Best way to potty train German Shepard Puppy?
Amelia is the newest addition to our family and shes a great puppy with the exception of potty training her. We have a crate for her that we keep in doors and she sleeps in it and goes in as she pleases. We bring her outside almost every 1-2 hours with the exception of night and when we have to go to work and my husband and I cant get to the house then its 3-4 hours. Any how no matter what Amelia will run around the house go outside then run in to her crate and go potty only in there!!! She treats it as a toilet. We have a clicker so she hears that noise when she goes outside. We let her know what good girl she is and we ignore her bad habit per dog training books. I think our issue is the breeder we bought her from would keep the pups and mom in an outdoor crate 24-7 (very sad) and just spray it down once a day. I think my pup thinks thats how it is. But our crate is indoor and we dont want that!!! Please help! Thanks!
Somebody SHOULD have been home with her 24/7 for at least the first week, preferably fortnight. I expect house-training & toilet training almost completed during the first day, but it takes longer to ensure that the pup is quite certain about what to do.
And I disapprove of crates except for travelling or to protect the dog from unruly children who were badly raised by a visitor.
When no-one is home, the dog should be in an escape-proof roofed outdoor run that is at least 12 ft between gate and raised sleeping box, so that it has room to bounce around, can choose to sleep in the shade or in the sun, can go toilet whenever it wants, and can safely experience the scents, sounds & movements of the environment – far more interesting than in a crate or locked in a room!
• Toilet training consists primarily of YOU learning your pet’s timing and signals, and responding to them by picking the pup up and carrying it to the designated patch of newspaper or yard, then staying there silently until the pup does what you’re out there for, and THEN praising the pup enthusiastically, using its name plus the word that will eventually become a command – eg , “Good girl TOILET, Amelia!” (I recommend shortening her call-name to just 2 syllables – maybe Amy or Meelee.) NO games out there until after she’s been toilet. No coaxing or movement from you. Not until AFTER she’s worked out why she’s there.
• A 7-8 weeks old puppy will probably give its toilet signal one minute after waking up, 3 minutes after a meal – but pups vary, and the period extends as the pop ages.
• Commonest signal is a nose-down circling as it chooses the best spot to squat on.
Your crate now being saturated with toilet odours, it is going to need high powered cleaning and a prolonged exposure to the elements.
And as she has learned to mess inside, you are going to have to start from scratch. Carry a balled-up sock or a lightweight tennis ball at all times. If your observation is slack and she has crouched before you realised, stamp your foot beside her before picking her up and carrying her outside as above – that serves to startle her into stopping, but if she piddles on your hands, so what?
If she is out of reach, throw the sock and time your stamp to sound as the sock hits her – the purpose isn’t to hurt her, just to convince her that you have an incredibly long invisible arm.
I hope you have already booked yourself in to a training class that starts as soon as possible after she turns 18 weeks old. There you will be coached to improve your technique, and your pup will learn to pay attention regardless of what other dogs & people are doing.
Prior to that, all her training is to be by patient reinforcement of her actions – praise that includes the eventual command word, plus a simultaneous reward, some examples being:
• pats, or rubs on croup or chest or ear-bases;
• a game of ball-chase or tug-o-war;
• a tiny tidbit such as a salted peanut, a sliver of hard cheese or baked liver or crisped bacon or cooked hot-dog.
Note: Tidbits should be so tiny that they supply barely a smell & taste, leaving the dog keen to earn another, and another.
And you cannot have a “German Shepard” – there is no farm task called ARDing. My breed was developed to HERD sheep in the German boundary patrolling way, so is the German Shepherd Dog – 3 words, or GSD for short.
Click http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/The_GSD_Source and add that address to your browser’s Bookmarks or Favorites so that you can easily look up such as feeding, vaccinations, weights, clubs, neutering, disorders.
To ask your other GSD questions, join some of the 400+ YahooGroups dedicated to various aspects of living with GSDs; most also let you post pics of your pet as it grows up. Each group’s Home page tells you what they like to talk about, and how active they are..
Les P, owner of GSD_Friendly: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/GSD_Friendly
“In GSDs” as of 1967
Steps to Training Dogs With Severe Separation Anxiety