# potty training



## fjm (Jun 4, 2010)

You could try teaching him to ring a bell when he wants to go out - he first needs to understand that the toilet is outside, not inside, and then that ringing the bell means that you open the door. Many people have found this very helpful (search for Bells on here to see how they trained it) - others have found they spent the whole day jumping up to open the door, and quickly took the bells down again!

If he has only been with you a week, it sounds as if he is doing pretty well. You are both still learning about each other - I suspect he will soon find a way of communicating with you. Sophy does The Stare, which usually works, and if I fail to respond thumps up the stairs - and I have learned that dogs that disappear off to unfrequented rooms are usually up to no good! In fact, she has found the stairs such an effective way of attracting my attention that she now only goes half way, and is back down and waiting by the door by the time I am up and out into the hall!


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## Arcticfox (Dec 12, 2011)

I had the same problem when I just got Tesla. She doesn't have any (obvious) potty signals when she's inside. I had a frustrating first two weeks with potty training, there was one day when she had THREE accidents, grrr. After that, I hunkered down and put her on a strict schedule - out every half hour for the first three - four days. Then out every hour, then out every two hours. At this point it was two weeks later with zero accidents  Also, I crate for the last half hour to an hour before a potty break. I've had her for two months now, and we were on an every 3 hours schedule till last week, when I slackened off, since she hasn't had an accident in the apartment since starting the every half hour routine (I'm not counting accidents at the pet store and in the lobby/hallway, etc, that's a whole other problem). She was more than capable of holding it for two hours at a time, she just didn't know that she should. So I'd suggest taking her out VERY frequently, and slowly work up from there over several weeks. Mine went from three accidents in one day to none at all with this change in schedule.


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