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My Chow was house trained when we brought him to our home at eight
weeks of age. My Yorkie took forever to become house trained.
I understand that each of these dogs is typical of his respective
breed.
House training is largely a matter of anticipating when the dog will
need to relieve himself and to have patience with him. Make it
possible for your dog to keep himself clean and he will. Establish
a schedule for feeding and walk your dog 20 or 30 minutes later.
Stick to it.
Here is what Konrad Lorenz
has to say about house training:
"The best way to house-train a newly aquired young dog of about
three months is to watch him constantly during his first few
hours in your house and to interrupt him the moment that he
seems likely to deposit a corpus delecti of either liquid
or solid consistency. Carry him as quickly as possible outside
and set him down, always in the same place. When he has done what
is required of him, praise and caress him as though he had performed
a positive act of heroism. A puppy treated like this very soon
learns what is meant, and if he is taken out regularly, there
will soon be nothing more to clean up."
You work and are not home all day?
Carol Lea Benjamin recommends
placing a crate in a room that can be shut off from the rest of
the house. Cover the floor with newspaper. Place your puppy in
the crate but leave the door open. The idea is that the puppy will
keep her crate (her den) clean and will learn to go on paper. Later
she will (hopefully) continue to go where ever there is paper. Carol
warns however that this is a slower method than what is described above.
It is impossible to over emphasize the importance of placing your puppy on a regular schedule. Just think if you didn't know for sure when you were going to have your next chance for relief . . .
In general housebreaking is a matter of taking your dog outdoors on a regular schedule. This is difficult for most families these days because no one is home during the day. And of course quite a few people use a crate.
Be ready for action 20 minutes after each meal or drink of water. Oh, and keep in mind that urine production drops off when one is asleep. Just because a puppy can hold her water at night doesn't mean that it will be easy for her during the day.
I know of four instances in which a dog may prefer to go indoors:
1) Submission. A puppy rolls over on her back and urinates to signal to a dominant adult dog that the adult is the boss. This seems strange to us, but that is dog language.
Caution: I have two dogs and two cats. If any one of them has an accident, I don't make a big deal over it. I talk in a rather matter-of-fact tone of voice and tell the beast that I know that he knows better. If it happens twice, it will usually be in the same place and I put newspapers there. I really don't want to be overbearing in this matter as that can make this situation worse.
2) Marking. This is a male dog covering over the scent of another dog. Carefully watch your dog in a Veterinarian's office!! Very rarely a female dog will do this.
3) Misunderstanding. The puppy sneaks off and messes. The owner has put the puppy's nose in the mess. The puppy may have been corrected for making messes so often that she thinks that it is the combination of owner and mess that is wrong so she sneaks off. This is a result of improper housetraining. Some people erroneously think they should punish a dog when caught in the act of soiling in the house. If the dog is traumatized enough, he will avoid the mistake of eliminating in front of humans. If people are around, the dog will "hold it" for fear of being clobbered again. So again, he will wait until he can "do it" in privacy.
4) My dog plays outdoors and then messes in the house. When the puppy is taken outside, she wants to play and knows that as soon as she does her business, she will have to come indoors - playtime is over! So she tries not to do her business outdoors. Also there may be some of the lack of concentration of a small child. That is the puppy plays outdoors and after you bring her in, she remembers that she forgot to do her business.
You have a particular problem with a dog that wants to play instead of doing his business and he even gives false alarms when in the house. First thing that comes to mind is that you should not bring him in as soon as he does his business. He probably really does need to go out but gets distracted (as do small children) or is afraid that he will have to go back indoors if he does his business. Play with him a bit so that he won't think that relieving himself signals the end of fun time. You might give him a special treat when he gets back in the house. This teaches him that home is a special place.
Sometimes I have found that a short hard run encourages my dogs to "get busy." And of course you know about returning to that favorite spot. A sixteen foot Flexi-Leash will help to keep him focused and away from the girls. (Yes, some altered dogs will continue with that behavior!)
I have heard of dogs that do their business on command. I haven't seen this for myself. The general idea is that you say a phrase ("do potty" or "get busy") while the dog is relieving himself. Eventually the dog associates this command with the act.
Dogs are creatures of habit. If from the beginning they only are given opportunity to eliminate in one area, then they will want to continue using that spot. Look at it this way, our culture and upbringing has taught us to use western-style private toilets to do "our business." If suddenly the law said we had to use phone booths in Jack London Square, we would "hold it" when we were out and as soon as we returned home we would rush to the privacy of our privy. So if a dog has only used his own private toilet area, he would naturally be reluctant to go elsewhere.
Around our house, Jack is very resistant to doing a BM in the back yard. Bruno will if he needs to. We go out for a ten-minute walk in the morning and Jack does his BM three or four blocks from the house. We go out for an hour or more in the evening. Again Jack does his BM three or four blocks from the house. Bruno doesn't do his BM for a mile or more. But then he sometimes does a second.
Every book on dog care or training has a whole chapter about house training. There is even a whole book devoted to this subject:
How to Housebreak Your Dog in 7 Days
by Shirlee Kalstone
Bantam Books, 1985
I haven't read this book and so I can't comment on it.
Here some good links:
AKC - House breaking
Housetraining Problems
Dr. P's DOG TRAINING - House training (a whole bunch of links)
Dr. P's DOG TRAINING - Crate training (a whole bunch of links)
Puppy Housetraining
Submissive Urination
Won't "go" on Walks
Spiteful Urinating
Manners for the Modern Dog
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