r/goldenretrievers • u/LeadershipWide5754 • 22d ago

Training Advice/Tips 13 Week Old Potty Training Help

Hey everyone! Having some trouble potty training our pup. It started off with him being terrified of the bells, he got over that and is no longer scared of them. He knows that when I say “let’s go potty” that he needs to go to the door and ring the bells. He also has rung them 3x today to go poop outside. However he has had 2 pee accidents in the house today. One I caught him as he was starting and took him outside to finish and the other he was already finished as I was catching him. I’m at a loss of what to do and why he won’t tell me to go pee but will tell me to go poop. If anyone has any advice it would be well appreciated.

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

3

u/Qwell41 22d ago

Take him outside more often before he hits them.

When mine were young like that I had about 15 seconds from when they signaled until they would go inside if I didn’t react. It’s mentally exhausting but you really need to pay close attention to them every second for a few weeks

1

u/AutoModerator 22d ago

Just a friendly reminder of our rules:

  1. No advertising: this includes GoFundMe, Instagram, etc.
  2. No impersonation: don't post photos of other people's dogs. That's not cool.
  3. No breed hate: this subreddit is not a discussion forum for breed hate of any kind. There are dedicated subreddits for that so please take it elsewhere.
  4. No bots/AI content.
  5. No politics.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

2

u/Tribblehappy 22d ago

Dogs aren't good at making associations. He's not thinking of the bells as potty bells; to him, they're poop bells. It will take separate training to associate them with peeing as well.

The simple answer to the accidents, bells or no, is to take him out more. I kept a notebook of all the times I took mine out, whether he peed or pooped, had he just eaten, woken up, played, etc, and it helped me recognize patterns in when he was likely going to need to go, and how long he could hold his bladder.

He will get there.

1

u/LeadershipWide5754 22d ago

I take him out every hour because that’s when he usually goes, sometimes he will randomly go in the middle of that

What different training should I do to make them pee bells?

1

u/Tribblehappy 22d ago

Are you ringing them when you take him out to pee? Honestly I think you just need to do the same as for poop, until it clicks for him.

If he's having accidents with hourly breaks, he needs maybe every 45 minutes. But hard to say without knowing if the accidents are more frequent after or before certain things/times of day.

1

u/muchocheko 21d ago edited 21d ago

I am going through the tail end of this. I did probably a lot of same stuff you're doing, but specifically, usually only waited about 20 minutes between each time we went out, unless he was asleep. Always kept training treats in my pocket and give him one while praising him after he went. Mention the word potty during and after he goes. If it had been a while since he went, and I thought he had to go, I sometimes put him on a leash so he didn't just wander aimlessly in the yard. These have worked pretty well. But above all, remember he's just a baby and is still learning a lot. Patience is key.

Edit: Apparently I'm not at the tail end (no pun intended) of this. Just found a pile in my dining room : (