I had a trainer way back with an IG.. She even took pads to classes to let him go inside rather than out though it wasn't cold.. Best litterbox sites I've seen have been from IG owners.. I almost think there is something a little different about IGs.. but I wouldn't want a dog going in my house if I could stop it..

We went the box route.. Roomate bought dog, 6 floor of an apt, middle of winter. Yikes it sucked. So we had a rubbermaid under the bed tote with 2 over lapping pads in it at all times the 5 months we lived there. Time went on, she'd get sloppier about it. Bum out of box. 2 legs out of box, different 2 legs out of box thought it was huge and always kept clean..

Cider and I moved home.. The concept of the box was really kinda gross.. And though I limited house access, she kept going in random places. So box hit the trash and we started crate training for the out of doors. 3ish weeks and no more indoor potty unless seriously really ill and no one was payign attention.

I'd never willingly have a dog learn to go inside again.. It really did make it seem 'okay' to go elsewhere inside. Maybe it works for some people.. But in many cases, it's not the best option.

And if we ever went places even briefly and she couldn't find the litterbox, she'd just go.. That was mildly horrifying too, as she seemed pretty trained.. After making it outside only. The issues did stop thank god.

I have the house trained Italian Greyhounds. I'm home all day. I live in a pretty mild climate. I have talked to many people who have had bigger dogs and then get a toy breed dog. They think because they have house trained many dogs this little dog should be just as easy. Well most refuse to listen to me so they have a dog that pees all over the house or in it's crate because they know more than me. So to them I say happy cleaning!
Many sites base the amount of time a puppy can be in a crate without a potty break state a weight and number of hours. Why? Little dogs and little puppies need to go more often than big dogs or bigger puppies. I think it has to do with the bladder.

If the pads work use them.
If the litter pan works use it.
If an exercise pen works use it.
If a dog door works use it.
If a belly band works use it.
If it takes a rain coat to get your dog to go outside in the rain use it.
I have used all these methods in the past, but the litter pan. My dogs still wear rain coats in the rain. If you want to get wet go for it. How would you like to go take a pee in the rain or snow if you had no body fat and tiny little legs? If you say what's the big deal - send me pictures (I need a good laugh).

When you tell people not to use something or don't have a dog if you can't take it out what do you think happens to the dog they have?

They get rid of the dog. I want people to keep the dog they have and do what ever needs to be done to keep it in the family and not in the shelter.

I work around my dogs needs because I love them. Just like in agility when something goes wrong on course 99% of the time the error belongs to the human partner.

Now go do the right thing! (Dr Laura says this all the time - I don't want to get sued under copy right laws).

Denim, you are a trip.

You ask: What do I think would happen to the dog if I offered the best advice I could and the owner failed and got rid of the dog without even trying? Well let's see... that would suck. But again, it wouldn't be my fault now would it?
Sounds like someone who doesn't need a dog and they would probably find a different excuse later on down the road if something like that is worthy by them, of ditching a pet over.

And rubbish with most little dogs not being able to handle holding it. I hate when little people baby smaller breeds.
Admittedly, I don't know a thing about Italian greyhounds, but I believe she said she had a mixed breed? I do know that a miniature schnauzer, a toy poodle and a Heinz 57 variety haven't had this issue with tiny exploding bladders or not having the ability to absorb house training. They are actually quite intelligent and competent.

There. My advice is out there like yours, now please stop making it seem like my opinion and years experience isn't worth as much as yours, thanks. I believe she asked for advice in general and if this is her first dog, I am trying to help her, not brainwash or confuse the poor girl.

"...[I]f you get a pet and don't have the time to train them or take them out to relieve themselves, you shouldn't have a pet."
"I think pope is right if you don't have time to take your dog out don't have one."
"Pee pads are disgusting."
"I hate when little people baby smaller breeds."

*****

Little people? Excuse me?

If the best advice you can give is unnecessarily judgemental, stop giving advice, because the OP does not need it. And you are irritating others as well, myself included. Yes, you do have years of experience, but so do I, and so do the people who disagree with you. And yet they do not lower themselves to making rude or judgemental comments.

The OP asks if using pee pads and/or outdoors is workable. Italian greyhound owners have suggested that it is workable on the long-term. Based on my own experience--having a small dog that is difficult to keep 100% house trained--my advice to the OP is to do whatever works for her dog, and if the pee pads work, stick with unless by chance it stops working.

Pope - I hope saying that I'm a trip is a good thing I know back in the day all the pot heads thought a trip was a very good thing.

Some people do not post on this site they just lurk. So I don't want them to just give up. There is more that one way of doing things.

When you have a dog that goes potty in the wrong place it can be stressful. If you have other people in the house who weren't too sure they wanted a dog the stress level goes up for the one who wanted the dog. So please don't tell them they are dirty or bad pet owners because they will get rid of the dog. One reason people turn their dogs into shelters is house training problems.

I had a Mini Schnauzer for over 16 years she just pasted away. She was also house trained. She could hold it all day, until this last year. My Italian Greyhounds can't. We got a dog door because the one would get up every two hours at night and cry to go out. He had to go. Was I babying him when I got up to open the door? No, he had a need and I took care of it. If I need to go pee I go I don't hold it two more hours because most people go every four hours. My mom thinks outhouses are gross (my life trainer), so what. If that is all there is I go in it. Trainers are all different some are good and some aren't worth a penny.

There are a lot of people that have had a lot of different experiences with dogs that give advice on this site. If you haven't had to deal with a dog that is hard to potty train then you have no experience and are not an expert in that area. I know that the OP was not having problems, she was trying to avoid a problem or maybe she just wanted some one to say good job. So to her I say GOOD JOB pet owner.

The other people who read this topic were upset by name calling and put downs.

I was raised old school, but I like new school so much better. Dog trainers were mean to dogs and my teacher use to hit me on the hand and back with a ruler every day because I was left handed. Now dogs get treats and teachers who use physical punishment are fired. Life can be good if we move forward in our thinking.

Ok, here's my theory. I'm not trying to piss anyone off, but it sounds reasonable to me. (feel free to disagree)

If you have a great dane (or a newf or pyr or any other 100+lb dog) accidents are unacceptable. You are talking major pools of pee and major piles of poop. No one can live with that, and people will do everything possible to make sure that dog can go outside when he needs to. It's just not an option to be cleaning up after a large dog several times a day (or even once a day, for that matter)

Now someone with a toy breed-potty accidents are an incovenience. Yeah, it might be a little pain in the butt to clean, but lets face it-it's not that much to clean up. In fact, cleaning up after the little dog might be a lot easier than getting up to take him out in the middle of the night, or going out with him when it's raining. And it's easy to blame it on the dog. "He just has a little bladder-he couldn't hold it"

Now something else that someone pointed out to me (just to be fair to all the toy breed owners out there that now hate me, lol!) To a toy breed, your house is HUGE, which might make it easier for it to pee/poop in the house. After all, there is SO MUCH ROOM, that he can pee here, and still have plenty of room to eat/sleep/play where it is clean.

So it's probably a combination of both. But I really feel that having a "small bladder" has absolutely nothing to do with it.

I know that my dog can "hold it" for up to 9 or 10 hours. He's only 13 lbs but he is an adult. So for him it's not a small bladder thing, but he does not drink much. When we adopted him I re-trained him from scratch, starting with crate training, followed by being sequestered in part of the house while we are gone, and now he has access to the entire house during the day. He has a dog door but he still has accidents occasionally.

Sometimes he just does not want to relieve himself outside. The main reasons are inclement weather or something outside scares him--usually our neighbors' kids, yelling, letting off cap guns and fireworks. Sometimes I come home at the end of the day and he's hiding under the bed because something scared him. Those are days I might find a stray turd on the floor...

When the weather is bad, he will mess in the house while we are home--he sneaks off to an empty room and we only find it after the fact.

If I do not catch him in the act, I will not scold him for it. But he has accidents only rarely, at worst during the winter maybe once every two months, but until recently he had gone at least six months.

I have been trying different things, keeping sweaters on him all winter helped. Lately I have just shut the dog door and I take him on fairly long walks morning and night, plus let him into the yard when I am home.

I don't know how many times I have to say both my dogs (intact males ) are both house trained. They use a dog door. My dog is healthy, has had blood test and an ultra sound to see if kidney and liver are normal. He just needed to go every two hours when he was young. Now that he is older (51/2 years old) he goes every three to four hours.

I think he has a small bladder. What else could it be? This dog will go outside at night by himself in the rain to go pee so I say he really must need to go. My other dog who is bigger doesn't like the rain, but he can hold it all night and then in the day I put his rain coat on and he goes outside.

These are my dogs and my training, but again not everyone can stay home and work with a dog to get them to this point. Who knows what my house would have been like if I didn't have a dog door and I didn't stay home. Work with what you have and make the most out of it.

The crazy thing is I have a toy breed and my dogs are house trained and I'm not putting people down who are still trying to find a way to live happily ever after with their dog.

I made an honest attempt to teach tater to go outside when I got him with crate training and everything. We would do good but then for some reason I would have to go to town or go somewhere longer than I would want him to spend in a crate and have to go potty. I live in the country and I live alone so its not like I can have somebody I know just zoom by the house to take him out. I had no choice but let him have free run of the house while I was gone and put pads out. Yes that did confuse him and would stop going outside and use something else if there was no pad. I caught him in the act several times and got on to him for doing it. Then he started hiding when he went potty, unless I had a pad down. Its not that I am gone a lot its that I am gone just enough to confuse him on outside/inside. Perhaps if I had someone who lived with me or lived closer to my mom who could take him out at intervals during my occasional outings I could make outside work. Pads worked for me and Tater. I keep it cleaned up and even have baking soda in the trash so that it wont stink. If you came to my house and Tater were sleeping out of site, which he usually is, you wouldnt even know I have a dog, or at least you wouldnt smell evidence of one. Yes I do baby him not just because he is a toy but because he is who he is. He does not ask what can I do for you, he asks what have you done for me. Not a dog who serves people but who people are his servants. Thats just his way of thinking.

illini, sorry, I was trying to download Icare 8.0

I have better things to do, than argue with someone who the only thing I think of when I see a post by them, is "Interesting member name, cute avatar." and that is about it.

How amusing that you can see the irritation in my opinion but you are so blinded by your own posts. (forgive me, I failed to mention that condescending snottiness is another thing that comes to mind when I see a post by you...)

Sorry that this happens to be a sore subject for you, but if you are going to argue over a little error in wording over my opinion, as it is clear that we were talking about little dogs, I most certainly didn't mean "little people"...you are more of a waste of time than I ever dreamed.

Denim and Tatersmom, thanks for delving deeper into your views on the subject. I appreciate it.

catlover, still with ya...

In order to potty train, we have to understand why dogs are able to be trained to not pee in the house, and why potty pads are bad idea.

First a dog either is potty trained or is not. it's like being pregnant they are or they are not. I will explain why.

Dogs, have a natural instinct to keep a den clean, to prevent disease. Some dogs have this instinct to high degree, some it is almost no existant. my experinece with the dogs that have lost it is, they grew up in filth as pups.

This is what makes a crate a great tool. Seeing dogs do not like to lay or be around thier feces or pee the crate just big enough for a dog will encourage them to hold it.

Now for the next instinct. Dogs have a instinct to potty in the same general area. So when we take them out of the crate. we take them to the spot. I give my dogs, 2 minutes. that's it. 120 seconds. if they do not go, back to the crate. with repetitions of doing this, the dog soon learns it has just a little a bit time to get relief. This helps with breeds that are not good in the cold. They will go right away. All my dogs when ever let out of the house or the crate go immediatly.

So once the dog has established it's potty spot. The house is no longer an option to go potty in. They want to go outside.

Pee pads, work against every natural the dog has to keep it's den clean. most dogs never learn that the pads are the potty spot. they just learn where the pads are placed is the spot. remove the pads. and the dog will potty thier any way. or go looking for the pads.

There always seem to be some resitance to letting dogs go outside. especially the small breeds. There also is a myth that some dogs are harder to potty train, or train for that matter. Dog training has expanded leaps and bounds in the last 25 years. yet thier is a resitance movement against this new found information. I do not know why. but I see it every day. In fact most of the clients that I have seem to be on the belief that if they somehow are dominate enough or loving enough that the dog will change it's behavior. They may, to some degree but only because dogs are obedient to the laws of learning.

Dog training and learning theory are exactly the same thing. You learn as a dog learns. Though our brains are little more advanced, in the aspects we can manage much more complex problem solving and we have written and complex spoken language. We learn off the same basic princpals. Just the porcess is much more efficent in humans. we can transmit ideas, much faster.

gunny - how many hours a day do you keep your puppy or dog in a crate each day working on potty training?

I can't speak for Gunny, but I know when I was working on Faeden's potty training, I would crate him for 10-15 minutes if he didn't go when we were outside. Then I would take him out again, and usually he would go right away. It only took a few days of this until he understood. It really only added up to about an hour or so a day.

Smaller dog, smaller bladder....since your dog is only 4 months old, it can't hold it that long. So the pee pads are fine as long as he still knows he has to go outside.. When he gets older and more able to hold it longer you can take the pee pads away. Just keep him in his crate while you are at work. Eventually, when you are 100% sure he's trustworthy, then he can have more freedom.

I think a lot of people leave they dogs and puppies in crates for too long each day. Puppies need to run, jump, and play to build strong muscles.

Your dog or puppy maybe crate trained, but that doesn't mean they are house trained. When you let it out of the crate to run around the house it still needs to learn not to go potty on the floor. If a dog goes to the door to go out or a dog looks for the pee pad to go on, why would you say one is trained and the other is not? They are both trained, they are just trained to look at the situation differently. You can do whatever you like with your dog, but don't act like there is only one way of doing things.

Many breeders put pee pad down for their puppies and as the puppies grow they start to decrease the number of pads. Working to the point of the puppy going outside. Some puppies come already housed trained using this method.

Some breeders don't take their puppies outside until they have had a couple shots. The choices the breeders make are based on the experiences they have had with their breed and diseases they have heard about or experienced. Some breeders don't want anyone around their puppies (they fear disease) and some breeders put the puppies out to many different locations (socialization to them is key). There is more than one way to look at things. Both these view have good and bad points.


I have no problem with putting my dogs in a crate for a couple of hours if I'm not home (I use the crate to keep my dog safe from household dangers), but when I'm home they shouldn't need to be in a crate. This is how I deal with my dogs, if you want to do something different fine and more power to you.

People are all different and dogs are all different so there has to be more than one way of doing things.

Most Sight hound groups think sight hounds should never be off leash in open areas. Does that mean I should go around telling every other owner of a different breed they are stupid and not responsible pet owners if they choice to walk their dog off leash? Or should people tell owners of sight hounds you need to learn how to train your dog so it can be off lead and if it doesn't come to you every time on the first call you need to learn how to train that dog or you shouldn't own a dog.

I really just want other pet owner to work with the dog they have and give it a happy home.

Some people say I'm a dreamer!

To answer your question. Which I am sure was asked so You can question my ethics. but before you do, let be known that my dogs received no punishment during potty training, I had zero "accidents" training lasted a mere 2-5 days...hardly imprisionment. The dogs like the crate...do not forget dogs create thier little burrows in the wild, called dens. My dogs eat the finest cuisine, They have thier own vehicle. purchased specifically with thier comfort in mind....ad inifintium...I assure my choices concerning my canines, are made with thier comfort in mind...I highly doubt an unethical animal owner would spend time on the computer for the shear enjoyment of sharing thier experience that dogs have afforded them.

The dog goes out every hour, for 120 seconds. no potty back to the crate. If they potty. they get out of the crate for about an hour. then by that time they are genrally tired. your absolutley correct dogs need to run jump and play. but they have little gas tanks, and need to sleep often.

And I agree crate training is not potty training. but the crate is an indispensable tool to teach the dog that the house is the crate.

And being diligent with the crate training, a 4 mos old puppy, could be potty trained in 48 hours. Saving them discpline and your carpet.

I totally agree thier is more than one way to skin a cat...but thier is a truth in training. whatever behaviors are reiforced, through either positive or negative methods are likely to occur again. So teaching a dog to poop in the house, becomes a reiforced behavior due to the relief of discomfort of holiding it. Whether the dogs actually condition themselves to go on the pad, is very hit and miss. I have seen some dogs never get it, a few do, but most dogs, just learn to go in the house. Not what I call an effective method.

So, I could ask you a question....what do you do when the dog does not poop on the pad?

DP

gunny - if you are addressing me you haven't read anything I have ever posted. My dogs don't use pee pads they are five years old and house trained. When they were puppies they did and then they moved to outside. I'm a very soft dog owner and handler. If my dog makes a mistake in anything, I see it as my mistake and I correct myself. Praise the dog slap the owner. My old dog the last year of her life she was having pee accidents in our house - dribbles. Before we got to that point I put tile and wood floor on the first floor of my house so if the day came that she might have a hard time holding it, the mess wouldn't be a big deal since we had (we paid over $13,000) paper towels and odor remover . I also took her to the vet (test to make sure it wasn't an infection or kidney failure). We let her out all the time and were glad she was still with us.

My dogs are very special to me.

I.G. take a long time to house train they are ranked by some trainers as very hard to train. It does take a long time and a lot of patience. I never heard of an IG trained in even a couple of months to be 100% house trained.

I think that's a great idea for your sitituation.

I think that's a great idea for your sitituation.