MOSA Italian Greyhounds™
North Carolina
ph: 910-605-5571
contact
Housetraining Your IG
Our goal is not to lay out a fool proof way that is guaranteed to housetrain your dog, we want to help those we can to hopefully make the process easier, not so stressful, possibly a bit more fun for you and your dog, to give you a better understanding, and some tips that may help you achieve faster results and resources to go too. There is not a guaranteed method or a one size fits all that will work as we humans all have different expectations, goals, and personalities and our dogs are all individual as well. So what works for one may not for another or you may have to make adjustments to make it successful. Whatever the situation we hope that this helps and makes your journey less stressful as our goal with our families is always to help as much as we can so we have successful adoptions and there is no better way than through continued support.
Italian greyhounds get a particularly bad rap for being very difficult to housetrain. While they can be more challenging to housetrain than the medium to larger breed dogs such as Beagles or Rottweiler they are by no means any more difficult to housetrain than most other toys breed dogs such as the Miniature poodle, Chihuahua, or the many other breeds of toys out there.
The IG is very intelligent and while the housetraining can be difficult it is not impossible to accomplish. It takes training on both that of the owners and the IG's part to successfully housetrain an IG as well as consistency on the part of the human.
Most disappointment occurs when you expect too much to fast or expect the IG to be perfectly potty trained at a few months old with absolutely no accidents just because it now knows where you want him/her to use the restroom. Would you expect your baby to be potty trained in a couple days or a week or to be totally accident free within a short period of time?
Another area of expectation and disappointment is those that feel their IG should be perfectly housetrained when it arrives home from the individual or place they adopted from. There are a few misconceptions or misrepresentations I would like to touch on concerning this area :
You must remember when you adopt a dog no matter what the age or how well housetrained it is at it's current home, you are removing that dog from everything it knows, familiar surrounding, people, scents, other animal companions, and expectations. You are uprooting it into your home, something completely new including the people, along with that new rules and expectations that may be vastly different from what he/she is use to and where they came from.
So, even if you are dealing with an adult dog that was perfectly housetrained in it's former home do not expect there to be no accidents in your home. You must allow time for a dog of any age to adjust to it's new surroundings, new family, new scents, and also any new rules or what is expected of them in their new home.
Most disappointment comes from expecting too much too fast or having unrealistic expectations of your dog. You must have patience, understanding and begin training or showing your dog what you expect from them right from the start, do not begin allowing your dog to do something in the beginning that you will not allow them to do later. Just like the mistake many make with their children, the same is true with dogs, some allow their children to do something when they are younger because they think it is cute, but when the child becomes older that same thing isn't so cute or accepted, but by then you have taught them it is acceptable and now must retrain which is much more difficult than if you would have just done it right from the start.. You set both you and your dog up for failure when you do this.
IG's do best when trained with positive re-enforcement rather than punishment methods. They are a particularly sensitive breed, more so than some others and are very in tune to a person's moods, feelings, and health.
While we do at times use treats as positive rewards in our training, I highly encourage most people to use praise and love for the reward instead of foods. It is much better to give your IG attention rather than food as a reward for the following reasons:
You can also make it fun when rewarding your IG along with praise, etc. , you can play a game together such as fetch or hide their favorite toy and get them to find it and bring it too you. This can make it fun and rewarding for both of you.
While most people prefer their dogs to use the outdoors for going to the bathroom there are a few other methods that are being used quite successfully to housetrain either in conjunction with the primary method being outdoors or instead of using the outdoors. Here are a few of the indoor methods being used by some:
Which ever method you may choose to use is totally a personal choice but you should start the training right away and only begin using the methods that you are willing to continue to allow your IG to use when fully grown, in other words do not begin allowing/training your puppy to use the litter box if you are not willing to allow him/her to continue when fully grown. If you begin training them that they can use an indoor method and latter try to remove that method it can and will cause problems that will take time to correct as you will then have to retrain your IG and re-training is more difficult than the initial training.
There are many potty systems out there, I will list just a few. We are not endorsing or recommending a particular brand or type, which ever method or system you choose it is up to you, this is just to make it easier for you:
Litter boxes:
Artifical grass systems:
If you choose to use an indoor potty system we recommend you purchase an attractant spray to make the process easier. By applying the spray to the area where you would like your dog to go to the bathroom it will attract the dog to that spot. (Apply the spray to he area which you want the dog to use, after you have applied it show the dog the area, he/she will automatically be attracted to the scent and will want to use the area.) The spray can also be used when taking your dog outdoors to potty to aid in outdoor potty training, just spray outdoors in a spot where you want your dog to go just like when using in the indoor methods.
We have our own personal methods that we use here at our home that have been successful but just because a method is successful for one does not mean it will be for everyone as we all have different expectations, goals, and personalities which change dynamics of the training and our relationship with those around us including our animal companions. Also a method one person finds acceptable another may not, it does not make it wrong it is just not right for all.
We discuss with our families what it is we do and how to achieve success. Here are a few resources that we like and that we feel are worth looking into:
We hope you find this information helpful and that it helps create a better experience for you and your new family member. If you have still questions we will go into more detail on specific topics below to try and better answer some of your questions.
My opinion on this frequently asked question is from my own personal experience having had both sexes, as well altered and unaltered dogs. I find that there is relatively no more difficulty in housetraining one sex more than the other. Both have their challenges but both are also highly intelligent and willing to learn.
What I do find is some people mistakenly believe that males are more difficult due to the belief that they are peeing when they lift their leg in the home. In fact the majority of the time that a male is lifting it's leg in the home is not too pee but instead mark it's teritory which is a much more pungent odor than just peeing alone.
There are many different opinions on this subject so let me touch on the anatomy of it all to paint a clearer picture and make more sense of it. What it really comes down too is whether or not you have spayed/neutered your dog.
When a dog is not spayed/neutered they encounter hormone fluctuations just as humans do, but instead of the cycles being on a monthly basis they are aproximately every six months for the females give or take a month or 2 in either direction. The hormone fluctuation and long duration of hormone buildup over the few months before the heat and the sudden drop during and after the heat are what help change the demeanor of your female and her attitude.
For the males the surges occur whenever they sense a female in heat which can keep the males in fluctation constantly since there are many females in any given locality, they don't all go into heat at the same time, and males can pick up the scent for a few miles. This continual surge of male hormones is what change the attitude of your male as their interest becomes getting whatever female they smell and protecting their teritory.
The hormone fluctations are what make your dog's behavior so unpredictable at different times and what cause most male agression.
When your dog is spayed/neutered you do not have the intense hormone fluctuations that occur in your unlatered dog. Not having these fluctations means you have a dog that has a more consistent demeanor and attitude throughout. In turn there is very little if any difference in a male and female,both are very loving devoted companions that enjoy being with you, snuggling with you and are not in a constant state of drastic personality change.
This is just one advantage to spaying/neutering your dog there are also added health benifits that we will discuss later.
Generally when males are lifting their legs inside your home when they have been housetrained it is not too pee but instead they are marking their teritory.
The best way to avoid this behavior is to be certain you have your male neutered by the time it is 6-7 months old. If you have it neutered by this time a male will most likely never begin lifiting his leg. The reason being is that the hormones that cause this behavior do not have the chance to kick in therefore eliminating the behavior.
This is not fool proof as occasionally for different reasons you will have a male that still lifts his leg to mark although much more rare once neutered..
Here are some of the reasons a neutered male will still lift his leg:
He was older when you had him neutered.
You have other intact dogs in your home, other intact males or females may cause a neutered male to begin marking teritory. As the intact female trigers the action or the competion with an intact male.
If you had your male neutered at the proper age and you have no other intact adult/adolescent dogs in you home your male will most likely never develop this habit.
If you happend to miss the window on getting your dog neutered at the proper age or you have adopted an older Ig all is not lost. It may take some work but you can recondition your now neutered male to alter his behavior so he does not continue to lift his leg by behavior modification and consistency and/or you can use what is commonly reffereed to as a male belly band.
The Belly band is simple to use and protects when he does lift his leg by capturing the spray in a sanitaty napkin placed inside the band.
Bahavior modification will be a permanent solution but will require time, patience, consistency and rewards.
You can train your IG to use the outdoors as their primary place to go to the bathroom and still use an indoor system as a secondary area in the event your IG must go to the restroom and you miss the signs or in the event you are out and they must go to the bathroom. We use an indoor system and our IGs still go outside as their main method. If you want to use the dual method it is important that you encourage your dog to go outside and praise them when they do go outdoors but also praise them when you see them using the indoor system.
We train our dogs and begin training all of our puppies with the dual method. Once again I will use a human comparison to help give some reasoning for doing so.
If we are out and we or our children have to go to the bathroom, do you hold it or force your child to hold themselves until you return home or do you stop somewhere so you can use the restroom?
If you would not hold it or force your child to do so for 2 or more hours why would you expect your IG to be able to hold it for long periods of time?
While an IG does not neccissarily want to go to the bathroom in the house if you are not there to let them out all they know is they have to go to the bathroom and they are going to find a place to go after they have held it as long as they can. Using an indoor system as a secondary method allows them a place to feel they can go safely without fear of being in trouble when you return and it also keeps your floors clean.. Better to clean a potty patch than my floors.
While we do crate train our dogs and believe in crate training it must be used appropriately. We personally do it for show purposes as all of our dogs must be in crates at the shows and also for transportation purposes to shows or Dr.'s appointments.
Crate training has to be a postitive experience and not used for punishment or your IG will associate it as a bad experience and you will have difficulty with it.
Do not leave your IG in a crate for extended periods of time more than 2-3 hours in the crate is a punishment. If you work and need a method of confinement it is much better to place your IG in a puppy proof room with hard floors like a laundry room with an extra tall baby gate across the doorway, their water bowl, an open crate with bed, toys, and an indoor potty system. This will cause the least stress on your dog and allow him/her to be comfortable for extended periods of time.
You can use the crate to assist with Potty training but NOT as punishment for an accident.
When you are crate training your puppy start out with short periods of time 15 -30 minutes for a nap. When you put them in give them a toy or a treat to keep it positive for them and praise them when they quietly sit in the crate even if it is only for 2-3 minutes, this builds their confidense.
I can not stress enough DO NOT USE THE CRATE AS A PUNISHMENT !
When your IG has an accident it is not the end of the world. Clean it up as soon as you see it. Do not use amonia based cleaners when cleaning it up, the amonia will attract your IG back to the spot.
There are many cleaners specifically designed with pets in mind, I would reccommend using one of these cleaners. We use cleaners that are natural based to avoid having too many chemicals. The enzyme based cleaners have worked great for us and are safe for your family and animals. Here are just a few of many :
If you have carpet you also need a great vaccum cleaner and steam cleaner here the best in our opinion are the Dyson Animal vacuum and the Bissell ProHeat 2X Select Pet Upright Deep Cleaner 94003 .
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MOSA Italian Greyhounds™
North Carolina
ph: 910-605-5571
contact