ian Dunbar's methods and a more traditional approach to mealtimes. The reason this happened was because Dulcie is not highly food-motivated and simply did not bother with eating her kibble out of kongs etc. Now as an older puppy she is more interested in chewing on kongs SOMETIMES, but as a young puppy she was not. So I needed to adjust my approach.

One thing I would say is that you may find that with a SPOO puppy the house training may turn out to be something of a non-issue if you start with crate training from day one. I was prepared for a reasonably lengthy training period and honestly it was amazing how quickly many standard puppies grasp the basics and seem to be naturally inclined to learn quickly. It is also helpful that a standard puppy has a larger bladder capacity than the smaller puppies, which makes it a little easier to train. 

nevertheless, puppies are individuals and a smart, healthy SPOO can still hit bumps in the road to complete reliability. Crate-training and a very watchful eye will help!

Regarding the timing of meals vs kong and training feeding (i.e. using the meals as training treats as Ian Dunbar recommends): I don't think it will make much difference in the early months. Whether free fed or fed on a strict schedule, it seems to me that puppies tend to have more poops throughout the day anyway. For example, Dulcie was on a 3 meal a day schedule very early in her life with me because (as I mentioned above) she was not highly food-motivated so I found longer breaks between offering food helped her appetite. Still, she had a bm virtually every time I took her out to potty. Today, at going on 10 months, she has just begun to taper off the multiple bms per day and now has about 2-3. All along, she had a structured meal schedule (except for the first few weeks) which was reduced to two meals per day by 16 weeks. Made no difference to her frequency of potting or bowel movements. What seems to have mattered was her growing maturity.


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## CharismaticMillie (Jun 16, 2010)

I don't use any published "method" to potty train my dogs. I feed twice daily and potty the puppy immediately after meals or after playing. 

When the puppy is out of the crate, I keep the puppy right next to me, on a leash, and let the puppy out to potty a LOT - like every 15-30 minutes. Puppy is kept in a crate whenever I can't keep my eyes on him/her and taken out to potty after every 2-4 hours (depends on age) of crate time.

This has worked very well for me and my most recent puppy only ever had 1 or 2 accidents.


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## ericwd9 (Jun 13, 2014)

Most dogs will pee on command after a few lessons. Pooing on command takes longer. But vigorous exercise usually brings on a poo.
Eric.


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