Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:16 am Post subject: toilet training ---- how long!
We are doing pretty well with our pup, hes 8 weeks and we have had him 5 days.
We take him out often, praise him like crazy when he does his busines, Never reprimand when he does it in the house (just keep quiet) and use a trigger word when he is on the job.
Could i ask you how long it was before your pup was say 95% trained (maybe the odd slip up now and again)
One of the problems we have is that we klive in a three storey townhouse so the living area is on the first floor and he cant go down stairs yet to ask to be let out, he only mastered going up stairs a few days ago
____________ no Jesus no peace, Know Jesus know peace
There is no set time for toilet training to click Majic was fully trained at 12 weeks and only slipped up when she went on medication
Just a note as I'm sure this will apply to flatcoats going up and downstairs puts a lot of strain on there immature joints which may lead to probs later in life with the hips ideally he should be carried both up and down.
I've had pups that were more or less housetrained by 10 weeks old, but that is the exception not the rule. I think if you can get them reliable by the time they are 4 months, you are doing well. Some dogs are still not clean at 6 months. So the answer to this really is "how long is a piece of string" .
Just like children, some grasp the concept earlier than others .
As others will no doubt tell you, letting them go up and down stairs at an early age isn't good for their joints, so apart from the odd bit of stairs practise, you'll be far better off carrying him until he is much older.
We were lucky, Dan grasped it quite quickly but I did take him out probably every 20 minutes, lots of praise when he did anything. We also got up in the night and let him out for about 3 weeks. The upside of this was we never had a poo in the crate, but there were a few puddles for a little while. Of course we had puddles in the house for some time, its inevitable. I think the last time he piddled in the house was when he was about 5 months old! It was bit of a one-off - he just got very carried away playing with one of the children and just suddenly stood and peed! As soon as I said "Dan, what are you doing?" he remembered and stopped! It will take a while, but its amazing how quickly they do get the idea - but you have to really keep at it.
I have to say that he is too small to be going up and down the stairs. You are going to have to carry him for quite a while! His bones are too soft and you could be inviting problems for his joints - especially his hips and elbows.
____________ Philippa and Dan
She could have wiped my feet first
Amy, 3 days, Beth 6 months! It can vary that much.
Flatcoat's hips tend to be slightly better than Labradors. A BMS of 9 as opposed to 15 for Labs. This is at least in part due to the smaller size of a Flatcoat at birth. Interestingly, a Flatcoat at birth is nearer to the size of a West Highland White! This of course means that the hips are very lightly loaded during this formative time. Obviously be careful, there are plenty of Flatcoats with poor hips for all that, but the chances are good.
6 months old with Leo before toilet training was learnt fully.
With stairs, as a pup he was taught to go slowly up and down them with me guiding him. He was never allowed to go crashing up and down them on his own though.
But like you, i had no choice but to use the stairs from when he was young. I have stairs out front leading to the grassy area where he does his toilet and so obviously i couldn't get to that spot unless he went down the stairs.
When he was tiny, i was able to carry him, but from about 15 weeks onwards, he was just far to big and heavy and sinse i live alone and had no-one to help me, i just could not manage carrying him down stairs.
Also, these stairs are concrete and if i had of slipped or he wriggled and i tripped, seriously, someone would have got killed!
So i had him up and down these stairs from about that age onward, but like i said, i made him go slow and always said to him "slowly slowly" which he now knows everytime hes on the stairs.
Goodluck x
Last edited by Goldentouch on Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:44 am; edited 1 time in total
Actually, it's interesting just how little Labrador there is in the Flatcoat Karen. Flatcoats are a very old breed and were the gamekeepers choice before the Labrador came into the country. A number of breeds went into the formation of the Flatcoat, including both Gordon Setters and Irish Setters, neither of which are present in the Labrador.
At the time of the war very few pedigree dogs were registered and some breeds verged on extinction. Flatcoats were reputed to be down to the last 16 dogs! After the war the KC allowed what was called the "Pink Form Registration! where a pedigree dog could be mated to a dog which had the attributes of that breed but was not registered. (At one time there was one particular dog which had been used as a Flatcoat, a Labrador and also a Golden Retriever!!)
Also you must remember that years ago these dogs were not considered as breeds, rather they were varieties of "Retriever" so under certain tightly controlled circumstances interbreeding between the various retriever verities was allowed. Most modern Labradors have a few Flatcoats lurking in the background. The most common was a Flatcoat named "Stonely Quality"
For all this, it is remarkable just how the breeds have stayed separate genetically. Eyes for example. Flatcoats have only one condition to be tested for and this is Glaucoma. Labradors on the other hand have six condition, but NOT Glaucoma!!
thanks for all the advice about the stairs, it was something i hadnt considered, The only thing is: i get the feeling that he doesnt like being carried.
Obviously i will carry him more but Did your lab pups not mind it at all
____________ no Jesus no peace, Know Jesus know peace
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