We have been semi-successful in housetraining Chester. When it comes to pee, he was trained by about 5 months, even if I did tear my hair out over it the first month or so.

Poop has been a different story. He had digestive issues, on and off, for several months. We seem to have finally solved those.

Next we tried the Poochie Bells. It was the next step — he immediately seemed to know what to do with them. However, sometimes he wouldn’t ring them when he needed to go out to poop.

He would go to the back door — in fact, usually he’d poop right in front or next to the back door. So I was pretty sure he knew he needed to go there. But for some reason, he wouldn’t always ring the bell (although sometimes he would).

So now we’re on what we hope is the final phase of housetraining (and my husband’s idea): a motion activated security alert system. There’s a motion sensor by the back door, and a wireless chime that can plugged in anywhere in the house. My husband put the motion sensor in a shoebox to limit the field of view.

When anything disturbs the sensor’s beam, the chime rings. Hopefully I’ll have enough time to get there so that I can either catch him in the act, or even better, catch him before he goes.

It wasn’t inexpensive, but if it works, it’s priceless. It’s not as though we’re having accidents every day, but that’s mostly because I’ve been watching him pretty closely. I’ll let you know if it works.

Technorati Tags: housetraining, pee, Poochie Bells, poop, motion activated security alert system

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