Akita puppy and house training
Hello everyone,
Although this is my first post, I've gathered a lot of useful information throughout the years! I'm hoping I could get some advice about our new Akita Inu puppy. We got him only a week ago and he is 10 weeks now. Is it normal for him to be peeing literally every 15 minutes? When he's not in his pen, I always have my eye on him but we haven't made any significant progress with house training because he pees so often and without a warning. He just lets it go whenever and wherever he wants. Most accidents are really small puddles, so it seems he's not even trying to hold it in. When he does pee inside, I yell no! And immediately take him outside. When he's outside, he thinks it's play time and starts running around. I do take him out after naps, eating, etc. but literally, 15 min. after I've taken him out and he pees, he pees again inside. He's never pooped inside before though, thank goodness. I know he's still a baby, but I remember my 2 Shibas were a breeze to train and could hold it in longer at his age. One thing is, I believe the breeder might have kept him in an outside pen with the rest of his litter. Please tell me what I'm doing wrong! Any help or advice would be really appreciated! Thanks in advance
Although this is my first post, I've gathered a lot of useful information throughout the years! I'm hoping I could get some advice about our new Akita Inu puppy. We got him only a week ago and he is 10 weeks now. Is it normal for him to be peeing literally every 15 minutes? When he's not in his pen, I always have my eye on him but we haven't made any significant progress with house training because he pees so often and without a warning. He just lets it go whenever and wherever he wants. Most accidents are really small puddles, so it seems he's not even trying to hold it in. When he does pee inside, I yell no! And immediately take him outside. When he's outside, he thinks it's play time and starts running around. I do take him out after naps, eating, etc. but literally, 15 min. after I've taken him out and he pees, he pees again inside. He's never pooped inside before though, thank goodness. I know he's still a baby, but I remember my 2 Shibas were a breeze to train and could hold it in longer at his age. One thing is, I believe the breeder might have kept him in an outside pen with the rest of his litter. Please tell me what I'm doing wrong! Any help or advice would be really appreciated! Thanks in advance
Comments
try these links:
http://www.perfectpaws.com/htrp.html
http://akitanetwork.com/care/care.htm
http://www.inch.com/~dogs/cratetraining.html
Fixing the problem at hand
If possible get a urine remover or a very strong smelling carpet cleaning solution and douse the pee area. Be very generous. If he detects a trace of urine he will go there to make his mark more potent. Makes sense? Of course! You have now marked for him that when he pee's you will yell no and take him outside. BIG PROBLEM! He has now associated Peeing and "No" with the reward of going outside to play. Who wouldn't pee to get the reward to go outside.
You need to give "no" some meaning. There are two ways:
1) Has worked best for me- keep his leash on him at all times (preferably without the loop handle) when he is doing something "undesirable" Yell VERY DEEPLY "no!" and give the leash a tug. If he stops, say "yes" very lightly and give a reward. After a few times of this he will learn what "no" really means. '
2) Second option, which may also work, is to play the "yes/no" game with his food bowl. Have him sit before giving food (raise the bowl just above his head ). If he does anything other than sit, say "no" ,in an even tone, and pull the bowl up higher. If he remains seated lower the bowl to the floor for him to eat and say "Yes".
Also until he has mastered the tip below- Only give him water when he eats (at his age at almost 3 months he should be switching from 4 to 2/3 times a day.
Training
Now i have only potty trained one way and based on your dogs behavior,(Extremely smart and OCD with pee areas) I think this would work best. Get a crate, one that he can only stand in and can barely turn around in(preferred) or use the one you already have. Feed him his meals in this crate, and water as well. After he is done eating. Wait exactly one hour before you take him out. When you take him out, PICK HIM UP and dont let him down until you are outside. Have a hand full of treats (preferably kibble if that's what he eats) hidden as well. When you take him out. Say "Go pee" And place him on the grass. If you have a side walk, DO NOT stand on it. Get in the grass too. DO NOT watch him, in fact look in the opposite direction of him, and give him as much length as possible on the leash. once you see his head in the ground and he is circling and the leash stops moving all around he is probably going to pee. Once he pees! Yell "YES!" and give him the entire handful of treats and scratch his belly. Make him feel like he just won the lottery. In fact he just did with the handful of treats. Do the same thing when he poos. Rinse and Repeat. He will be begging you to go outside.
If you wanna pad train I have a tip for that as well but currently since your taking him outside, I waould assume you have resolved to outside eliminations.
Have you gotten him checked out by a vet to rule out anything medical (UTI?) that could be causing the frequent urination?
It's pretty basic training, outlined in some of the links above. You should also get Ian Dunbar's (free, downloadable) books Before and After You Get Your Puppy for good basic housetraining and socialization tips. It is here, but you do have to sign up to the page (which is free) to get it. Still, getting his two puppy books for free is worth it, and he's a great trainer overall! http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/after-you-get-your-puppy
Basically, they need to go out at least once an hour when they are young (but it did seem like my girl peed every 15 minutes too!). I don't limit water all the time, but I did monitor, because she would basically drink everything in the bowl every time if I didn't. I always took water up around 10 pm (assuming she was going to bed at midnight to 1 am).
I had terrible trouble using pads in the house. I had to use them, because I ended up with what is thankfully rare: a puppy who was quite happy to pee in her crate. It was so messy cleaning up after her (had to clean crate and pup) that I started using pads in the crate to clean up easier. But then she'd just happily pee on the pad, and for awhile, we had confusion with her peeing on anything on the floor (a dog bed, say). I was not using pee pads either, but unscented pads. It was frustrating, and seemed endless when I was doing it, but it's done now! And even knowing the pads complicated things in some ways, I probably wouldn't have done it differently, because they still meant I didn't have to bathe here and clean out the crate several times a day.
And, btw, I would never use a leash jerk on a dog, but esp. not on a puppy for anything, and especially not for housetraining. that will just confuse things, as will yelling "no" when a puppy is being a puppy outside. The "I am excited to be outside and am playing not peeing" is frustrating, but on the other hand, you only have a few months of it, and then it's done, so I just wait them out (sometimes with gritted teeth!), on the going outside part. Or you can do what Dunbar suggests, which is to bring the puppy back in again and crate her, if she didn't pee outside when you took her out, then take her out again in 10 minutes, etc. I didn't do that because my pup would just pee in the crate.
That said, 15 minutes is way too short for a puppy that age. They should need to go roughly every 2 hours. If he was older, I'd say he was marking - but that's not really the case. So he may have a bladder infection.
Since this is an introduction post... Would you mind introducing yourself. Nothing deeply personal but simple stuff like where you are from. Is this your first Akita inu stuff like that.
I actually think it's likely all dogs are different, and I'm not convinced you can even tell what they're going to be like--it may not be reflective of their early training necessarily (though it could be). Some puppies just get it quicker than others! I also find girls harder to housetrain than boys. And I also agree take them out as much as they need. There was no way Zora could have gone two hours in those first weeks (though she was always fine overnight, oddly enough). I kept thinking she should be ok for an hour, and she wasn't, so I had to adjust...
But really, Shibas can be so fussy, which can work in their favor! I got Toby at 7 weeks and he had very few accidents in the house at all.
1. Puppy stops what it is doing.
2. Puppy moves away from the play area to designated area.
3. Puppy asks to go outside to potty.
4. Puppy waits while human gets ready to go outside.
5. Puppy goes to designated outdoor area and relieves itself.
You can't jump straight to #5. If any point the puppy can no longer hold it he will pee right where he is, failing in the desired objective. Positive reinforcement is all about setting a dog up for success - only asking it to do what it is capable of doing and then rewarding it when it succeeds. When a dog fails, there is no reinforcement given, and it learns nothing. Worse still, it may become confused because the commands / rewards seem sporadic and unpredictable.
Instead, each step should be reinforced individually.
Now, most puppies I know can do #1 by 8 weeks of age so that one should be in the bag. (I do know a few really excitable breeds that just keep peeing while they're playing and wrestling though, so they've got a bit more work cut out for them.)
The pad is crucial for step #2. Give the pup a designated area that it can easily get to and use during the middle of a play session. Don't try to make the dog hold it any longer at this point - the only goal is to teach the dog that it can't just pee anywhere, but must go somewhere in specific.
For steps #3 and #4 I argue that you still need a puddle pad so that if the puppy cannot hold it any longer despite its best intentions it has an acceptable place to go potty you can reward it for. Without the pad, the puppy will just pee on the floor by the door and that's not its fault but yours.
When the puppy is reliably doing #4 then and only then you can then retire the puddle pad.
IMO- It depends on the dog. Just like @Navydog said, with Hades he refused to pee anywhere besides a pee pad. I would take him out for hours when ready for him to start going out and he would hold it until we got in the house and then pee in the house. I had to put pads down for him until about 6mo because of this and he still thinks its ok to go when taking him to friends house. He got better because i had to pretty much wait it out (MANY HOURS), hanging with him outside, and at the DP for him to realize it was best to do your business outside.
On the flip side, like @Poeticdragon said, Athena is very smart and was semi pad trained before we left the breeder. She then took to pads fairly easy. It took about 2 days to get her to pee outside but that's because she is also learning from Hades. however The day when I think she is perfect, i fell asleep on the couch and she peed on the floor. No warning no ringing door bells (Which she also does). I since put down pee pads and she hasn't used it except, when i was in the shower and came out. I noticed she had peed on it. SMART GIRL.
The Above reinforces the point @Poeticdragon made about:
Conclusion: Do whatever you have the patience to be consistent with and what works for your pup. I do think the hybrid (@Poeticdragon) approach is the best when you have a cooperative dog.
Now... I have a dog that was raised outside until 8 months who refuses to mess in her run and also refuses to poop on leash (although she will pee). To make matters worse she always takes forever to find the perfect spot to go, sometimes upwards of a half hour. It is incredibly frustrating trying to get her to pee and poop before I put her up in her run, especially if I am in a hurry for any reason. If I leash her she wont poop, if I don't leash her she wants it to be play time. I really want her to poop and pee before I put her in the run; one time when she stayed out in her run overnight she held it for *36 hours* and I know that can't be good for her. Its also a pain to go on trips with her, because it takes until the second or third day before she'll finally poop on leash, or we have to find an off-leash place for her on the way.
It's not a substitute for regular training--it's just a management tool, especially for the difficult to train and less fastidious dogs.
I used it as a backup though. I was determined to work around his schedule all week and work with recognition factors for potty time.
Ultimately I realized that the pad was really for my sanity when he left a puddle. So I had to ignore the fact he pee'd there, clean it quickly and show him no real recognition for it.
Potty time outside we make a big deal out of.
Our typical day:
4:30am wake up and take Nero out for pee break,
I have slip on shoes, jacket and hat ready to go so he doesn't have to wait too long.
We have a bell at the door (thanks @NavyDog ) we ring every time but he cannot access it yet on his own.
He pee's, I give him lots of puppy praises "GOOD BOY!" "INSIDE"
He turns and runs right for the door.
Because I do have to walk him and don't have access to a yard yet, I have 2 directions. One is potty and back in. The other is 'lets go for a stroll' On cold days he has no interest in strolling. LOL That has helped him understand the difference.
I feed and water him then wait 30 or so minutes.
5:00am I take him for a stroll. This time I'm looking for a bowel movement and 1-2 pee stops before I bring him in.
5:45 quick pee stop and I'm off to work.
Now here is where we mix him up a little since my daughter's schedule changes. The rest of the day he'll get a couple of short breaks and one pass around the complex. He gets water only before the long walks.
He is crated for a few hours either in the morning or afternoon depending on schedules for anywhere between 3-4 hours. This is why we give him a few walks before he goes in his crate. We want to help him succeed by insuring his bladder is as empty as can be.
5:30-6PM My wife takes him for a quick break. She feeds and waters him when she comes in.
6:30-7PM I get home and take him out for a stroll.
He gets a couple more short breaks before bedtime between my daughter and I.
Taking him out so frequently can be tiring, but it's also incredibly rewarding. He averages about 4 1/2 -5 hours in his crate at night without making a peep. He manages his few hours during the day in the crate peacefully. When we are home we cordoned off the kitchen and the living room for him to join us. The kitchen is tiled.
The trick here as so many before have said is we make a BIG deal out of success. We don't allow him many opportunities to miss by taking him out frequently enough and at key times. (Wake up, coming home, after eating, etc) He is beginning to recognize that outside to certain areas means "potty! I get happy stuff and petting, I run back to the door for more petting!"
I know he will miss at some point. Likely it will be because we miss some sign. But with diligence he has not had an accident in 6 days except the one where my daughter put me on speaker phone and he got excited and pee'd.
Now he uses the pee pad as a place to nap. Same one has been on the floor for 4 days.
This is just an example of what worked for us. It's been a lot of work, but i can't say anything else I've done lately has been as rewarding.