How long to house train? & Groom myself?

DH & I just bought a 4.5 month old toy poodle. We are worried because of his age he will be harder to train. He lived in a pet store and I have no idea what habits he learned there. In two days he has been using his wee-wee sheet 50- 75% of the time, on his own (surprise to us).

We are crate training and that's working. He doesn't soil his crate at night and pees on the pad in the am. How long will this all take? We were told poodles are very smart and train easily.

He doesn't even look like a poodle as of now, more like a cotton ball. I actually hate poodle-cuts and I want to keep him fluffy. He needs a little trim though. I think I can do it, he allows me to brush him no problem.

Re: How long to house train? & Groom myself?

well, i cant speak for his age, but we got hershey at 12 weeks and it took about 2-3 weeks to have him fully house trained

Re: How long to house train? & Groom myself?

i have a small dog too (cairn terrier - toto from wizard of oz). it took us almost a year for him to be 100% reliable. got him around 3.5 mos old.

honestly, i found the key to helping him along was to be consistent, treat him and praise him lavishly when he pottied on his paper or outdoors, and the crate (which you are doing). most important for us was to read his signals. before he was "getting" the paper concept, he was going off to a private area down the hall. when we saw him head that way we'd lead him into the kitchen where the paper was. this was before he "got" the idea to potty outside. then we'd lead him outside.

i was told never ever to scold them when you caught them in the act b/c that could potentially create this thing where the dog was afraid to pee in front of you (which would be problematic for us as we live in an apt and need to walk him outside for potty time).

as for grooming, i suggest making it a two person job. one person does the grooming, the other feeds him tiny bits of chicken during the grooming process. this distracts him from what you're doing as well as creates a positive association for him. grooming = chicken


good luck!

ETA: I was also told by my trainer that puppies can hold it is their age in months plus one. so the max that your dog could hold it would be five hours. (not to say that my now 2yo dog can hold it for 25 hours! lol!)

Message edited 12/4/2009 2:26:13 PM.