housebreaking vs the sexes

[blueskies]

well, looks like we finally found our puppy! we are so excited. we will be picking up our 4 month old female pup this friday. :D
one of the gazillion questions I asked the breeder was regarding housebreaking ... since the pup is 4 months old I asked at what stage she was at for being housebroken. The guy told me at level zero *sigh* well I was hoping for a head start but I can handle starting from scratch. But he did say something that took me back a bit, said female Boxers are notorious for having trouble housebreaking ??? have any of you heard or experienced this? we have a 3 1/2 month old labrador pup that is 100% trained so I thought bringing in her playmate of roughly the same age would be a piece of cake in the potty dept. I even retrained the lab to ring a christmas bell on the door after reading posts on the boards about it since she whines so quietly to go out. I am hoping that the lab wont revert back to soiling other places than outdoors when the Boxer pup arrives, kinda monkey see monkey do, any advise to avoid this? TIA
Mel

 

[myrocky]

I'm not sure but I really don't think you will have a problem. We got Rocky around four months and it only took us about 3days to potty train him. He would pee we would say NO then Outside and go to the door. He learned quickly and started going to the door. Then he started jumping on the door and attacking the door knob. So we know when he has to go out. Plus if you are working on crate training you should be okay. Also at four months Rocky was sleeping through the night (no wake up call for us appicon ) I was really pleased with him that he caught on so quickly. Good luck to you!

Also boxers want to please so that adds in your favor

 

[Tulsa-Dan]

I think this is a misconception. I believe it to be true that females develop slower and it takes more time for them than for males to develop the muscular control over their bladders. This, I believe, is the reason people say females are harder to housebreak. Basically, the housebreaking training is the same, regardless of sex, but it may take more time with the female because of slow muscular development rather than anything else.

I have two females. Maggie wasn't any particular problem housebreaking. It took about 5/6 months for her to be completely skilled at holding things and going outside. Starting from scratch won't be difficult if you keep on a tight schedule and remember to take the dog out frequently, every one to two hours when she's a pup, and of course, before and after meals, and after all play sessions. You can also search Boxerworld for other tips on housebreaking.

Good luck. Keep us posted on your new little girl. And, CONGRATULATIONS!

 

[Mommy2Cool]

Congratulations :p

What is her name?

I have never really noticed a difference between the sexes. I think each dog is different, and will learn in their own time.

Good luck! Keep us posted!:p

 

[CJ's mom]

All I can add is that I have a male and he was much more difficult to housebreak than the last male pup. He still wakes me up during the night to go out sometimes...but at least he wakes me up rather than just go... :rolleyes: (that doesn't mean he never has accidents either!) And according to my husband, his last female Boxer had less bladder/bowel control problems than our current one too. So I don't know how something like this can be predicted...
Congratulations on the new puppy! They are soooo much fun!!!

 

[lawdawg534]

I havent noticed any more trouble house training our females (past or present) than our past male. Tango is 5 months old and has been house trained for at least a month or more.

 

[Mandy1155]

Clarice is 5.5 months and she learned VERY fast. We crate trained her and there were a few days we had to leave her for 8 hours and she held it the whole time. She rings the bell to go out now, and hasn't made a mistake for over 2 months. She had the concept down (going to the back door) after only a couple weeks, but how fast I got the door to open it for her was the decision maker if she made a mess or not.

 

[blueskies]

wow! thank you all for such great imput!!!! such a wealth of useful information :D thanks again!
I females develoed a bit slower than males so in the back of my mind I was wondering if perhaps that was what the breeder was talking about, you know that tiny bit of truth that usually is somewhere behind most myths
Anyways, thank you all! As soon as we get some pictures of our new baby this weekend I will share. Oh and her name is Sadie but we've owned a Sadie (cat) before so we <i>might</i> change her name since told she doesnt know it yet anyways.
Mel