potty trained

[Chessie]

My puppy is about 4.5 months and is not even close to being fully potty trained. I know he is young, but i was wondering what age your frenchies were when they became potty trained?

[Tatiana]

Gunther - male: 13 weeks (the record-holder)
Hillary: 5 1/2 months
Agatha: 16 weeks
Georgy-Girl: 16 weeks

Those are the ages when they were perfect and could be left at home unattended with the run of the living / dining / kitchen area for a minimum of 4 hours without any wee-wee pads and without soiling indoors... Agatha surprised me when she held herself for 5 1/2 hours at that age when I was stuck in traffic... Came home in a panic and she hadn't done a single mess so I knew we'd reached success... Hillary took a bit longer to trust for long stretches of time... She never peed inside because I never gave her the chance to, but I sequestered her away from Gunther the first couple of months and limited my outings / errands to no more than 2 hours.

Can't take the credit, really... The bulk of the initial potty-training was done by their breeder so she instilled good habits in each of her dogs... I only got the dogs when they were 12 weeks of age and had all their initial vaccinations so I could walk them frequently outdoors... Having the advantage of working from home I was able to walk the puppies every hour-and-a-half, initially, gradually increasing the time between walks and preventing any accidents inside... And at night I would make it a practice to walk the puppy really late (say 1 AM), and then take the puppy out some time between 4 and 5 AM, eventually extending the amount of time until I could sleep 6 to 7 hours undisturbed...

Gunther was perfect from day one and I stopped leaving any wee-wee pads around the house after the first week, but I think it's because he was a single puppy and didn't have any litter-mates so the breeder was able to devote round-the-clock attention to his education.

The fact is that most people find potty-training really challenging... It can take anywhere from 6 months to a year to note progress, but without describing your actual routine and methods it's rather impossible to make any suggestions.

Cheers!

[jill]

Our frenchie, Doc was really good with housebreaking..until he hit about 7 or 8 months and then he had a temporary "marking party". We went back to basics and he was good to go. I will say that what saved us alot of worry and clean up was ALWAYS having him (as with all of our pups) in eye sight and taking him out so often that if he even suggested he needed to go or I was the least bit suspicious, out we went. He was either in my lap, in my bed with me, tethered to my hip (in and out of the house)with toys and something to chew or he was contained in an ex pen or crate. If we were outside of course he ran and played like any other dog. What I find can really prolong the anguish of housebreaking is the baby having freedom. They have a short attention span and smell things that stimulate them and the more opportunity they have to go inside, the more it reinforces that's it's ok to go where you happen to be. I always suggest that people go out with the dog and make sure they actually pee/poop..don't ever assume because they've been out there for 30 minutes that they've done anything "productive" lol! I find it's better to overcompensate with structure when they are little than allow for confusion. Besides, I thikn the structure is a comfort and protection for the little guys. Hope your experience improves.

[Chessie]

I think i had been giving him too much freedom and that is making it harder to housebreak him. But i am being much stricter now, and he is getting better. The thing is that i will take him out so often (every hour or two) and he still has little pee accidents in between..very frustrating! thanks for your advise!

[bonesmama]

Our little Mouse is 6 mos old and we still can't trust her! I started a discussion on this about a month ago--we started giving her treats and she got a little better. There is always somebody home with her and she's out so much during the day in the yard, but she still doesn't really get it. I thought Schmoo was difficult, but he was trained by 4 1/2 months, and totally trustworthy, despite a rocky start in his first home......
Every dog is an individual, hang in there!!!!!

[Kim Milnor]

Our Oscar is now 9 months and I think he totally "gets it", but sometimes he just doesn't want to go outside! I keep a wee-wee pad in the foyer of our house, and thankfully he'll use that. But, get this, he is LITERALLY a closet pooper! I can walk him and walk him and walk him until we're both exhaused and he just will not go. Within minutes of getting back inside, he'll disappear. He has learned how to open one of our large sliding closet doors, will duck inside, drop a poopie in seconds and come racing out all happy with himself. Now that is frustrating!! Good luck and hang in there!

[Cantina]

At about 6-7 months Prince finally got with the program. I was reading in my frenchie book that this breed takes a little longer to potty train...dont know why. We never used puppy training pads because I was afraid he would think it is ok to go in the house. It sounds strange but anytime Prince would get naughty or hyper it was his signal he had to poop. Hang in there.

[Chessie]

Thanks everyone for their insight. I have another question for you all. I realize my pup doesn't have any accidents if i take him out every hour or two. However, he is approaching 6 months so from what i understand he should be able to go almost 6 hours, or at least 4 without having an accident. I know that he knows where he is supposed to go because he often goes to the door to be let out. However, if he isn't let out after 2 hours he will have an accident. THis leads me to believe he does not now how to "hold it." He is almost never in the crate during the day. He is in the crate and night and can hold it for 6 or 7 hours. Do you think its possible he hasn't learned to "hold it" because he isn't in the crate during the day? Maybe i am grasping at straws here, but just a thought!