How can I train my puppy to stop peeing in the house?

Persistence. And consistency.

It sounds as if you are doing all of the right things. Take her out immediately when you get home and immediately after letting her out of the crate. And remember, at 2 months, she’s a baby with very poor bladder control – take her out every few hours on a regular schedule and keep rewarding (practically have a party, get excited, praise, cookies – all of that. If you don’t feel ridiculous, then you’re not excited enough.).

Do you use training pads?

@Headhurts I am of the opinion that puppy pads just confuse the issue. They are at best unhelpful, at worst, confuse the training process.

You need to keep her in a kennel small enough so she can turn around, but not any bigger than that. Take her out to play regularly, but watch her every second (keep her on a leash so you can grab her quick if she starts sniffing around (they always sniff before they pee). Take her outside on regular intervals and stay until she pees, and immediately praise her or treat her when she pees outside. First in the morning, again after she eats, and every 2 hours as long as she’s out of her crate. I think two weeks of this should bring some results.

@Headhurts No, I don’t. I agree with @syz on the matter.

Your puppy is too young to be expected to have bladder control. What breed is she? That will tell you the age you can expect her have bladder control.

Is the puppy peeing close to the door that is the door for outside where you take her to go pee? If so, it means that she gets it, she just isn’t alerting you yet. That will come with time. It depends on the dog. I have 2. My one dog was completely trained the first night I had him, he is almost 10 and has never had an accident in the house.

My other dog took 6 months to fully train her and get her on our schedule. Now she is good. Unless she is sick, she has liver disease so sometimes she has accidents. She also is very subtle in the way she let’s you know she needs to go. My other dog is very loud and open you would think the earth is caving in.

Patience is a virtue. My best advice, just keep doing what your doing.

Also one other thing when the dog messes make sure you have the dog watch you clean it up, be nice about it, then as soon as it is cleaned up go directly outside. They usually start to put it together.

They don’t like to mess where they sleep anyway, so you are teaching them to be clean. That’s all I did.

It can take months. You are trying to potty-train the equivalent to a baby of six months. You’re doing fine. Just relax for now and you will have a healthy, happy adult dog!

I think you are doing all the right things. I agree with everyone else; all you need now is patience. My chihuahua is 6 months and she does not pee in house (but when I got her at 10 weeks, she’d do it all the time until she learned that her “pee spot” is outside). I would say it took a good 3 months from when I got her until she was fully trained.

When she has an accident, tell her she did wrong, then take her outside and praise when she does right. Positive reinforcement is excellent for teaching a new behaviour but you have to let the dog know when they do something wrong.

Also use the crate more when you can’t be watching the pup. Every time she has an accident without being told it is wrong, it is reinforcing bad behaviour instead of vice versa.

Axel is a big dog and it was awful. He was about 4 months before he was trained but it seemed like an eternity. One night I thought I heard water running and it was axel full on big dog peeing on the carpet. Keep doing what you’re doing. Eventually he will get it.

@syz is spot on. Also, where is your puppy urinating in the house?

I completely agree with @syz, the only thing I would add is, don’t punish her if she has an accident inside. This can cause anxiety about toileting and make the situation worse. For example, I worked with a Cocker Spaniel puppy who was really struggling with toilet training, going to great lengths to hide her “accidents”. She wouldn’t go outside if the owner was there with her but would mess inside after coming back indoors as soon as her owners back was turned. When I dug a little deeper it turned out that the owner was really punishing her (smacking, rubbing her nose in it) when she had an accident inside that she had developed a fear of going to the toilet whenever her owner was near, inside or outside. I would recommend ignoring accidents and lots of “goodies” (treats, cuddles, games) when puppy goes outside. You can also introduce a word that you use whenever she goes in the right place so that she starts to associate it with the act of going to the toilet and then you can use it to initiate her going to the toilet. Personally I have never done this but my colleague uses “toilets” with her two dogs and they pretty much go at her request now!!

My daughter trained her dog to “go potty” on command. The dog always had this elaborate process she had to do first. On warm days we knew it might take her 10 minutes of sniffing, twisting and twirling before she peed. But if was really cold outside, she would race out to her spot, whirl around about 10 times, pee as fast as she could, and drag us back to the door! It was really funny.