Having a question about house training

[Guest Anonymous]

Okay... Have a new seven week old Saint Bernard. I do have a crate for him... but I also have two other dogs. I've been trying to keep him out with the others so that he can play and bond with them. He seems to already know how to ask to go out. He goes over to the barrier (I've blocked off the other room) between him and the outdoors... But he seems to have to go every 10-15 minutes. Wondering if this is normal or if I will have to consent to putting him in a crate in order to have him "hold it" for more than 15 minutes at a time.

[bk_blue]

It has been way too long since I have housetrained a puppy! But I would imagine they do need to "go" quite frequently. At 7 weeks I would imagine it would be often. Don't expect too much from him too soon... as he gets older he won't need to go as often. I don't think they can really "hold" it either despite us wishing they would, especially on cold nights! :)

[DogPaddle]

At seven weeks old your pup is doing great to let you know he needs out. Congrats. I imagine he will need to go out very frequently at least right now. By the time Zaphod was 2 1/2 months we were able to start expanding his time between piddles very slowly. We got an idea of his regular interval (15min for example.) Let him out, he piddled, we let him loose in the house for 12 min, put him in the crate for 5 min, put him out, he piddled. Then we vary gradually extended the time between, his crate time never exceeded 10 min though. Oh and praise, praise, praise.
If he's very erratic there is a different technique