General Question Potty training advice?

[spork3127]

Simple question regarding potty training. Ellie has been doing pretty good, but we've been at the same road block for a while now. She makes it all night from about 10:30-ish until 6:30 in the morning without an accident about 95-98% of the time. There's been a handful of nights that there was a little puddle in the morning, but it's been this was since we brought her home at 8 weeks. She's 6 months right now.

We feed her after her morning potty at 6:30 and then take her out again before we leave at 7:30-ish. It's 50/50 on whether or not she does anything at the 7:30 potty break. I've been coming home at lunch to give her a potty break and have slowly moved the break back from 11:30-ish to 12:00-12:15 and she's been fine.....no messes!

Here's the problem....There's usually ALWAYS a wet blanket when we get home around 5:00. She typically goes straight for her water bowl when I come home at lunch and I've tried everything from no water to limited water, to letting her drink until she's content.....there's still a wet blanket no matter how much I limit the water consumption. This has been the case for quite sometime. I know that she can hold it for that 4-5 hour time frame as she does it at night and in the morning. We've even started to go out into town in the evenings for a couple of hours to let her hold it and she's been fine.

She has about half of her 42" crate as there's a divider in the center, but is it time to take some of that space away? We used puppy pads early on and they worked fine until she started shredding them within minutes and they'd be mixed in with her. Any other suggestions?

 

[ModernFemme]

Okay, I was going through the exact same thing - and I met a bullie owner in my neighborhood who echo'd my sentiments. This only confirmed everything all the vets on EBN told me in my recent post.

(Edit: Remi won't pee in the upstairs crate where is spends 10 hours sleeping at night, but would pee in the one downstairs where we crate him for shorter intervals during the day)

Solution? Remove the bedding. Some bulldogs can't handle the uber absorbent bedding/blankets and will pee on them, and kind of push them to the side, or even sit on them. They don't seem to mind as much.

Plus, make sure Ellie has just enough room to turn around and lay down, and nothing more. I personally do not keep water in the crate, but I make sure Remi is presented with the bowl at all potty breaks. Most of the time he snubs it.

This has solved my problem - after a week or two, I will start adding very thin towels and blankets. Will let you know how it goes...

 

[Vikinggirl]

I heard the same thing, remove blankets, and bedding. I wouldn't know because my 2 can't have anything soft in the crate or anywhere else, because they eat everything. Towels, mats, stuffed animals, blankets, socks, anything they can get at. The only toys they can play with is Kong. They have Kong tires, chew logs, balls, etc, we even had to take the Kong Wubbas away because they ate the stuffing out of them too. I think they are goats

 

[Meggs19]

When I was potty training Tonka he kept peeing on his bedding on occasion too. We had the pee pads and had to take them out because he would shred them as well but we left the plastic tray down that it clipped into and he would continue to go potty on that instead most of the time. Does yours have the tray you could leave in that spot where the pad was to see if that works? Even then, Tonka would still like to pee on his bedding. I have come to the conclusion that English Bulldogs like to go potty on soft things-beds, towels, pillows etc. I just had to do frequent washing until he was old enough to hold it and learn to go outside and that it was naughty to pee in his bedding. I couldn't remove all his bedding, I felt too guilty! Huge pushover here! Although now I am starting to run out of bedding options like [MENTION=6311]Vikinggirl[/MENTION] since Tonka is a creature of mass destruction and I have noticed chunks missing out of his blankets and tears in them.

 

[ModernFemme]

I heard the same thing, remove blankets, and bedding. I wouldn't know because my 2 can't have anything soft in the crate or anywhere else, because they eat everything. Towels, mats, stuffed animals, blankets, socks, anything they can get at. The only toys they can play with is Kong. They have Kong tires, chew logs, balls, etc, we even had to take the Kong Wubbas away because they ate the stuffing out of them too. I think they are goats

HA HA HA! Too funny. Have you tried the stuffing-less toys? Skineez or whatever? Remi does the same thing, and sometimes we can just take the stuffing out if he's torn something open, and he's fine with the rest of the toy.

 

[Vicaroo1000]

HA HA HA! Too funny. Have you tried the stuffing-less toys? Skineez or whatever? Remi does the same thing, and sometimes we can just take the stuffing out if he's torn something open, and he's fine with the rest of the toy.

Bea and Bo love those things. And oddly enough, they don't decapitate them like they do stuffies. Go figure. Guess "gutting the prey" is the fun part? LOL