Re: elimination frequency and housebreaking

In Reply to: elimination frequency and housebreaking
Posted by:  Marla
Posted on:  September 29, 2001 at 15:20:16

: My sister has her second JRT, and is having a lot of trouble with housebreaking. She takes the five month old out in the morning, praises her for doing three #1s and one #2, brings her inside. In the next half hour, the little annoying darling will have two more #1s and and one more #2, inside. The puppy has kept her crate clean over night for about a month now. It just seems that the puppy has no ability to hold her bladder or bowels..she will do her stuff in the morning, get praised, and then in the car on the way to deliver the school kids, she will do both in the car. When I was visiting, I tried taking her out every 60 to 90 minutes and that seemed to help some. My sister's theory is that she is so distractable that she starts to do her thing, and sees something and runs off and never finishes? Any suggestions? (no, she is not punished for accidents, just carried outside if caught in the act.) I checked your archives, sorry if I missed a similar question.

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Hi Marla,

The best thing to do besides putting a puppy on a feeding/eliminating schedule is to make sure the pup is on a leash when taken outside to do its business.

This way you have control of the situation and if the pup gets distracted, you can refocus it to why it is out there.

A pup that young will still need to go pretty frequently as its bladder is not full sized yet and its metabolism is in overdrive.

You might want to tell your sister to pick up the book "How to Housebreak a Dog in 7 Days" by Shirlee Kalstone. To me it is the Bible of housebreaking. It is a small paperback and is less than $7 if purchased via the site. I'll provide a link: Training Books