How does your dog signal they have to go potty?

[dodgeandmar]

I had to smile at your post as her entire life all Diva (now 11.5 years) has ever done is just stand in front of me and stare - like I'm supposed to 'know' that this particular stare means "I need to go out"!! At least Monty (when he was alive) would give a bit of whine so I got the gist of what he wanted, but not Diva - just stands and stares like I can read her mind :D

Haha! My Marlee does that, too. That look like "Why don't you KNOW what I want?!"

Dodger has a pee pee face. And it is so funny. He lays his ears flat and presses his lips together and pulls them back and makes a whining noise. Looks a bit like a frog.

 

[Cyrus2005]

Cyrus was taught to tap his foot on the door as a baby. We would gently take his paw and tap his toenails on the door, then praise, and let him out. Funny thing is that it eventually changed to him banging his hip lightly on the pantry cabinet door. It made this hollow, bass sound that was subtle, yet easy to hear. Plus, it was cute to see the little wiggle he would make.
When we moved to Colorado, we rented a few different places and he went back to the tap method. Now we have bought a house, I guess because the front door is downstairs he decided that standing at the top of the stairs and staring at us works for him. If it is urgent, he will pace around the room and poke us with his nose but even that isn't very often. He has no problems scratching the door to come inside though!

 

[whiskers]

For some reason Juno has recently started whining if we don't let her out fast enough. Which I actually like, although the first time she did it I didn't have a view of the door, and so I yelled from the other room "STOP WHINING!" I peeked around and saw her sitting at the door... whoops!

I have no reason to be so paranoid, but I always think she's going to be the type of dog who will go pee in the corner if you're not there to let her out. Now I feel better about being downstairs or something, if she's going to give me an audible signal.

 

[LeroyJethro]

update on our "touch" progress

Well Jethro now does TOUCH on command to your hand. He's not sure of the bells but I think he is getting it. I found some BIG sleigh bells (they are about the size of a golfball and a half) on a Christmas bow I had made one year - and so they are now suctioned to the door handle. As we take him out if he uses his usual signal of just sitting by the door - we tell him TOUCH, praise when he touches the bells and then ring the bell a little more as the door opens. He has touched the bell a couple of times on his own so far. I think smaller bells and ones that ring easier might be a good idea in the near future but BOY are they hard to find.

 

[GDOGS1]

sometimes GDOGS will come and get us and lead us to the door and other times he knock on the door and wait and see if anybody is getting up and if we don't he will bark.

 

[Cami]

I think smaller bells and ones that ring easier might be a good idea in the near future but BOY are they hard to find.

Craft stores have all sorts of bells. I have even seen bells for this very purpose at a few pet stores on occasion but they are outrageous due to having a decorative item attached to hang the bells with.
Cat collars from a dollar store also has bells. You could buy a few and remove bells, attach to something longer and it will do the trick!

 

[dodgeandmar]

Craft stores have all sorts of bells. I have even seen bells for this very purpose at a few pet stores on occasion but they are outrageous due to having a decorative item attached to hang the bells with.
Cat collars from a dollar store also has bells. You could buy a few and remove bells, attach to something longer and it will do the trick!

Walgreens has really jingly Christmas jewelry for like two bucks that you could hang on the door.

 

[CoraBoxer]

We did the bells thing too. Cora would sit at the door, not make a sound and if nobody came she'd drop the idea of the door opening for her to go out (she was small). Bark & Fitz had some 'poochie bells', just some simple black material loops around door handle, like 3 rows of bells. Can get all kinds of fancy colors/designs. I like it, lets me know no matter where I am in the house/what i'm doing. Was like $15.

 

[RockyCody]

Rocky has been bell trained since he was about 3 months old. He had only 2 accidents and i actually got the bells off ebay. You can just search "tinkle training door bells" and you will find the kind that we have. They are 10 bucks and I remember getting them VERY quiclkly from that ebay seller.

When rocky REALLY has to go he starts pacing frantically from the door to the room we are in, it's kinda funny and makes me laugh. Sometimes he also rings the bell if he just wants to go outside so you have to be able to tell which "bell ring" he is doing.

For us - he lightly taps it sometimes (i think its just cuz he's bored honestly) and he wants to go outside and see what's going on or eat some leaves, etc.

But a real authoratative bell ring and the pacing means I GOTTA GO MOM.

You can do it! It's better than a silent sit by the door! Patient and persistance is key!

 

[MoxieB]

ding..ding.. (pause) DING DING! I wanna play outside!

The bell works for our 8 month old Moxie. I just hung one from the door handle and showed it to her a few times before going out to pee. She uses her nose to bump it, had it figured out in a couple days. Obvisouly she has now learned that it's the key to her getting outside. Occasionally when I hear her ring the bell, and I know that she doesn't have to pee, and if Im busy with something and tell her "not right now Moxie, come get a toy", she reminds me of how persistent she can be Gotta love her..