Help! I’m Potty Training My Papillon Puppy But She Doesn’t Want To Co-operate!?
September 4, 2009 by admin
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
I have a 8 wk old papillon puppy. I’ve had her 2 weeks. We are having a really hard time potty training her. We also have a 9 yr old papillon boy.
We have the potty pads. But she doesn’t use them. So she wears a diaper when she’s in the house to avoid accidents.
When I know she’s about to go, if I have enough time I put her outside. If I don’t have enough time, I hurry & put her on the potty pad.
We have the routine that when I wake up, I put her outside for at least 10 min. If I see her go, she gets a treat when she comes back in. When I leave for work she goes in her kennel. When I get home I take her back outside. Same as earlier. I try to take her outside alot through out the evening. When she’s not outside she wears a diaper.
If she does go in the house, she gets her nose rubbed in it, then I put her outside.
I was hoping that seeing my boy go outside would help encourage her to go out there, but doesn’t seem to do any good.
None of this has helped. Suggestions?
Related Papillon Training & Care posts:
Some puppies get housebroken within 2 weeks, but 2 weeks really isn’t a long time, especially if you are working and not able to take her out everytime she has to go. Generally the more often you succeed in making her go outside, the faster she’ll learn. Also, she’s just 8 weeks old (and should really only have left her mother and littermates at this age and not at 6 weeks) and might not have complete bladder control yet.
I would get rid of the diapers and the puppy pads and instead begin to:
1. Watch her like a hawk when you are home with her.
2. Take her out as soon as she starts sniffing around/circling.
3. Take her out if she squats to pee or poop (lift her up and flip her on her back while you carry her out, most puppies will instinctively not pee on themselves).
4. Take her out after she’s played, eaten and slept.
5a. Don’t let her out on her own to pee, always go outside with her.
5b. For outside potty trips, don’t venture too far away. Puppies are often reluctant to pee in what they consider strange territory (and to a puppy, strange territory might start halfway toward your garden gate).
6. Never punish her for going inside, if you catch her too late, you have no-one to blame but yourself. Simply clean up the mess. Do not rub her nose in it/smack her/yell at her. Punishing the dog, means you might risk teaching her not to go while you’re watching – and that makes potty training significantly more difficult for you.
7. Praise her silly when she goes outside.
8. If you have the possibility, go home during lunch hour or have someone pop over to take her out during the day.
9. Be patient, some puppies are slower than others. If you’re consistent and vigilant with the potty training, she’ll get it eventually.
Good luck with her.
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NEVER rub your puppies nose in ther feces! at 8 weeks they dont understand what they did wrong or why you are doing that! they will however learn that going potty is a disgraceful act and will do whatever possible to hide that from you. you will be finding “presents” in your house in random places. as for the potty pads and diapers they are not such a good idea either that only teaches them its okay to use the restroom in the house as long as its on something and the last thing you want is to pick something up off the floor soaked in urine. i have a 14 week old labrador and we struggled with the potty training for a few weeks after we got her. i was so fed up i wanted to give my $1600 dog away!!! so i looked up the crate training thing. its amazing!!! we wake up in the morning and go potty we give her food and water and she is right back in her crate. we only feed her in her crate it helps so she wont eliminate while she is in there. we take her out every 2-4 hours to use the restroom and have a little play time. and if your schedual premits try taking her out for walks…we walk our dog twice a day and we have not had any accidents in the house for a long time….she is in the crate long enough that when she is let out she does her business outside right away and is allowed to play in the house for about an hour or so and then back in she goes. its awesome! it does take some time but its a lot less stressfull when they are on a schedual and you are no longer picking up dog feces on your floor
be patient….she is still very young. it will take a few weeks.
you can buy a puppy training spray and apply it to some news paper and this attracts or enourages to do it on the paper and then u move it outside….anyways you will get it at any pet store
Your in luck I am a certified dog trainer here is what to do:
It is the owner’s responsibility to be sure the puppy eliminates in the correct area. So whenever the puppy is in the house he should be on a leash and in the owner’s presence to avoid accidents. Management of this behavior cannot be overemphasized. It is probably the single most important component.
It is futile and counter productive to spank a puppy or rub his nose in an accident. This will typically cause the puppy to be hesitant in eliminating in front of you. This makes praising the puppy for going in the right spot impossible because he is afraid to go in your presence. In addition, many puppies will often learn to just sneak off into an out of the way place to avoid your detection.
If an accident does occur the owner should make an inconspicuous noise to startle the puppy, without frightening him, and then immediately take him to his potty spot. The noise is intended to interrupt him before he finishes going potty. When he resumes eliminating in the correct area, praise and reward him for the proper behavior. If accidents are occurring in the house the owner needs to supervise the puppy more closely or it will take a very long time to successfully housetrain him.
Creating daily housetraining routines for a puppy in training will go a long way in creating consistency in the behavior. For example, feeding the puppy at the same time every day, taking the puppy potty through the same door every day, and going to the same spot every time are all good examples.
It is important to always clean up any “accidents” with an odor neutralizing product, such as Nature’s Miracle. Soap and/or other cleaning products will not get rid of the odor and that increases the chance that the dog will relieve him/herself in the same area again.
Whether you are housebreaking a puppy or an adult dog that has never been housebroken, take the puppy or dog out immediately after each of the following events: waking up, getting up from resting, drinking water, eating, playing, training and actively sniffing.
Once the puppy has been “accident free” on your housebreaking schedule, you must teach the puppy to hold his bladder a little past the time he may need to go. While crate training helps develop his ability to hold his bladder, he must also learn to do that even when he is loose in the house. By tying him close to you or to a table leg, at or near the time he is normally scheduled to be taken out, he will be forced to “hold it” for a bit longer. You can also watch the puppy closely when he is in the same room with you and when he starts to sniff; you distract him for a few moments by tossing a toy before taking him out.
Before teaching the puppy to hold his bladder, the puppy should be accident free for a minimum of 14 days in a row. Every ‘mistake’ the puppy makes sets the owner back 3 days. For example, if a puppy has been accident free for 8 days and then makes a mistake on the 9th day, the owner must begin counting from the 5th day.
Good Luck!
All I can say is Good Luck….
Hi, I also have papillon puppys. 2 of them. They are 2 months apart. One is 5 months and the other is 7 months. They are still peeing and pooping on the floor occasionally. I find when they get older they shred there pad occasionaly also.
You can NOT rub there nose in it. They do not think of poo in the same way as you do. Papillons can get very nervous of you if you are constantly scareing them. They don’t understand why they are getting in trouble when they poo so gey get scared and nervous. (btw NEVER hit your dog, you will loose there trust completely)
You can buy pray bottles that help attract your dog to a certain spot to pee, or repell them… (I find the repell pray works best. My dogs like to eat the attracting spray.)
Be consistent, once you pick where you want them to pee don’t change it. bring them there after they eat, sleep, play.
Papillons are very dificult to potty train, it takes patience.
hope i helped
Shayla
It DOES take a lot of time! First of all, I personally don’t like the potty pads…its giving them permission to potty inside and that is NOT acceptable. Small dogs don’t always understand that it is acceptable on the pad, but not on the stack of magazines, etc…
In the morning, it is great that you give a treat and praise when you see her go, but if she does NOT go, put her in the crate immediately and try again in 10 minutes. Do NOT let the dog out of your sight…even if you have to have her on a leash connected to you! If you need to, use baby gates to block off certain rooms or to contain her in the room you are in so she can’t wander off.
If she has an accident in the house, IF (and only IF!) you catch her in the act, yell NO very loudly to startle her, pick her up, and take her outside. Put her in the yard and say, “Potty outside…then start praising!” It truly does no good to rub a dog’s nose in the mess…. When you are potty-training a toddler, would you rub THEIR nose in the mess. Use the same concept. Also, you cannot reprimand AFTER the fact even if its only a minute or two later….the pup has already forgotten what it did that might have been wrong….
When potty-training my pup, I kept a chart to list the time, if she pottied or pooped, and a notation of whether it was outside or an accident inside. It clued me into HER patterns of how frequently she needed to go. This is also very helpful if more than 1 person is taking her outside.
My vet told us that most dogs cannot be completely trained and completely reliable until 4 to 6 months of age…
you can’t force it. it just takes time. please talk to your vet and animal hospital for advice.
Have more patience the pups only 8 weeks! Geeesh.
A little puppy peep won’t kill ya, seriously, its all part of bringing up baby. I never heard of using a diaper. Best to keep her in the kitchen or on a tile floor you can just clean easily. When the pup peeps and shes not on the pad carry her over and place her on it to finish. The scent will attract her there. Rubing her nose in it after the fact is a useless training
falsehood. Once a dog does its doo and your not home it can’t relate the punishment to the deed. You would have to catch the pup in the act of doing the deed. After she drinks or eats keep her out with you (not alone) for a bit longer and she’ll go or go inside and try again in a few.. But she is just so young and your in too much of a rush to get her trained. Give her time and patience and the pup will be fine.
Taking the dogs out together is a good idea so she can watch the older dog go.
Hi , i have found that training little girls, is harder than boys. i had to put down potty pads also, when i lived with my dad. i could not get my cockerspainel/sheepdog to go outside for anything, no matter how long i left her out. but, one day when she was about 3 months old she grabbed up a potty pad, dragged it to the door, chewed it up and from then on went potty outside. i guess it was her way of telling me that “She’s a big girl now”. good luck to you and HAPPY HOLIDAYS.
HI
#1 never ever rub there nose in it that is the dumbest thing you could ever do and it is a very negative behavior on your part
She is a young baby and you are not giving her near enough time outside 10 minutes is nothing she needs allot more time that to do her business and wander around and explore she is going to go several times and she cannot do that in just 10 minutes I have doggie doors and my dogs will go out run in check on me see if I am still here then go back out and do this forever so you need to allow her to stay out as long as she wants maybe even force her to stay out longer and empty her little system not have any left for inside
I know it can be a pain but you have to be consistent with her and it will all work out
Good Luck to you
Happy Holidays
Respectfully Yours
Anne
Hey do u live in Tennessee ’cause my neighbor sold a dog and i was wondering did u get the puppy from a man that has a female orange and white pappillon and a male like black and brownish w/ white
I have my first papillon who was 6 months old when I got her.
She was not trained when I got her, but she has been good
about using the pads or going outside.
I have never rubbed any of my shelties noses in their mess and I wouldn’t do that to her because they forget as soon as
they have gone.
Just keep going with the praise (a lot when she does good) &
treats. It usually takes a little while. Not all train at same rate.
If you’re not going outside with your puppy you should. You need to be there with her when she performs and praise her. She’s still way too young to expect much and rubbing her nose in her messes won’t speed up the process, it’ll either make her afraid of you or she’ll start going behind things where you can’t see her. This is not a quick process, especially with such a young pup, so take a deep breath because it won’t last forever if you’re consistent and patient and above all not acting out your frustration with the pup. Good luck.
I don’t have anything specific, but I have read many times that small breeds of dogs for some reason are harder to house break than other dogs. I think consistency and time are the keys for you.
Rubbing a dog’s nose into where it has gone potty is actually teaching your dog to potty in the house.
There are two things you never want to do to a puppy. First thing is you never want to ostracise it (separate it from the pack). Second is you never want to reprimand it more than the careful mother dog would its own young. When you grab a puppy’s head and smoosh it into the floor (carpet), you have gone way beyond what a mother dog would do. In fact you could probably yank the dog’s spine out of alignment or the puppy, in it’s panic (because it does NOT understand this action taken upon it), it could pull something in it’s rear out of alignment trying to protect its neck. After you are done rubbing its nose, because of the tremendous effect it has on a puppy (somewhere near what a pack leader would do by way of stepping in to say I don’t like this little one and here’s what I have to say about it), the puppy will try everything in its power not to leave its scent laying around again. The puppy goes into survival mode because it has just been given a warning that somthing is not right about its presence in the pack … you are a bigger pack member and you are not pleased. In fact, you are more than not pleased and this is scarry for a puppy. So the last thing this pup is going to do is draw attention to itself. It is definetly not going to pee outside where all can smell it. A safer choice for your pup is going to be (in its mind) in the house (under cover) and on the feet/shoe smelly rugs or carpet (good hiding place). So, I suggest that when you see that your pup is going to start peeing, get her attention … clap & use your fun voice & jump up & down silly for her so she runs to you to get in on the action & take it outside – let her chase you like you are playing a game. Course game is get her to finish potty outside so you can praise her like she just saved your life. Imprint her in this way and she won’t want to potty in your house. Just a suggestion.
a friend of mine did something you might find horrible but it worked. everytime the dog pooped in the house, he would rub his face in it. he did this for about 2 weeks. the puppy didn’t understand at first why my friend was doing this, but after the two weeks, i think she understood. she always goes to her spot in the backyard when she has to go. it’s amazing really.
I agree with everyone above who wrote that rubbing a puppy’s nose in poop doesn’t work. It is just stupid and alleviates the anger the owner feels toward the puppy, and the puppy doesn’t even know why it is happening.
My pappy puppy was particularly difficult to housetrain (I think they all are, they are small and can hide easily) and we would stay outside for, it seemed, hours waiting for her to potty. She liked being outside so she was having a great time. But a friend told me that his dog could potty on command. So, following the general crate training techniques, I took her outside and waited for her to potty, then said “time to potty” and GAVE HER A TREAT RIGHT THEN. I had never given a treat for housebreaking, and she was a little older (about 9 months-as I said she had been difficult) but within a week it was night a day in my house. She is now housetrained, and can potty if she needs to on command and I think she just pretends to sometimes, even though the treats are few and far between now.