Reptile & Amphibian Forums

HI,

I'm new here. Just got a 12 week old mini, and the first four days of house breaking has gone great. We are crate training, and she's gotten through 3 nights out of the four without peeing in her crate. New breed for me for sure, she's very sweet.

Anyone have any special insight into the breed, and any house breaking tips? I've never done this before!!

When we got our first dachshund he was just 4 weeks old. We crate trained him. Not knowing the size of your crate you may want to put some kind of a divider in it to make the interior smaller.

How old is your mini now? We have her in a crate for a 10 pound dog. She is only 4.1 pounds currently, I was told the smaller the crate the better they will do. Did your's train easily? The only problem we have is her constant biting at my sons pant legs - the teething issue. I was told by the vet that by 15 weeks she shoudl start lsoing some of her teeth already. Is this true? I didn't know they lost them that early on. It's been a while since we've had a dog, and it's a little stressful right now. Just lookign for reassurance I guess that it will get easier, hopefully quicker than later!

Your little one is too young right now, but within the next 6 months, you'll want to take her to puppy class to get her accustomed to other dogs (strangers) and feeling secure with you (make sure she's up to date with all vaccinations). Later in the year, take her to obediance training (find a trainer who uses either tidbits of food or clickers as incentives). Doxies are very strong willed and you want her to come when you call. These little hound dogs follow their nose everywhere and you could lose her if she isn't trained to come immediately. Also, "leave it" is an essential command so she doesn't pounce on toxic stuff she finds on the floor or outside. I've also heard that dogs can be trained to ring a bell dangling from a door know when they need to go out. I wish we had done this with our guy, since he doesn't like to bark, and has had several accidents when we've not noticed that he's by the door.
MOST IMPORTANT: I knew this and wasn't vigilent enough so now our dog is recovering from a back injury. Doxies are VERY MUCH AT RISK for serious back problems; it's the breed. But you can prevent this from happening to your dog if you INSIST that she not get up on furniture. These injuries usually happen when the dog jumps from the couch or bed, and believe me, although we tried to stop our guy from jumping, if he's up there and hears a truck pull into the driveway, off he goes, like a little flying squirrel. To satisfy your dog's innate love of jumping, you could train her to some agility courses, but keep the jumps LOW, like only 4 inches max! These dogs love to work, and a dog confined indoors will consider the furniture an obstacle course/playground, with serious consequences. Intervertebral disc disease can begin as young as 2 years or less, and some dogs are paralyzed by 5 years, so please take this seriously! Our dog is recovering, since his disc didn't rupture, but we were lucky this time, and will have to always restrict his activity in the future. Very sad for this playful little guy.
One more thing: get your puppy off puppy food as soon as you can ... check with your vet. The commercial puppy foods cause doxies to grow too fast, and are really intended for larger breeds. Keeping your doxie's weight low all of her life will keep her healthy. We feed our adult dog only 1/4 cup kibble and 1 teas. wet food, twice a day. Limit the snacks, and make them low-calorie, like a baby carrot or fresh green bean. Our dog loves a slice of banana or apple, but fruit does have more sugar than vegetables.
Good luck with your baby! Get a good book on doxie care and do some reading online. To learn more about preventing back problems, go to http://www.dodgerslist.com/.
Michelle

Thanks for all the info. She seems to be very smart. Knows exactly where to go to the bathroom out side, same spot and the spot that we would like her to go in, and she quickly runs back to the steps to go back inside. It's so cold where I am right now, the only thing she won't do is willingly go to the door to go out. Of course she's only 13 weeks old. At what age do they typically start to put it together that hey, I have to go and I have to go to that door to get out to go.?

We have a foot of snow coming this weekend, so this should be intersting. We'll have to shovel her spot out each time we take her out tomorrow! Crazy. But we'll do it, I don't want her to even go once inside the house, not even on a puppy pad - don't want to confuse her. She'll have to get used to the weather changes anyway.

It sounds like your girl is getting the idea of going outside just fine. I think girls are easier to train than boys. It took about 6 months for our guy to be reliable. We live in NH so I know what you mean about shoveling a place for her. We have to do the same thing. Just make sure it's big enough so she can find a "clean" place to go each time. It helped when we began rewarding him for going outdoors. We use a no-calorie breath (chlorophyll) tablet (broken in 1/4) which we call his "poopy treat" and he looks for it when he comes in after being a good boy! Any sort of no-calorie reward would do.

That is why we got a girl. I've always had female dogs as a kid, and so did my husband, and they just seem easier or quicker to learn. Friends of ours all have male dogs and they seem to be much more feisty and sneaky. If you are in NH, you will be getting the snow we are getting this weekend - I am in PA. I do have a garden in the back the is under the overhang of the garage, which won't get snow covered - may have to make that the spot temporarily.

She doesn't like the treats I bought for reward for going potty - so I may try something else - she certainly knows when we are eating something - she's right there looking - maybe a small piece of carrot for treat.

I'm hoping in the next few weeks, we won't have to take her out quite as often during her awake hours? Do they slowly learn to hold it longer throughout the day and after play time?

I'm afraid you just have to wait for her to grow in size before she can hold her pee longer. Her bladder is so tiny she can't hold much. Ask your vet next time you bring her, but I think you're probably just looking at a little-kid issue. Crating her while you're away from home will help. When you are home, you might try to get her on a regular schedule of every 2 hours, and then gradually increase it. Good luck!

I've been told that mini's (I learned all this after we got here) can be overprotective and biters. Any truth to this, is it something known to the breed?

Rigiht now she goes 7 hours overnight without crying or relieving herself in her crate. She goes 3-4 hours at a time during the day also, dependent on when my husband and I leave for work and return for lunch.

So she's holding her bladder quite well, and she waits till we get her outside to go.

Well, it sounds like she's doing fine for housebreaking, if she's going that long. I think about 7 hours is all we ever expected of our guy.
As far as temperament, I have never had such a loving, intelligent dog as this mini doxie, really! It all depends on what you provide. If you give her structure and a lot of affection and positive reinforcement, you'll have a pal for life. I think one mistake people make is putting these little dogs in with bigger, more aggressive dogs, and then they have to be on the defensive all the time. I've also been told that doxies are very loyal to whomever they form that bond with, so if they form the bond with another dog, you won't have the same quality of attachment as you would if you had a single dog and she was your baby. I've learned with our guy that he likes his space, sometimes, and we need to respect that. He can get snarly if he has a big bone (we used to give him rawhide) to protect, so we stopped doing that. Otherwise, no problem, if he wants to be left alone, he goes to his crate. He loves kids and tolerates being petted by babies. The more you can socialize your pup, the better, but do protect her from the aggression of other dogs. Obediance class should be a safe place, but the beach and dog parks often are not, if dogs are running loose. We tried to get our doxie together with small dogs such as other doxies, pugs and corgis, and that worked out fine. Since then, he's made buddies with a couple of docile labs and looks forward to playing with them.
Good luck! Post any other questions that arise. I'm not the only one with a mini doxie out there ... where are the rest of you??

I'm terrified of larger dogs, so that won't be a problem! My main concern about the "biting" reputation was my son is 10, and has lots of his friends in and out of our house a lot, and was worried about any incidents down the road. I'm one of those who thinks too far ahead, always have been!

I guess we just have to wait and see how she progresses - the big plus right now is no whining at all at night, and no messes in the crate - caught her once in the kitchen squatting to pee but quickly picked her up and had her finish it outside.

Thanks for all your information - appreciate it.

Hi!

I don't own a mini, but I got one for my parents 2 years ago for Christmas. She's a greyt little dog and loves everyone. I think if your baby is well socialized and treated well by the children, you'll be just fine. Let them play and handle her and I can't imagine any problems. Just watch the kids and make sure none of them mistreat her, even by accident.

Sounds like you have a super dog! Does anyone have photos to share? Here's a pic of my parents girl, Candy.

Melody

I just posted a photo of Franky (URL below, I'm not sure how this works ...) Jille, do you have one of your new baby?
Brrrr ... 17 degrees below zero here today and Franky wants to go out ...

No, no pictures yet. We've been so busy we haven't snapped any yet. Dog did good over the weekend in teh snow storm. We put a tarp down at her usual spot, and just kept brushing the snow off, she'd go right on the tarp.

We also think she's getting the hang of where to go out at. She was playing in the room with us, and she twice ran to the french doors that we had closed so she could'nt get loose on us, and she jupmed up twice and kinda scratched at the glass. We wondered if she was signaling to go out - we didn't get up right away and didn't she try and pee on teh carpet! Caught her, took her out side, and although she got all the pee out, which wasn't much, she did "poo" right away.

Could it be already she's figuring it out? I don't think she will willingly go to the door because of the weather, but was curious if she could have been thinking that she had to get to that area to go out?

It sounds like your pup is getting the hang of housebreaking. It does take time but she sounds like a smart dog. Good luck!

No pictures yet - we've been to busy to even snap any. We'll have to take some this week.

Did the dog you got your parents train pretty easy? We are carrying her out right now, because of the cold and because the vet said we shouldn't let her go down steps yet by herself (??), how will she get the hang of taking herself to the back door to signal us if we are carrying her out all the time? Any suggestions?