Poop vs. Pee?!

[meggaloo87 4]

My shih tzu goes pee-pee outside fine, but holds his poop and immediately after we come inside he goes on the floor?!? HELP! lol his poop smells bad too haha so I'd love to teach him to leave his presents outside to "air out"

I have taken his poop and put it outSide and to show him

"poop here"

No luck.....

[Lynn S 0]

Sorry I can't be much help since I'm going through the potty training thing myself and we have our ups and downs as well, but gotta be patient and hope it all works out!

[xr4man 7]

from what i understand, shih tzus are one of the hardest breeds to potty train and it can take up to a year for them to get it right.

even though hunter was potty trained when i got him, he still had and sometimes has accidents in the house, although they are rare.

anyway, what i have done is gotten used to his regular poo times and i will take him for a long walk so he can work it up. only rarely does he not go when we are on a walk. in which case i have to pay attention to see when he makes a move that seems like he needs to go and then i take him out to go.

i envy the owners on here that can take their pups out in the back yard and they just go, but that doesn't work for hunter.

so my only advice is when you take your pup out to poo, if he doesn't go right away, keep him walking until he absolutely has to let loose. then praise him and or give him a treat so he knows it was a good thing he just did and then go back inside.

sometimes with hunter, he'll start doing his poo dance and then get distracted by something and then we have to start all over again.

oh yeah, also when he does go outside, go back after he comes in and clean up his poo. that's the only way i've been able to keep hunter from trying to eat it later.

Edited August 26, 2011 by xr4man

[Shredder 4]

well it was harder than heck to potty train Shredder. Frankly I still don't think we got it right. We started out totally wrong because we had no clue as to what we were doing. Shredder had free rein of the house right from the beginning and that is a big no no!

We put in a doggie screen door and leave the sliding door open for him to go outside in the backyard. Works really great, HOWEVER when I need to close the slider for whatever reason (cold, raining, a/c is on, etc) he will sometimes pee or poo in front of the door. My husband thinks he is being vendictive and does that because he is mad the door is close. We know darn well he can hold it for a couple of hours! ha ... sorry, I'm not much help for you...

Edited August 26, 2011 by Shredder

[brees 1]

Like it was already said, Shih Tzus can be incredibly difficult to house train. Not to dash your hopes but Brees is almost 2 and he still hasn't got the hang of pooping outside. He won't use the restroom at all in his crate and he will never pee in the house but if the urge to poop hits him in the house he will go without any warning. To his credit he likes to go poop in the bathroom which is the easiest room to clean up xD just be persistent, that's all the advice I have for you.

[JasperandAkira'smom 4]

When I was training mine I was told to take them out every couple of hours and if they did not go place them in the crate for about 5 mins and then take them back out. If they went then they did not have to back in the crate and if they did not go then back to the crate. Mine do pretty good. Akira seems to have a smaller bladder and has to go more often and at times I forget to take her out in time and she will mostly go in the kitchen. HA HA she is the same way about have to walk it out of her and she gets distracted very easily and I have to remind her with her potty word HURRY HURRY to get her mind back on what she is doing. :)

[emmasmom 14]

You got lots of good advice here....one more tip I'll add, take him out on a leash & do not come in until he goes. My motto: You have to be more stubborn than they are!!! :chickendance:

[xr4man 7]

You got lots of good advice here....one more tip I'll add, take him out on a leash & do not come in until he goes. My motto: You have to be more stubborn than they are!!!

isn't that the truth!

[mileysmom 2]

absolutely! do the leash. Then when he poops he gets rewarded by going back inside. stay out until he poops then go right back inside. that way he knows that outside means poop too!

[loewenthal.anna 4]

Personally, I have found crate training to be THE most helpful tool for housebreaking this breed when they are young. The idea is to make everything 100% black and white. Many times, the difficulty in training has to do with a puppy being allowed too much freedom in the house, which is where the crate helps.

As a rule puppies can hold their bladder/sphincter one hour for every month they are old, plus one. So, a 2 month old puppy needs to go out every 3 hours, a 3 month old needs to go out every 4, etc. The first rule of housebreaking is to make a schedule that you both can follow (don't expect a young puppy to hold it all night, and you'll have less opportunity to be dissappointed.) And stick to it! Until our puppies are 4 months old we keep them crated (even when using potty pads, which I'll discuss more in a minute) unless we are WITH THEM. The crate should be large enough for them to stretch out, but NOT large enough to allow for areas they can avoid (or potty in without having to touch it after). To get a puppy to enjoy their crate we feed in there (meals only during housebreaking, free feeding gives you far less control over when they need to potty) and give all chewies in there as well as treating every time they go in on their own. This builds an association between FOOD/TREATS and the cratem making it a GOOD place to be! Dogs will usually not mess in their "den" area so you are only reinforcing this natural behavior by using the crate.

Once our babies hit 4 months (at which time I can reasonably expect them to hold it while crated) and only after the crate has become a comfortable habit for them, I introduce the idea of a baby gate with an emergency potty pad. The idea being that we've already mastered NOT pottying in their living space, but that it is far more convenient for me. ALL of our Tzu stay gated in the kitchen when we are not home or physically with them (and they are 5, 2.5, 7 months, and 6 months) so there is an element of "you never fully trust a Tzu" in our experience, but we've found that the crating helps establish a sense of where not to eliminate. Since we have two younger girls, all of the beds in the kitchen are actually IN crates, to play off that earlier training, although the doors have been taken off so nobody is closed into the crates anymore. We also revert back to free feeding and the use of water bottles once they are gated (for our convenience) which is why we utilize an emergency potty pad. Important to note about the pad: it can NEVER move, so choose a place where you can live with it, potentially permanantly.

We do still allow everyone outdoor potty breaks 2-3 times a day in addition to our walks, but with the pad it becomes less crucial to time those breaks as when you're housebreaking which also works better for our work schedules.

I began using this method with Effie and Blues and while they are our youngest Tzu, they are also better trained than the older two. With Lolly I did pad training first, and it IS very tempting with a young dog to go this route, but it made it infinately more difficult to hold her potty which became an issue when we visited less dog friendly homes. With Cash, I used a baby gate method combined with going outside and while that was better, the lack of crate training itself left him lacking the ability to be comfortable alone (he was gated with Lolly) which is why we've gone to true crate training.

I know this was crazy long, but I feel like FINALLY we've really gotten a handle on how to make training work and I wanted to explain in detail

For anyone with older dogs too: this (minus the transition to potty pads and a baby gate, so, just crate training) is also how I trained our mastiffs, and all of our foster dogs and from puppy to adults, they all are able to grasp the concept so it is possible to do this with an adult dog also.

Hope this helps anyone feeling the strain of housebreaking woes!

[chloechanel'smommy 2]

Wow! Thanks for all the info Anna. I also used this method to train Chloe without a problem. Bentley, on the other hand, seems to be a slow learner. I went back to crating Chloe because Bentley would spaz out if he was crated and she wasn't. The problem that I am having now is that Bentley will poop in his crate even if he's pooped before being crated. He doesn't mind to lay in his poop. He and Chloe have the same size crate because even though he's only six months old, he's as big as she is. The baby gate method is not working because Chloe has learned to jump over the baby gate to get away from Bentley and then can't get back into the kitchen to go to the potty. I plan on finding a taller gate to fix that problem. Right now, I am so over the pooping in the crate. Any ideas?

[loewenthal.anna 4]

How are you cleaning the crate when he goes? Those plastic pans hang on to poop and smells like crazy and I've found the only way to clean them so that a dog doesn't continue to mark is to let an enzymatic cleaner sit on it for 20 or so minutes and then bring it outside and hose off with bleach water. Depending on the mess, you may need a scrubby brush too.

Other than that, my only thought is that he may need to go more frequently than you're thinking he does. Blues was like that in the beginning (she also had coccidia, which makes them poop more)! "$ I had to let her out every 3 hours or less or she'd go.

What helped us with blues was to put her on a strict food schedule, she got fed 1/8th of a cup 3 times a day with NO edible treats in the crate and taken out 1 hour after each meal. She also has no problem laying in poo so it was all about making it easier for her to go elsewhere.

[Laura&Lucky 0]

Lucky was easy to housetrain. We did use a crate with a divider so we could keep his space small enough that he wouldn't potty in it. He had his share of accidents, but he got it quick and didn't potty inside any after he was about 4 months old.

I also taught him to ring a bell on the back door when he needed to go out. I just strung some bells on a string of yarn and tied it to the handle of the sliding glass door. I would show them to him, and make him touch it, or I would ring it, every time before the door opened. He caught on to it quickly and learned to jump up on the bells when he needed to go. The poor string of bells has since been demolished, but he still jumps at the back door when he really needs to go.

I read that they were one of the hardest breeds to house train, but I don't believe it

He also had 2 adut dogs to show him the ropes, so I give them a lot of credit too!

Edited August 29, 2011 by Laura&Lucky

[chloechanel'smommy 2]

How are you cleaning the crate when he goes? Those plastic pans hang on to poop and smells like crazy and I've found the only way to clean them so that a dog doesn't continue to mark is to let an enzymatic cleaner sit on it for 20 or so minutes and then bring it outside and hose off with bleach water. Depending on the mess, you may need a scrubby brush too.

Other than that, my only thought is that he may need to go more frequently than you're thinking he does. Blues was like that in the beginning (she also had coccidia, which makes them poop more)! "$ I had to let her out every 3 hours or less or she'd go.

What helped us with blues was to put her on a strict food schedule, she got fed 1/8th of a cup 3 times a day with NO edible treats in the crate and taken out 1 hour after each meal. She also has no problem laying in poo so it was all about making it easier for her to go elsewhere.

Good news! No poop in the crate since Sunday! (knock on wood)! I changed their eating schedule and have been taking him out more often. Oh and I also took the pan out of his crate and re-cleaned it with the enzyme cleaner and bleach like you said. Let's hope this works. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This has been sooo frustating! :doh:

[JasperandAkira'smom 4]

:aktion033: