help with my puppy please!

[StrawberryBlond]

Well my little bulldog is now almost 5 months old and she is doing great with just about everything : she sleeps 8 hours a night with no tinkle in her crate (22 straight nights now, yay!), she eats well and is on a schedule, she doesn't chew the furniture (only our toes, which is better then furniture), and she knows to go to the door when she has to tinkle - BUT that's all she does, she goes and sits right at the door and just looks at us ... SO if we aren't in that room we have no clue that she needs to go out - we are trying to get her to speak/bark when she's at the door but she's not catching on - someone said tie a bell to the door handle and hit it everytime she is there to go out, BUT we tied it there and all she did was attempt to eat it, which she almost accomplished - does anyone have any ideas of how to train her to speak or at least whine when she's are the door needing to go out?

your feeback would be wonderful and greatly appreciated

[jgibson2[$]]

She may not be ready to be in a room where you aren't just yet.

I always kept my puppies either crated or in the same room with me until they were thoroughly housetrained. You may need some baby gates.

[theworm[$]]

are you sure you want to teach her to bark?
I know a couple that has two small dogs. They have a doggie doorbell. They taught the dogs to step on it when they have to go out and it makes a chime to let them know.

[StrawberryBlond]

she has barked since she was only a few weeks old actually hehe, we taught her to speak when she's playing fetch with us, so she barks and we throw it and she brings it back

we have baby gates up, we have an addition on the back of our house that goes right into the back yard, that's where she mostly is, that room goes into our dining room and kitchen ( the way it's set up there is no way to block the whole thing off ... she is fine with being away from us in another room, she actually goes off on her own when she wants a nap into the corner of the addition on the couch where it's not so noisy! i'm just hoping that as she gets older she will come up with her own way of letting us know that she has to go out, espically when she starts sleeping out of her crate upstairs with me in bed hehe

[MiracleMax]

When we were housetraining Raven, she was not allowed in any rooms but the living room and kitchen, and all other rooms were closed off because she had the habit of going off and peeing on the carpets. We always took her out the same door whenever we took her out, and asked if she wanted to go outside to go potty. After a bit, she figured out that when she needed to go out, she would be going out the patio door, so she could go sit by the door and we’d let her out. For a while we took her out whenever she sat by the door, no matter if she had just came in or been in for a while. She never sat by the door without being let outside. That way, she got to know that if she went to the door, she got to go outside to go potty. After a while (week or so) we started kind of ignoring her a little when she sat by the door. We knew she was there, but didn’t exactly acknowledge the fact, unless she caught us seeing her by the door. When she figured out we didn’t know she was over there, she started coming over and nudging us, trying to get our attention. Because we always ask if she wants to go outside when we take her out, we could ask her, and she would perk up about wanting to go outside. Eventually she go to the point that if we ignored her nudges (she does it when she wants to play too, so sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference), she’d bark at us and go to the door to let us know. Sometimes she’ll come get me, give her special growl/bark, and then lead me to the door by my hand on her nose (we’re still working on the nose part). Lately, she wants to go outside just about every ten or twenty minutes, which is getting annoying, but we never want to deny letting her go outside when she asks to go. We think her meds from the vet may be making her have to go more often than normal because she used to be able to go hours without having to go potty, but now she’s going much more frequently. If it continues, we’ll ask the vet when we take her back this weekend. Mostly though, she seems to just want to play when she’s out there, now that she’s brave enough to be out on her own. Mostly it takes patience, and awareness of what your dog wants. Start with small steps that will lead to what you eventually want her to do to let you know. Like I said, we started with just getting her to go to the door, but now she can come let us know, wherever we are in the house.

[hadassahchana[$]]

Baby Dixie was easily trained as long as we were in the same room, but if she was by hself, even in the next room, if she needed to go, she'd just squat and go, then get back to playing. So, we kept her behind baby gates, crated her at night, and did exactly what Max said- we made her learn to ask. And after a year, it worked like magic.


Some dogs just take a bit longer to train, I'm thinking, and yours is still a little puppy. She might need a while longer to figure it all out.

I love the idea of a doorbell for the dogs, btw. Although, as much as mine love to bark, I can't imagine giving them another thing to use to make noise. Oy!

[MiracleMax]

We thought about hanging Nick's sleighbells on the door, but then figured we'd have to bring them with everywhere we go and decided against it. Raven was awesome, only took a couple weeks to train. She's learned a bit of a potty dance too, which can be humerous when she really wants to go outside. Although, it's usually a sign that she only wants to play too. She gets more adamant about going outside to play than going outside to potty.

[StrawberryBlond]

thank you all for your advice! this is so weird but before reading this i tried ignoring her and it sort of worked! i was on the couch watching tv and she kept going to the door and sitting there and looking at me, so i didn't make eye contact with her, she ran over to me and jumped on my lap so i asked her what she wanted and she ran and sat by the door ... i didn't look at her again and she finally let out a bark! hopefully that will start to stick

[mtomm[$]]

You'll both get trained. She is doing great it sounds like to me. Just the fact that she wants to potty outside is the key.

[StrawberryBlond]

yeah we are happy when she started to sit at the door, she was only about 10 weeks old when she started that, we got lucky with that part