[musicmom]

Help!

We have a 6 mo old beagle and she just doesn't understand what to do. I'll take her out and say "go potty" over and over again. She sniffs the ground and looks up at me like See, I did it mommy! Recently I've started taking treats out and giving them to her after she pees or poos. She's now sniffing the ground after "go potty" and then tries to get the treat from me. We've been at this for 3 months and I just don't understand what to do. Anyone have experience training a beagle or have any suggestions?

When I'm not home the kids are supposed to take her out, but I know it's not happening as much as it should since they're kids. So I know training is not exactly consistent, but I know they're not rewarding her for sniffing the ground.

[kelmom]

We have a beagle too! He is 8 months old. Beagles are fun, eh? Once he hits a year old (and after he is neutered) I am going to get another one (so that he'll have a buddy and our fur-baby family will be complete).

When potty-training ours... I found that getting a bell for him to ring was really helpful. The first few times (when we wanted him to go outside and go potty), I would ring the bell and say "outside" and then open the door and put him outside. I would watch him go potty and say "Good potty" and get really excited with lots of praise and a treat after he goes. I only did the treat thing a couple of times though.

He rings the bell on his own now (which is good).

Another thing that I found to help potty train him -- is crate training. If he goes down for a nap or down to sleep at night, the first thing I do when we wake up (or when he wakes up if he took a nap), is let him outside to go potty. Anytime he is let out of his crate -- we take him outside immediately to go potty. I even ring the bell just so he knows what time it is (potty time!).

I guess I came to the conclusion that house training Toby is successful if I put him on a consistent schedule and associate certain things with going potty (being let out of the cage and ringing the bell).

[Taming Rover]

Hi there, I agree with Kel in that the best solution for house training is a very regimented schedule, that way he knows what to expect and you have a better idea of when he needs to go.

My suggestions for you about the sniffing... It seems that you have associated the words "go potty" with sniffing, somehow the intention was lost in translation. No worries. what I would do is start over in terms of the words. Choose something else like "hurry up" or some other thing that sounds different from "go potty". Now, when you take him out don't say anything right away, just wait until he does something on his own, then say the word and give a treat. do this for a few days until he gets the association with this new word which now means, "I go pee and I get a treat and praise". then phase out the treats and try not to repeat the phrase over and over again as this just either makes it easy for him to connect it with other activities, and/or puts him in a position where he can ignore you if he doesn't need to go right away and thus negates your phrase and sets a negative foundation for him to possibly start ignoring other commands.

In general it's a good practice not to get into repeating yourself over and over. If you give a command and then he does not do it and then you give the command again, essentially what you are saying is "you don't have to listen to me until I say it two, three, four times," or "it's ok to ignore me the first few times I say something or until I get frustrated... " etc...
Much better to set the foundation early that when you say something it should be heeded the first time (this means you have to be able to follow through with any and all commands and also do not give a command unless you are in a position and prepared to back it up)

Even though I don't really see the "go potty" phrase as a command per se, it's still something that can set a foundation one way or another in your dogs mind that can then filter over into other areas.

So, if the words your using are not working, it's ok to change them up and go back to basics for a while until you come out with something that works for you.

Hope that helps and take care!

[musicmom]

Well, after posting this my daughter suggested saying "Go PePe" which for some reason I didn't think of.

This was different and she went right after so I think we may be making progress.

I'm thinking of taking her with me to work (we own a music lessons facility) and working with her there until she's trained. Not sure if I should though.

Any opinions on the dog pen size? We have a little one that she fits in, but it's getting smaller and smaller for her. I also have one that I used to use for our St bernard (who passed at age 12). Would that one be OK to use?

[Taming Rover]

If you use the larger one, section it off somehow so that only half of the space is available to her, if the area is too big then she may end up using one half of it for sleeping and hanging out and the other part for going to the bathroom. You want to make sure that she sees this place as a den and a safe place where she will not want to eliminate in and this can help her develop the muscles to hold it in a bit longer. That being said I would not leave her in there if you know she needs to go. Take her out right away after she wakes up from a nap, again about 1/2 hour (or find whenever is the right time for her, it's different for every dog) after eating and probably much sooner after having a drink. After a play session and also taking the water up about 2 hours before bedtime can help with night time accidents. Then out immediately after waking up, before even saying hi, good morning... taking her out right away... and again, wait until she does her business, then say the words "Go peepee" or whatever you choose and then reward. soon enough she should know what it means.
Also it will probably help to not bring her in directly after she goes pee because eventually she may realize "hey, as soon as I pee the outdoor fun stops and I have to go back inside..." and she may hold off on peeing because she wants to romp around outside some more... (I learned this the hard way with my pup!) Instead after she's peed and you gave her a treat stay out a few minutes more and let her play, or play with her for a bit before coming inside.
And just to reiterate, changing the words up is important in order to create a new connection with the action, but if you change the words and you don't change your own action then the new words will carry the same meaning as the old ones. So try not to repeat them more than once or twice. )
Good luck!