Last week I brought a new 8 week old puppy home. He is a small shaggy mutt. He seems to be doing amazingly well. I have been bringing him out a lot and until this morning he hadn't had an accident in the house.

The first night he slept in his crate downstairs - no fuss. The second and third nights he was hysterical. He managed to escape a couple of times - although all he did is sleep on the floor next to the crate. So for the last few nights I put the crate in my bedroom - he seems to like that fine. I hope I don't come to regret that move. But I was starting to bring him to bed - this seemed like a compromise.

This morning I took him out of the crate - he was excited and did his whole puppylove thing and peed on me. I told him no calmly and took him outside.

And we were doing so well...

I sure things will get better as he matures.

He sure is a cutey.

Not acknowledging the mistake of wetting inside at all (but just quietly clean it up) is the best thing you can do when training. Then make a REALLY BIG DEAL when your puppy goes potty outside where it's supposed to go. When we got our pup, I thought our Vet was nuts when she told me that was the best way to train it, but I used her suggestion any ways and it worked like a charm. The same holds true with chewing. When your pup has something that you don't want it to have, just find its toy and distract its attention with it without scolding it. Our dog learned really easily that way what was her's and what wasn't. She's a year old now and has not destroyed one thing in our house. One benefit to this type of training is that we have a much easier relationship with our dog.

We don't let our dogs on the bed either. It's hard when they're young & crying, be strong or you'll be fighting for your own pillow some day.

lukiirish said, 'Not acknowledging the mistake of wetting inside at all (but just quietly clean it up) is the best thing you can do when training. Then make a REALLY BIG DEAL when your puppy goes potty outside where it's supposed to go.' That's exactly what we did w/ Roxie, who was an adult dog but not potty-trained. One day I watched her outside alone, she pooped & then started running around SO EXCITED I knew then she had 'gotten' it, she loved the praise for being a good girl. Potty-training is tough but you can do it!
What's this future ground-hog hunter's name? he's a cutie for sure.