How Do You Teach A Dog To Signal For "out"?

[Guest Fluffy]

Badger is very much a schedule-living dog - he goes out at the same times every day and does his business and doesn't ever "ask" for out. This is, of course, generally fine as long as he's with me, because I am fairly well attuned to the "oh, he's standing up more than usual instead of napping, maybe he needs to go out" subtleties, but if anyone who doesn't live with him 24/7 needs to watch him (my parents will have him next weekend while I am away, for example), this isn't great. I can just picture my poor mother either taking him out every five minutes in paranoia that "he stood up!", or finding him piddling on the floor because she missed the signial-that-wasn't-a-signal.

 

Lately, we've been running into situations where even I am not reading him right. I almost tore my hair out tonight at his absolute refusal to settle down. He gnawed the corner of my coffee table. He ate a hole in his blanket. He barked and play bowed. I played with him, I walked him, I kept taking him out, and he'd pee each time (no idea which of his legs is hollow, but one of them's got to be to be able to go that much every half hour!), and then he'd come inside and return to being a complete jerk who kept doing this: . This went on for hours. Finally, in desperation, I took him out and kept him out even after he peed, hoping that maybe he needed to poop again but for some godforsaken reason had been holding it. Yep, that was it. He pooped (in the pitch blackness at 9:30 at night, which I now have to remember to go find in the morning before someone steps in it!), came inside, and promptly fell asleep.

 

So. Obviously we need to figure out some better signaling system for "Hey mom, I really do need to go out and do some pottying" before one of us gets fed up and kills the other. I'm just not sure to teach this to a dog who doesn't seem to think of asking for unscheduled potties. I know some people use bells that the dogs can ring to signal "out, now!" - my manager at work has her golden retriever trained to a bell, with great success. But, well, that's a golden retriever. Has anyone taught their grey to do this? Or is there a way that I can teach him to just...I don't know, come nudge me? Whine at me? Something? He will sometimes whine for a middle-of-the-night potty break to wake me up, but he never does it during the day.

 

Ok, I feel better now that I vented and asked the hive mind for help! Off to crawl into bed with a book and a glass of wine...

[NevadasMom]

I really didn't teach Trolley....she trained me. She runs back & forth from me to the door until I let her out. If it's during the night, she goes to the door & rattles the blinds. Maybe start asking "want to go out?" and see how he responds.

Edited August 20, 2010 by NevadasMom

[Guest lanielovesgreys]

I did it with a long hand motion similar to the signals the ground people give airplanes when directing them to the terminal. And I give her cheese when she does it correctly. Now she'll exit a room, go outside, get out of the car, whatever. "out" is leave this space and go in the direction of my arm movement.

[gr8mama]

We taught our smarty pants girl, Cricket, to ring a big jingle bell that we attached to the door knob with a ribbon by nudging it with her nose. She learned that trick in about two days (maybe less). Then, of course, she thought it was great fun to go over and ring the bell, and watch me or DH come over to open the door for her as if we were her personal servants. (We have a fenced yard.) After a couple of days of this routine (she rings bell, humans come let her out, she comes back in after a few minutes, shortly after she rings bell again, humans come accomodate her again) we said to ourselves, Are you kidding? This is way too much fun for her.....no fun at all for us. So, we took the bell down and that was that.

BUT, the training principle is the same one as you would use to teach "touch" with clicker training. Hang the bell on the doorknob, bring Badger over gently to stand in front of the bell, use a cue word (potty? out?) and gently move his face so that it touches and rings the bell. Then, praise him and take him out. If you make it fun and use your happy, you're-the-best-dog-in-the-world voice, he'll learn it in no time. Just be careful what you wish for - he'll get it quickly and may decide he wants (not needs) to go out just for fun.

[Guest zoolaine]

Zali and Zuki will also ring the bell to go out. Neither one associates it with going potty at all. They ring it when they want to go out and play or just hang out. It has gotten to be quite annoying - I will be in bed and there is Zali ringing the bell!

[JohnF]

I had a Borzoi (Mona) who also got really naughty over that and then I started to analyse her body language in detail. Out for 'Potty' Please was: Come up to one of us and nudge, walk to lounge door and look back, continue to kitchen (where back door is) and not come back.

 

The difference with the 'fake' asking to go out was in not bothering to look back when leaving the lounge and coming back from the kitchen after a few seconds to try all over again.

 

If genuine there will also be a very slight lifting of the base of their tail (easier to see in Greys than big coated Borzois.)

 

And the urgent Diarrhea "Gotta go right NOW!!" was a much more determined nudge and rapid progress to the door (again with a look back but without stopping).

 

Signal to get the dog to go out of the room? Point left arm and say " (dog's name) Pssst!"

[Guest kydie]

I love the bell ringing concept,,,, but I must admit,,,,, our lewellyn is the control tower in this house,,,, when he wants out he gets right in your face, and I mean right in your face ,,,, no question what he wants, ,,, he goes out they all go out

[sobesmom]

We lucked out with our grey, Diana - she's the only grey I've ever seen scratch at the door. I think she may have done it by accident the first time - but we were so excited we let her right out and praised the heck outta her. Now she does it whenver she wants out. I'm sure if I hung a bell off the doorknob it would ring when she wanted out.

 

We pretty much took advantage of that. We have a schedule for "outs" around work. But weekends and evenings go on Diana's schedule for "asking" to go out. When Diana asks - scratches the door - every dog in the house jumps up before the humans do. None of the fosters or our other grey learned to scratch the door for themselves - but they all learned the noise means GO OUT. I have NO IDEA how to teach that.

 

I've found that a schedule is the best way for other people to help out with my dogs. Let them out at 6, 4, 6, 8 and 10 at least. More if you want to. Keeping feeding and walks on the normal schedule helps too. Don't rely on the dog to "tell" them.

 

BTW - Diana has learned that she "moves" other dogs with it. If she wants on the couch, and another dog is there - she'll go scratch the door - make the other dogs jump up and run to the door - then go take the spot on the couch, without ever going out.

Edited August 22, 2010 by sobesmom

[Guest giantsfan]

We use a bells which we've hung from the doorknob to the porch leading to the backyard. We started this when we got our 2nd dog and realized she didn't really give us consistent detectable signals. Also unlike her brother, who we adopted first, occasionally she seemed to need to go in the middle of the night and I wanted a way for her to tell us (they don't sleep in our bedroom). It took us one evening to teach them to use it to go out. It's worked well and it doesn't seem to get abused too much...not too many rings for non-bathroom activity and even if it were more, for us the benefit outweighs the inconvenience.

[Guest loladark]

We are new greyhound owners so I can't answer for this breed - but we have used the bell trick sucessfully before (with a boxer mix). The novelty of using it for attention wears off and it became a useful tool. My grandmother also used it successfully with several dogs (boxers). We just got our grey, but will probaby try it with her as well.

[Guest Fluffy]

I might end up trying the bells, just for reliability and portability, but for now I think we've reached a detente. Turns out he's been giving very clear signals this past week; I just wasn't getting them. I can just see the wheels in his doggy mind turning:

 

Month five of my anthropological study. Have finally managed to make a connection with the human. Had begun to think I would have to stand on my head to get her to recognize the signals I was giving, but a little judicious chewing of furniture for the better part of a week seems to have gotten her to stop staring at the flashy boxes and start listening to me. Now she responds gratifyingly quickly to the loud bark which I have been trying to teach her for months means that I need to use the facilities. Training her continues apace; have taught her to give me extra biscuits by being entertaining and fishing them out of my water dish when she puts them there. Still working on communicating the importance of an early waking time to her, but have high hopes w. regard to same. Perhaps I shall come out of this experience with my sanity after all.

 

Signed,

R. Badge

[Guest Lgyure85]

Yeah, we kind of worked together with Maddie. Now we're at the point where she jumps up from wherever she's sleeping (since she's usually sleeping) stares at us for a second then "talks" (sounds a lot like Chewbacca). We ask if she wants to go outside, and she "talks" more if that's it. Probably kind of weird, but it works like a charm! Maybe trying making dog noises? OK, maybe not, but I'm sure you two will eventually come to some agreement.

[Hubcitypam]

I know that Kathy with Feathered Gems taught Slate how to use sleighbells. I have a dog door so I'm no use and pre dog door there were usually about 6 fosters, many fresh off the farm so I was letting them all out pretty often.