About a month "inherited" my 4mo. old chihuahua Peysin, she just turned 5mo., and I have tried everything to get her to go poop outside. She goes pee within the first few minutes of being outside and I praise her like crazy. She stays outside usually for 15 minutes (I keep a watchful eye out at my window) and she refuses to poop. She always ends up finishing her business in my room, and occasionally on my bed. I love her very much but I'm getting very frustrated because now my house is starting to smell like puppy poop and now have to do mass amounts of laundry. I also should mention that her previous owner basically abandoned her all the time before she was given to me. I just need some tips and help. please =)

I too am having this problem. It is fixable but will take work on your part. take her out, wait 15 or so min, if shw does not poo then take her inside and pop her into her crate for 10-15 minutes, take her out again, rinse and repeat till poo happens. Only then may she run around.

5 months is about when they 'get it', so you're at a good place with her, you just have to do your part. Don't send her outside alone - go with her and encourage her and praise her. And, don't give her free run of the house until she's trained - crate her and control when she goes outside. Take her often - I have a 5 month old and I take him out every 2-3 hours. He's doing very well. They are very smart little dogs, she'll catch on if you do it right.

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They usually don't like to go pup in the place where they sleep. If your keep her in the crate and under supervision when she is not it may help to catch the right moment to take her outside. Developing routine will help as well. I take mine out after he has meal and he got used to the fact that this is when he will need do his business. If I oversleep sometimes it could happen in the house. You can often see on their behavior that this is the time when then need to go as well.

Good luck.

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Dmitry

i try to take her out every hour to an hour and a half. she's been good the last few days so hopefully she's getting the concept that she has to poo outside. and i started going outside with her so i could see if she would go. now we're on to a new but fixable problem...grabbing the poo out of my cats litter box. just put up a puppy gate. still accessible for the kitty...thanks for all of your replies!

Glad that it helped. I have same issue where mine try to eat cats poop as well. Eating from outside cats, yet ignore our own cat poop. I think that cat litter box covers our own cat poop well. Still trying to teach him not to pickup anything outside. That may take a bit of time. Unfortunately he recently got tapeworms. Vet suggested that he likely got it from eating poop. So be careful with your dog outside as well.

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Dmitry

Barney takes his time needing to poop when we are outside some of the time. I started heavy praising and a kibble treat from my pocket for each outside poop. He seems to really like this, and as he is going he looks up at me with almost a smile.

If I can't get him to poop outside when I think he should, I bring him inside and have 15 minutes of active play time, then try again. During this session, he has actually run to the door a few times to let me know it is time to go back outside again. That is so exciting !

I think it is important to witness the act with the dog, for praise/treat, so you have done a good thing by deciding to go into the yard with your dog.

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Here are pictures of Barney: Flickr: Crochet Bouquet's Photostream

When I first got Cricket she wasn't house trained really well either. I took her out every hour, and she learned she had to go before getting picked up. It's taken almost three weeks, but now she doesn't go in the house only outside.

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I playing!