In a previous housetraining post, I mentioned Poochie Bells, a housetraining aid. We got our Poochie Bells yesterday.
I’d say that Chester is maybe 80% housetrained now. It’s rare that he has an accident; maybe once every couple of weeks or so. But he isn’t very good at signaling to us when he needs to go out.
He doesn’t whine. He doesn’t pant. He doesn’t wiggle. Sometimes I could tell just from his behavior; he’d be nervous and pacing back and forth. And sometimes he would go to the back door. But sometimes there was just no signal.
Mostly we’ve been taking him out on a schedule. I knew that once he finished his walk, and done his business, he was usually good for about 4 or 5 hours. Still, we have to watch him a lot, looking for signals. It’s frustrating at times, because you want to relax occasionally, too.
I hung up our Poochie Bells as soon as we got them. Chester happened to need to go out then, so I rang the bells for him (which seemed to scare him), gave our command (”go outside”), and took him out.
Two hours later my husband came home. We were talking, and Chester went over to the back door. I didn’t think he needed to go, since it hadn’t been that long, so we continued to talk. Chester went back to the door, but we continued to ignore him. And then he rang the bell!
We dutifully took Chester outside, where he promptly laid down. Great, he didn’t really have to go, we figure. But I said walk him around a little anyway, just in case, and sure enough within a minute he’d pooped. We were astounded.
This morning he went to the back door again shortly after we fed him. Now, you must understand that Chester has never been a normal puppy who needs to go right after eating. So again, I assumed he didn’t have to go, and tried to get him back into playing. He went back to the door, but I called him over again. However, when a little piece of poop flew out, I realized he really had to go — but he never rang the bell.
No biggie. I didn’t think he’d learned it that quickly. Normally we go out for our morning walk around 9 - 9:30. But Chester didn’t seem to need to go then, and it’s a cool day. I didn’t want to take him out if he didn’t really need to go, so I decided to wait and see if he’d ring the bell.
He was with me in the living room, mostly snoozing in the dog/cat bed. He got up a few times to play, but always came back to the bed. Then around 10:40, he got up and headed toward the back door. He stood there, and after a few seconds, he rang the bell! And yes, when I took him outside, he pee’d.
Actually, I was so excited that I just opened the door and let him out, minus his harness and leash! I didn’t even realize what I’d done for a few seconds, but then it dawned on me. Luckily, he kept looking back at me in surprise, and I was able to easily pick him up & bring him back in to get him suited up properly. I still can’t believe I did that.
Even though Chester isn’t always ringing the bell yet, he is going and standing by the back door more. It’s almost as if he now truly understands that’s what he needs to do in order to go outside.
I’ll keep you updated with how it goes, but I must say so far I’m extremely impressed. I have no commercial interest in this company. And you don’t need to buy Poochie Bells, either, you can use any bell.
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