Housebreaking An Older Puppy Accustomed To A Dog Door?
A Reader Asks…
Hi! My husband and I are in the process of adopting a 14-month-old longhaired dachshund puppy. Currently the puppy lives in a household with several other dogs and a large fenced yard and uses a dog door to go outside at will. Our yard is unfenced (we live in a townhouse and the back yard is large, but common property to the condo association), so the dog will need to learn to ask to go out. To complicate things, our outside door is at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and the dog isn’t accustomed to stairs.
I know that to housetrain a younger puppy, crating is the fastest way to go. Our girl isn’t used to a crate; do all you dog experts out there think we should go ahead and crate her until she’s used to the new system? Or is there a better way to do it?
Thanks! We pick her up in about a month, and I’m trying to spend that time dogproofing the house and making sure we’ve got everything we need to make her comfortable and happy.
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At first take the dog out certain times of the day instead of waiting for dog to let you know it has to go. For example, I crate my dogs at night so in the morning I take them right out. This is 8:30am, I then take them out at 1:00, then 6:00 then right before bed. I do these same times ea day. Secondly make sure to leash the dog in the house walk it out the same door and to the same spot outside so it can get used to your area and start to get the habit. Also when I take the dogs out I say the same thing “Go outside” so they know what that means so later on they may need to go earlier then times and I can ask them and they will respond. Start to form a schedual for the dog to start to get used to your family habits. My sister hung a bell near the door and her dog used to tap the bell everytime it wanted to go out.
Crate!!
Those dogs hate to housebreak.
Well you can get once of those gates you put in between a 2 two walls! When the dog wants to go out side, most likely he will scratch the gate! So when he does buy him a leash and walk him down the stairs slow everytime! With leash he will feel secure and safe! (*but most dogs are not scared of stuff like this! If they can go up… they can go down give it like a week! Then in a month take down the gate and put it in a place where you dont want your dog to go into! ANd your dog might have fun with the stairs and they might feel weird go down and up stairs then but then they will just think ohh…. there is no problemo!