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will not go on walks & only goes potty on concrete! HELP

aleethomas

Well-known member
I have a few questions/concerns and I'm hoping that someone out there might be able to help me.

We just got a 12 week old female tri (her names is Padden). We've had her for 1.5 weeks now and she is the sweetest puppy ever. She comes to work with me everyday after lunch and sleeps on my lap until its time to go home!

We had a few issues in the begining with potty training. She was used to pee pads but after a couple days she was going on the rugs in the house and playing with her pee pads. So we switched over to crate training and watching her like a hawk and carrying her down the elevator to go out. For the first few days she would walk around outside with her tail between her legs and once the weather got cold she would just shake. It took a few days but she always goes potty outside but only on the concrete! We can't get her to go on anything else. Dirt or grass. She loves sniffing the concrete or the street but isn't very interested in the grass or dirt. How can we get her to go potty where we want her to?

She also will not go on walks or doesn't really like going outside. (she's used to her leash and her harness) We take her out at times other than to go potty and she just sits down and will let me drag her the entire way. I've tried to make it fun for her and even tried to hold treats in front of her but she catches on and just plops her butt down and stares up at me or jumps up to be picked up. When she knows that we've turned around to go back she gets so excited and prances or sprints the entire way back to the building!!!!!
And runs the entire way down the hall, to the elevator, and to our unit.

She just loves to be inside. But how do I get her to want to go on walks?

We're taken her out to a very grassy area where we can let her off the lead and we'll walk ahead of her for awhile until she runs towards us. She does like playing there but only when we have toys and throw them so she can chase after them.

Anyway, any advice would be greatly appreciated! I really don't know what else to do and I don't want to have to drag her out of the building or carry her to go outside forever. We are very active and love going hiking and it would be very unfortunate if Padden couldn't or didn't want to join us.
 
Congrats on Padden! What a super awesome name!!

Unfortunately I cannot give much advice on this topic although it made me giggle a little.

Good Luck

Raven and Cicero (Tri)
 
First: don't worry about the walking. Twelve weeks is WAAAAAY too young to even *think* about walking the pup for longer than (literally) a couple of minutes. She shouldn't be going hiking with you until she's at least a year. By then you'll have done training with her. Carry on making the lead and harness fun, that's good. Don't worry about her being reluctant- it's nasty, wet/snowy/cold outside, and she's so little she'll really feel it. No wonder she wants you to pick her up! For the moment just carry you when you take her outside for the socialisation. Walking properly on a lead will come later- she's still a tiny baby. Oh, and whatever you do, don't drag her.

I wouldn't worry unduly about her having preferences for the toilet. At least concrete is better than your floor/carpet! And I sympathise about the pee pads. I had exactly the same issue with Amber.
 
thanks for the advice!!! I guess I won't worry about it then and just continue to take her outside to get used to everything so she's comfortable.

This is our first puppy so besides reading everything we can get our hands on we don't really know what to expect. Plus having a bunch of other puppies in the building that already love going on walks that are younger than Padden makes us think that she's just being stuborn. But from everything I've seen so far Cavaliers are nothing like other dogs!!!
Thank goodness I found this forum!

We start puppy classes in a week so hopefully they will help too! It should be warming up around here too which I know Padden will love.
 
Not sure where you live but if it is cold I'd get her a coat or sweater for when you go outside -- a puppy can hardly generate any warmth and cavaliers only have a single, not double coat anyway, so have very little insulation even as adults for really cold weather and as puppies they easily get chilled. Eeven in Ireland where winters are mild jaspar would shiver whenever I took him out without a sweater or coat -- he was a 'winter puppy' too.

I'd also work at walking her in the house each day on the harness and lead so that she gets really used to it.

Lots of puppies won;t go on grass or dirt for a while if they've been trained to papers indoors -- concrete is the closest to what they are used to. Eventually they'll go anywhere.

Usually a puppy wouldn;t really be ready to be exposed to the outside except for brief pee/poop walks at her age -- you should wait til two weeks *afetr* her last round of puppy shots or she could be vulnerable to parvo or distemper. Usually that means at about 14-16 weeks. Ask your vet and they'll give you the right advice. :)
 
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