New puppy - sadie cavalier king charles spaniel

[Madchester]

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We picked up our new 5 generation pedigree cavalier king charles spaniel last wednesday she is 9 weeks old.

She doing really well goes into the crate at night no problems sleeps from 11am to 8am without any noise in the morning carry her from the crate to the garden "repeating the words wee wee" has not wet or soilered in her crate either, Housing training doesnt appear to be sinking in we take her outside and she does most of her business out there, We refuse to use training mats i think it confuses them she had 2 accidents in the house yesterday!

How long does it take to house train? any tips or advice am i doing the right thing? i'm new to all of this to me i've never had dogs before!

 

[eingana]

Hi Madchester, and welcome to DogForum

What a bonnie girl! Thank you for complying with our (unwritten) rule that all discussion of puppies has to have pictures for us to fawn over

I'm afraid that there's no single answer to how long toilet training takes. As with human babies there's a selection of stages and developments which have to happen for them to be properly continent. At the moment most of her going to the toilet is an innate and completely uncontrolled thing- when her bladder gets full to a certain capacity that triggers the sphincters are opened automatically and she wees. Similar happens with her bowels. This is why it's important to take her out before and after sleep, eating, drinking and playing, and at least once per hour other than that. At the moment you may not be teaching her a lot because she's still a tiny baby and her understanding needs to grow before she can take voluntary control of her sphincters, and then understand what the words 'wee wee' mean.

What you're trying to do is to get her into a really good habit where her growth and understanding for her voluntary control coincide with the other part of her learning that wees and poos happen outside, and then you'll have a puppy who knows what to do. You'll still get occasional accidents even once she's got this understanding because (as with children) to start with, control of bladder and bowel are very immediate and if she can't ask someone to go outside she may simply not be able to wait long enough to get outdoors.

Generally speaking this is one of the things where bigger breeds do better- they tend to get proper control of their bladders and bowels a little earlier than smaller breeds and bitches statistically do a bit better than dogs, but it varies from dog to dog too. With a bit of luck her control will be coming in over the next couple of months and by the time she's 4-6 months she will be having only occasional accidents, but some puppies can be 8 months or older before they have proper control.

You're starting off really well, but as she gets more mobile and aware you just need to keep going until you're sure that she's got the message and also has the control of her body to become continent. Then you can start working on how she's going to ask you to go outside to go to the loo, which is a whole new ball game

Crate training is very good for teaching them how to hold their bladder longer through the night because very few pups will be happy going to the loo in their bed when they can't then get out of it, so that accelerates control in most pups.

Good luck- I hope that all wees are planned wees soon