Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My husband and I just got our first doxie together! My husband grew up with them, but this is my first experience with the breed. He is 9 weeks old and we have had him for 3 days. I know it hasn't been very long since he has been in our home and that he is still very young, but I am having some training problems. I gerw up with labs and am used to potty training, but this dog seems different. With my labs, they went potty just about every time I took them out. As long as I took them out frequently (every 2-3 hours) there were never any accidents. Our puppy is the opposite. I can only get him to go potty outside first thing in the morning, probably because I wake him up and never let his feet touch the floor before we get outside. I give him tons of praise and sometimes treats. The rest of the day is another story. I always take him back to the same place where he went in the morning, but all he wants to do is chase leaves, dig or chew grass. I don't give him any "play" cues or attention, so I am not sure why he is not going. I have tried staying out anywhre from 1 minute to 1 hour. Then when we walk in the door, he goes usually with in 10 seconds of being back in the house. I am not sure what is causeing this behavior. I don't let him see me clean it up and I have also steam cleaned the carpets in those places to hopefully eliminate the odor so he won't go back. I have no problem going out very often, but I get frustrated when I go out every ten minutes (because I see him sniffing in the house) and then he wont go. It's very hard to keep this up for very long and as soon as I turn my head, he is pottying in the house. Any advice would be appreciated.

>>My husband and I just got our first doxie together! My husband grew up with them, but this is my first experience with the breed. He is 9 weeks old and we have had him for 3 days. I know it hasn't been very long since he has been in our home and that he is still very young, but I am having some training problems. I gerw up with labs and am used to potty training, but this dog seems different. With my labs, they went potty just about every time I took them out. As long as I took them out frequently (every 2-3 hours) there were never any accidents. Our puppy is the opposite. I can only get him to go potty outside first thing in the morning, probably because I wake him up and never let his feet touch the floor before we get outside. I give him tons of praise and sometimes treats. The rest of the day is another story. I always take him back to the same place where he went in the morning, but all he wants to do is chase leaves, dig or chew grass. I don't give him any "play" cues or attention, so I am not sure why he is not going. I have tried staying out anywhre from 1 minute to 1 hour. Then when we walk in the door, he goes usually with in 10 seconds of being back in the house. I am not sure what is causeing this behavior. I don't let him see me clean it up and I have also steam cleaned the carpets in those places to hopefully eliminate the odor so he won't go back. I have no problem going out very often, but I get frustrated when I go out every ten minutes (because I see him sniffing in the house) and then he wont go. It's very hard to keep this up for very long and as soon as I turn my head, he is pottying in the house. Any advice would be appreciated.

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Steam cleaning doesn't eliminate the odor. You need to use a bacterial enzyme odor eliminator product such as Nature's Miracle. The dog can smell it even when we can't.

Be very careful not to punish the dog in any way. That will make him hide from you to potty at all, and in this breed can also lead to aggression. See the housetraining articles at the link below my signature for how-to information.

Small dogs are different from large breeds in housetraining, and a male Dachshund is one of the harder choices. That doesn't mean to get tougher with him. It means he will need more help, more supervision, to be neutered by a year of age, and it will likel take him longer than a Lab to get housetrained. He may never be 100% reliable loose in the house unsupervised. This is a very different situation than housetraining a Lab.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series articles at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=1&SourceID=47

What is a "doxie"? A daschound mix, I presume? On the housetraining, Todd was very hard to housetrain and I think it is just the nature of the breed. I think Todd is mixed with a chi and although he is pottytrained, he has to be crated when we are gone because he will not hold it. I think that if you just keep working with your doxie that eventually it will get better. It took me a while to housetrain Todd.