Nightime Toileting

[Evan]

Okay, Louie has mastered the idea that he has to go outside for toilet. BUT Every morning when we come down, there is ALWAYS something there. I ealise that he is very young and he may not be able to hold it in. Will this stop after a certain age? Will he realise he has to wait until someone lets him out?

[Karlin]

Not a bad idea to have someone take him out midway through the night to help with housetraining, as he is still so small. Hwoever he wilkl probably stop doing this once he gets the bigger picture about hosuetraining. In general a puppy can hold its bladder for one hour for every month old it is. It can hold itself longer at night as their metabolism slows while asleep. So for example a three month old puppy would only be able to hold itself about three hours. Some puppies need a trip outside at say 3 or 4 am until maybe 4 months old? Others don;t seem to have a problem -- Jaspar would last the night even at only 8.5 weeks so I was lucky, no late night sessions for me!

The book How to Houstrain your Dog by Shirlee Kalstone is full of good advice. Usually it needs to be special ordered or ordered from Amazon in the UK.

[Maxxs_Mummy]

What time do you give him his last meal as well Evan? Sometimes that can have a bearing on how much they need to wee or poop in the nights.

[Evan]

he has his dinner around 6/6.30 and sometimes we give him a vey small snack around 9. we bring him out then and he does his business. Then he goes to bed. I think it isn't all his fault because he is in the kitchen from 12 until about 7. Louie is 11 weeks so he can roughly hold it for about 2 hours.

[rory]

Is he having pee accidents? Try pulling his water around 7pm (give him about 30 min after dinner) and then walk him again around 10 before going to bed. This should help prevent the need to go pee in the middle of the night.

[Evan]

he is having poo and pee accidents during the night. i thought they drank water all the tiem so ithought we had to leave it down

[Karlin]

It's OK to take water away in the evening about 2-3 hours before you are going to bed. Let him have one last wee before everyone goes to bed at night. he is still pretty young and might need to be taken out at 3 or 4, if you want to make his housetraining consistent. They are like little babies -- human babies need to have feeds and be changed usually halfway through the night as well. It shouldn't be too long before he can last though. He is closer to lasting three hours now; and probably 5 or so he'd manage while sleeping; 7 or 8 is a pretty long stretch for his tiny bladder and bowel though!

[Maxxs_Mummy]

He's still really very young to be expected to be clean and dry at night Evan. If I were you I think I wouldn't panic too much and just give him newspapers or those puppy pads to go on.

The GSD we had was about 6 mths before she was clean and dry at night but then after that we rarely had an accident.

[Evan]

yeah, as i said above he is still a bit young but the good thing is he always does his poops in the same spot so we put newspaper down there before going to bed so it's easier to clean!

[Maxxs_Mummy]

That's very good Evan. He's obviously going to be a clean dog He'll soon be clean and dry - one morning you'll get up and there will be nothing!!!!!