[waggonkr]

Just wondering how long it took before you trusted your puppy not to potty on the carpet? How long did it take before you felt comfortable not crating him/her at night or while you leave the house?

My puppy is a little over 4 months old and I've been working with her since she was 11 weeks. I work from home, so it has made it easy to be with her all day long to take her outside. The accidents have definitely decreased, but I constantly supervise her when I let her run around the house and I take her outside every hour or two. The only big problem right now is that if I leave the house to run errands, she will usually always potty in her crate while I'm gone (even if it's just for an hour).

 

[intent2smile]

We have started trusting Jaxx in the past couple weeks when we go out for errands. I just make sure he goes out right before we leave and if we are gone for a while I take him out right when we get back.
I do not trust him to be out of his crate at night. We did try it one night but since he is 6 months old if we sleep more than 5 or 6 hours he usually has an accident before we wake up. He wines softer when he is not in his crate so he probably figured he wined and we did not answer so he had to go. There is not any way that he can get at us when we are in bed because our bed is so high up off of the floor.
We did not get Jaxx until he was right at 5 months and even though they told us he was trained for a pee pad we found he was not house trained at all so I got rid of the pee pads and trained him without them. So basically it took us 6 weeks before we felt comfortable leaving him alone. I think he is just more mature now too even though he is still a puppy he seems to have grasped the concept of potty training now. He has not had an accident at all for over two weeks now and that accident was due to him being sick.
For us it was when we noticed that he was not having accidents in the house and he was more vocal at trying to tell us he has to go outside. If we are sitting on the couch and he wines to go out and we do not here it now he will jump up to us and take his paws and keep patting against us until he gets our attention.
I am like you and I go to school from home so it has made potty training Jaxx a lot easier. He has been the easiest dog I have ever had to potty train. Honestly when we started discussing getting a dog I wanted to adopt an adult dog just for the reason of potty training. My boyfriend on the other hand said that we could potty train a dog and he would rather have a puppy. We wanted a younger puppy than what Jaxx was when we got him but I fell in love with him the moment I saw him.
Good luck on being able to trust your little one. I am sure it will happen soon!

 

[LostLakeLua]

It really depends on how the dogs do while I'm home. If they can go a few hours without having an accident in between potty breaks; and that's how long we're going to be gone, I'll do a trial run. If successful, I slowly increase the time. But if they have even a single accident setback, we start over.

 

[Jerry'sMom]

Tabitha and Jerry put me through my paces... :coolwink:
they ate a hole in the drywall when they were about 8 months old...
and, picked at a flaw in the kitchen floor until it became a hole... and ate the
corners off my lovely solid wood coffee table. All while I was home and "watching" them!
So, you see, it isn't just toilet training to worry about!

 

[kimr]

Diesel is almost 6 months, and although he's very well housetrained, it will be a long time before I will trust him unsupervised.

There are too many things that can happen. Gracie didn't go through her chewing stage until she was over a year, and she demolished a few things before I got it through my head that she needed to be crated while we were away - she will be 2 in May!

Pedro is the only one of our dogs who has the run of the house at all times - he's 4. He's out of the chewing stage and never does anything to get in trouble, and he's completely housetrained.

I've had a pup chew into wires before and electrocute himself - I'm not taking any chances. My two Chis are as mischievious as they come...They find enough trouble to get into with me sitting in the same room with them!

 

[Squirrelflight]

Mine are not allowed out and unsupervised until they are well house broken and out of their chewing phase. Aside from potty accidents and puppy with a lot of freedom can get into a lot of trouble. Also, if they were to eat something they shouldnt you wouldnt know it. I just feel better knowing mine cannot get into anything they shouldnt. Susu got free run of the house when he was about 6 mos but he was a pretty calm pup. ginger was closer to 9 mos bc she was a chewer and could be pretty destructive. The pups I have now I'm figuring around 9 mos as well although they are having some time out and about when we are home.

 

[CHITheresa]

I am starting to give Amberleah more freedom, she hates it in her cage. I think soon I will put it away.

 

[sammyp]

Ninja is 9 months and dollie is 5 months.
I can leave the girls 30 mins MAX.
Otherwise they think sod it lol

 

[Demonic]

Fox is 9 months old and I still don't trust her alone.
She hasn't had an accident on the floor for over two months now but that's because I am paranoid and I don't let her run loose for any longer than an hour before I take her outside.

While I'm away or sleeping, she is in a very large x-pen in my kitchen equipped with a pee-pad, soft couch-style bed, and a small auto-waterer.
I dream of the days I'll be able to let her sleep in my bed with me like a Chihuahua should. I can just imagine trying that now and waking up with wet sheets...or WORSE, oh god, yuck!
She has a clean pad when I go to sleep and when I wake up in the morning, there are at least 2 piddles on it! So you can see why I am hesitant.

 

[kimr]

Just always keep in mind that it's their safety you have to worry about as much as those 'accidents'!

In my past experience with larger dogs and terriers, they were early chew-ers. By a year, we were in pretty good shape. I've not found that to be true with Chis, or maybe Gracie was just a 'late bloomer' and Diesel is going to be one, too. It's far too easy for them to chew into something that will poison them or tear their intestines, or worse...

Gracie would sleep all night in our bed with us at 6 months old. Never get out from under the covers until we drug her out in the mornings! At a little over a year, she decided to start sneaking out and tearing up everything in the house while we slept. Back to the crate, and that's where she will stay when we can't watch her until she gets past the phase, if she gets past the phase. If she doesn't, it's a large comfy crate!

 

[doginthedesert]

My puppy is 6 months and has not had an accident in 8 weeks (yes I put it on the calendar) but I still don't "trust" her when I am not there. We have started leaving her downstairs but not in her ex pen when I go upstairs to play with the rats for an hour here or there and she has done marvelously. I make sure she does not need to go before I leave her. But we have a loft so I would be able to hear if she did anything crazy. Two months ago she would have peed everywhere if I left for an hour and she was just downstairs free running with the other dog.

Also like other posters have said my worry would be that she would eat something. All of our electrical cords are gated off with mesh, but I have a friend who had to have a piece of linoleum removed from their puppies stomach, so anything is possible.

 

[rubia]

At about 12-16 weeks I started increasing the area (in size) that Rico was left in. It started with one tiny room, then the tiny room and kitchen together. I gated off the rest of the house. Then eventually he was good enough to get the run of the house. I still gate off the stairs...too many dangers in daughters bedroom upstairs and the stairs in general. VBut alll in all he is good. He does use weewee pads --I have kept them in the same place forever...so when he goes somewhere new he can confuse bath mats, rugs, things like that with a piddle pad--lol...