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Query in House training a Lab

Wed, 03/26/2008 - 23:06 — Sameerraje

I brought a puppy (mix of Labrador and Stray) when ishe was 40 days old. She in no time or without any of my efforts started understanding the use of Papers we laid on the floor and started using it for peeing and pooping. I later understood that only the paper was not the symbol which she had got used to, it was the area as well. So if we have not laid the paper for any reason, she wouild go and pee there on the floor happily. After sometime when I thought she has grown bigger and the odour of her elimination became unbearable, I tried training her in "toileting in the Tolilet". I was rather very inexperienced in doing that, which led me to even beating her if she did not understand (I really repent that now). The outcome of that I think is, it has left her confused and now she has left peeing even on the newspaper. She now does it anywhere in the house. She is now 5 months old so in size she has grown very big and weighing almost 15 kgs. She gets afraid of me. Only is some days now that I understood my mistake and have stopped physically punishing her and shown my care towards her, she is coming to me
I know starting from Scratch would be very tough. Would you please tell me how to imbibe the basic house cleaning stuff atleast in her. She is not Crate Trained

Would really appreciate your response.

Comments

Thu, 03/27/2008 - 13:59 — Aidan
Aidan's picture

Thanks for your honesty

Hi Sameer, I appreciate your honesty in owning up to your mistake, not knowing a better way at the time.

Some people don't believe me when I tell them that punishing their dog for house-training accidents can teach the dog only to not toilet in front of them. Your story makes that clear, hey? In fact, now she doesn't want to display any behavior around you except submission and avoidance.

My dogs are pretty robust, but that just makes it harder to see what damage I've done when I use punishment. At least for you, it was easy to see.

So now let's forget about the past, and fix it for the future...

Begin with crate training. It's much, much easier to house-train a dog from scratch or remediate a house-training problem when you have some way of limiting accidents.

Here's a simple formula:

House Training = Successes - Failures

i.e The strength of your house training is all the successes (toilet outdoors) minus all the failures (toilet indoors).

Each dog is a bit different, actually for most dogs it looks like this:
House Training = Successes - (3 x Failures)

... in other words, each success is a step forwards and each failure is 3 steps backwards. Ouch! That's why we really need to limit those failures! That's where crate training comes in, 99% of dogs will not soil a correctly sized crate.

A routine is also important. Give every opportunity to succeed by making lots of trips outdoors, particularly when toileting behavior is likely such as after meals, after waking, after play.

Also, make sure you clean up all past, present and future accidents with an enzyme based cleaner.

Regards,
Aidan
http://www.positivepetzine.com