[Harleycox]

My family is now the proud owners of a beautiful 8 week old GSD puppy! She is such a big baby

We love her BUT we need help!

PROBLEM: We have a 3 year old golden retriever as well and a fenced in yard. We are crate training her to housebreak and when we take her out in the yard on the lead to go to the potty (we leave the golden inside to do this), she is completely distracted and pulls on the lead to come back inside.We think it is to be with our golden. In patience we keep her out there taking her to the fartherest part of the yard to make her focus but she just cries and pulls toward the door.

Tonight I took her out and she had not pooped since earlier in the day, I knew she had to go because she had eaten almost 3 hours prior. She peed, but would not poop. We let her have a few minutes of play time inside because she peed but then in just a minute she hid and tried to poop in the corner. We caught her in the act and took her outside and she would not go!

HELP...Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Harley
VA

 

[tracyc]

Welcome! Check out the puppy threads here and you'll see that housebreaking is one of the most common questions.

Patience. She'll get it.

For some reason, right now the pup thinks all the fun is inside, and nothing of interest is happening outdoors. So...make going outside fun! Not just the chore of pee/poop/back inside---bring some treats, run around, play chase--have fun! She'll poop somewhere in there, and then you'll be set to praise and treat.

Indoors, try tethering her to you when she's not in the crate. Put her on her 6-foot lead and tie the end to your belt. Then she can't sneak off and poop because you'll see her start to squat and can scoop her up and run outside. It'll also help her get used to following you around for when leash training starts.

Sounds like your mostly doing it right. Bravo for crate training. I bet she'll have the hang of it in a week.

Again, welcome. Can't wait to see pictures of your pup.

 

[JKlatsky]

Because this was a problem for us...Try to keep your puppy and your Golden as separate as possible.

When we brought our puppy home, she immediately preferred our older dog. We couldn't walk them together, go into stores, without her CRYING at the top of her lungs pulling to be able to get right next to him. I think this probably had something to do with needing to bond after leaving her litter, and obviously a dog makes more sense than people!

After about a week of no play time between the 2, separate walks, going into stores separately and being crated in different rooms, she's not frantic anymore about needing to see the other dog. She still likes to see him and gets excited, but no more straining at the leash and crying. And truly I think it was probably an easier adjustment for him to see her pass through the house and not HAVE to interact with her all the time.

We're slowly letting them hang out more often, but we try to keep the focus on us, not the other dog.