Potty Trained? CHECK!

Our little Jax is growing up! He was four months old as of the tenth, he has gained about three pounds since we first brought him home, and he's made his place in our family in such a way that it seems he has always been here. I so love that puppy of ours.

My first goal when we brought Jax home was to help him feel comfortable with us. That went over really well. And like any other puppy parent, I'm sure, the next goal was to get this puppy doing his business outside. I had heard that it would take a few days to a few months. The guy at the pet store had two puppies, worked full-time, and he said his puppies were potty trained in a month. I figured if he could do it with all of that going on, surely I could knock this out in a couple of weeks! Right? Well, wrong.

Because I'm home all day I knew it was my job to get this puppy potty trained.  So I read everything I could online about how to conquer the challenge before me.  The suggestions I went with included:
- take your puppy outside after every nap and play time, after every feeding and in the morning when he wakes
- reward your puppy when he pees and when he poops with celebration and treats, every time

I figured I could handle that. I did just that, but still didn't feel like I was succeeding. So I went back to the internet in hopes I would find more info. Cesar Millan, "Dog Whisperer", has a great website, his suggestions were very helpful:
- watch your puppy, keep an eye on him at all times, and you will start to recognize the signs of his needing to go out to do his business
- minimize his space, your puppy does not need to have access to every room in your house, this tip will help you keep him in your sight at all times

Wow, who knew? I proceeded to block off the doorways leading to the living room - also the place where he seemed to want to go potty the most! Oddly, it's where my Dad's dog and a friend's dog went potty as well when we dog sat them. Go figure. Now, I would be downstairs where I could see him whether I was surfing the 'net, watching television, washing dishes or making dinner, I could always see Jax. This tip right here was HUGE. Doing this one thing, minimizing his space, helped me learn that Jax will get a little hyper when he needs to go poop. He will whip around in a circle and pick up the pace around the family room. When he has to go pee he gets real 'sniffy'. This sign gets tricky because Jax likes to eat ANYTHING he can find on the floor, which requires sniffing. But it has proven to work just to put him out if he gets 'sniffy'.

In week three I failed my Jax. I wasn't watching him as closely as I should have been and we had so many accidents that it seemed he was covering every square inch of carpet with his excrement. This made me very, very upset...with MYSELF. We had been working on this for three weeks, after all. Maybe what I was doing wasn't working! But in reality, just when it seems you can't do it anymore, there is a break through. This was the case in potty training Jax.

In week four, right around his four month 'birthday' something clicked - for both of us! Jax would go to the patio door and wait for someone to open it. He would bounce out onto the deck, go do his business, then come back to the patio door and wait for us to retrieve him. After he did this a few times one day I started to think maybe, just maybe our puppy 'got' it. I didn't say anything (I guess I didn't want to jinx it), just did the same thing over a few more days and got the same, accident free result! Our puppy is potty trained!!!

Now, the funny thing is that Jax could have easily been at this point two weeks in, give or take a few days, had it not been for human error.  But because I didn't know all of the ins and outs it took us a full month to reach this point.  I'm not complaining though! Better late than never!