I've been hearing from some of my friends that they have successfully trained their dogs to ring a bell at their door in order to ask to go out. These folks don't have huskies...

I believe I am missing Sabaka's signal that he wants to go out and then he wees in the floor. Today he was jumping on me an barking (which, of course, is an undesirable behavior so I corrected him), then he goes into the living room and pees!

I just think, knowing my dog, he will sit and play with the bell all day...

I let Nut "train" me. She went to the door one day, scratched on it, and gave a quick "yelp!" and I ran and got her leash and immediately took her outside. Before that all she would do was pick up her activity level and go trotting circles frantically around the house and then TRY to sneak off somewhere and pee. Once she finally connected the leash with the door with outside, things started to happen. A couple times when she had to go, she found her leash and grabbed it, but then her inner husky took over, she forgot why she grabbed it and started chewing on it. So, that didn't work as a signal. Once she realized that if she went over to the front door and scratched or barked, I would come running with a leash, accidents while being free in the house began to stop. We finally found a communication system. BUT, that meant that I had to never let her down. That got difficult when she realized she could go out whenever she went to the front door and yelped.

I let her train me to get up immediately and take her out when she asked. Then we went through several weeks of her faking us out to go outside. She would even pretend to pee, but nothing would come out. The dog had outsmarted us. My husband wanted to start ignoring her if she jumped at the door and yelped, but I disagreed. We finally have a way for her to tell us when she needs to go (before that we just stuck to a strict schedule of taking her out). We couldn't break the promise of taking her out if she tells us. So for a few frustrating weeks, we were out at least once an hour or more at night. What finally worked was NOT letting her play until she had done her business. We would keep her focused on eliminating, and once she went, she was allowed to play around as a reward. Until that moment, we would keep her on a short leash and keep telling her to pee or poo. It would sometimes take 20 minutes before she would finally go, But when jumping up/scratching at the door and yelping began to mean that it wasn't just fun time, she stopped crying wolf to just "go out".

It was a real delicate balance between making her signal to us to go a positive experience where she could count on the fact she'd get to go out and making her stay focused outside so it wasn't just playtime and was ONLY used to eliminate, then play as a reward. She still cries wolf from time to time, but it's rare now and her inside-the-house accidents (short of her crate) seem to have become a thing of the past.

My boy is only 13 weeks old, so I think he's doing fabulous. We have very few accidents and almost all of them are pee only. I think we had a poo accident a couple weeks ago because the heartworm tablet he took was a little rough on his system and caused mushy poo for a day. I am saying "WE" on purpose because right now I am the one who is trained to take him out nearly every hour when he's awake and right after eating. I'm still looking for that "scratch at the door and yelp" type signal like Nutmeg has invented. I agree with you, Leeandra, I do notice a "trotting in circles" type of activity when he needs to go. But I sometimes miss it. (I do have a life outside of this puppy! Or so I keep telling myself anyway!)

A bell would be kind of cool! I have never heard of that. Though Reiko gives me enough signal when he's got to go. He rams me with his chest and then stares at me, if that doesn't work he gives me a "woo woo."

Zeke on the other hand, doesn't give much of a signal. I have figured out that when he stands in the dining room and stares at me it means he's got to go. I'm not sure why he chose the dining room, as it's not really close to the door lol.

I tried the bell thing, but got frustrated with it when Siku just wanted to play with it and kept knocking it down. But I guess if you keep up with it, your dog could learn. There are also doggy doorbells. There is a button on the ground that your dog steps on and it sends a signal to a bell wirelessly. I thought that was a cool idea.

Mine signal me by going crazy. If they suddenly start to run around frantically, running into things, I know something is up. Elara ran full speed straight into the couch last time. She hit it so hard, I think she bit her tounge. Silly girl. Guess she had to poop and didn't know what to do!

I heard of the bell too but I guess I'm lucky that I've learned Ginger's signals when she has to go and I have forgotten to let her out. She'll pace a few times and then she'll sit infront of me, wherever I am. If I'm in the kitchen, she has a boundary line for the kitchen she knows she can't cross, she'll sit and slightly pant. That also means she wants a treat, but if I try to give her a treat and she wants to go out instead, she'll give me 1 bark. I didn't train her to do that...when she did it the first time, I picked up on it, and so that's what she does now.

I have to admit I thought about the bell thing too. The trainer in me loves to develop animal behaviors for communication, but when Nut showed me her preference of a signal I worked with that for ease's sake. Unfortunately I REALLY need to trim her claws and she's big enough now to be scratching the paint on the walls above the chair rail when she "signals". So, for the sake of the living room decor, I may transition her now to a bell. I'll let you know how it goes. And yep, I could COMPLETELY see her driving us mad by nosing the bell all the time I'll just have to make sure I place the bell in such a way that she will serendipitously ring it at a time she'll be using her old signal to go out to bridge the signal over to the "new" signal. Then once it's established, I can probably move the location of the bell. Much like teaching a horse Spanish walk from the ground, then bridging with a word and putting a bridle on them and lifting a rein at the same time. Then you can throw away the whip command, use the bridge word + pick up the rein, and eventually just use the rein from the saddle, no whip, no word.

I had a longhaired german pointer once who I chained a bunch of behaviors to to signal wanting to go for a walk. She'd come to me and sit in front of me, then go to the door and bark, then go into the kitchen to the hook where I kept her leash, take it off the wall, and bring it to me. It took some time, training each signal, but then once you keep repeating the pattern and get the flow to go from one behavior into the next, building into the next step, then the next step, until you have 3-4 behaviors all in a line. The finished product looks really cool, but it's a matter of breaking up everything into bitesized things.

I'm working on Nut with english language recognition and chaining things together so the finished product is that she puts all her toys away on command. I did this with my first dog. She knew the names of her different toys, she learned "carry" (this is where I lose Nut right now, she will pick something up and immediately drop it, not carry) and then go to her toybox and drop the toy. I could say "Put your rope away" and my pointer would go get her rope, carry it to the toybox and put it in. If I told her to "put all her toys away" she would scour around the floor grabbing them all and put them in the box. Nut has the attention span of a flea, though, so we're working on "carry" right now. That will take a while to master

Love the idea of putting away the toys! I told my sons that I never successfully taught THEM to put away their toys, perhaps I would do better with the dog. LOL

FYI, I've been wanting to post about this. I'll try to get video sometime soon. After reading this and being home sick last week, I decided to go ahead with it and Nutmeg got it in 1 day. She wasn't consistent until just a couple days ago, though. I put a verbal "bridge" to it from the leaping on the door and yelping she does. I always ask her, when she does that, "Do you need to go out?" and then she goes wild with anticipation. But, it's my acknowledgment to her that I got her signal while I'm fumbling around getting her leash, shoes on, a jacket etc. It's the verbal "yes" to her signal, which helps her know she asked correctly and I understood and PLEASE don't pee on the floor while you're waiting!

We had company over on Saturday and while Nut was running around, well, like a nut.....its was obvious she needed to go. She went to the kitchen door, leaped up and yelped. She went to the front door, leaped up and yelped. Everyone asked--aren't you going to take her out???? I said 'Nope!'. I stood up, picked up her leash and she started going wild in the living room. I asked "Do you need to go out?" and she danced her jig as normal. I asked her "How do you ask? Tell me you want to go out" and pointed in the general direction of the front door and bell. She just stared at me, so I put the leash down and sat back down and ignored her. I explained that I had was training Nut to ask to go out by ringing a bell. They didn't believe me :-) No sooner did my butt hit the chair than Nut went over and gave a BIG nudge to the bell. They were incredulous! LOL! And, of course, I got right up and took her out.

Now, Nut IS taking advantage of this a little. I'm allowing her to "train" me that when she rings the bell she'll go outside. The first night I was making progress, I had to make a promise to her that if she rang the bell she did indeed go outside. Once she had that confidence, my ass was outside 15x that night . But, now the novelty has worn off and she's still "going out" more than normal at night thanks to our new system of asking, but we're down to only going out for actual pee/poo events at least

That's awesome! I had Sabaka to the vet today for his 15 week cheek up and talked to her about it. I told her my concern that, knowing his personality, he would ring it all the time... or even eat it... lol. She told me I should try to teach him to speak and then encourage that "speak" to happen in conjunction with the need to go potty. I think I might try this since he seems to naturally run around and bark beligerently to be let out. Right now I can't tell if he's demanding attention and just being naughty or if he has to poo.

Haha, I regret teaching Reiko to speak. Now ANY time he wants some thing, it's non stop speak speak speak speak. He doesn't let up until he gets it

Uggghhh! I definitely don't want that! My first husky hardly ever barked and I doubt she could have been taught to speak or made to speak if we tried. She barked when the doorbell rang, one howling-type bark and that's it. This guy is more vocal. I'm not used to this. Actually I'm not sure I want to encourage it....

What would the difference be between teaching him to ring a bell and teaching him to bark? Wouldn't the principle (and the problem you're afraid of) be the same: that he would ring/bark all the time? I would prefer the bell

I think that you're going to run into that problem and have to work through it no matter what signal you teach your dog means "I have to go out." You just have to teach them that the signal is for bathroom breaks only.

Praise when he goes, but if he clearly didn't go when you took him out after waiting for a while, take him inside and put him in the crate or isolate him for a few minutes. He'll get the hint

Actually, even though Nutmeg was seriously noisy from the moment we got her and I was leery of teaching "speak", it was crucial to teaching her "quiet". It seems counter-intuitive, but you'll see why it works if you try.

It literally took me 2-3 months to teach her to speak on command. Gosh knows she'd woo and whine plenty to go out, to get out of her crate etc. Problem is we yelled at her so much for "talking" all the time that except for times where she was especially miserable in the crate, or during her new-found way of leaping and yelping to tell me she needed to go out, she really didn't "talk". Occasionally she would make a little noise if she was really wound up and was playing and bowing. So, I used those moments to start with the hand signal (I put my right hand up, fingers together like a you would hold a sock hand puppet, and open and close them while I would say "SPEAK!" to her. I made my speech and head movement kind of sound like a bark, so she'd get the idea. She'd get all excited, dance on her hind legs, go through her tricks, bow, and sort of whistle like a breathy howl. I'd praise for the attempt and she finally started to get it. It really did take her a while to fearlessly or make noise. Once she had that down, I started teaching "QUIET!" the same way. I would do the hand puppet, close the hand and hold the hand shut and say "Quiet!" in a calm but firm tone. PRAISE FOR DOING NOTHING. If he/she barks, correct and say NO! and give the command for quiet again. PRAISE FOR QUIET. It will sink in. Once they know how to make noise on command, they begin to understand how to NOT make noise on command.

To be more effective, make QUIET a higher value command (he/she gets treats for QUIET but only gets praise for SPEAK).

I never really thought about teaching him quiet. Good idea!

Every dog that we've had I've trained with "potty bells". Yes sometimes Demon does play with them but and we've learned quickly the difference between him playing with them and when he really needs to go. Valkyrie doesn't play with them but she learned within two days how to use the bells. She is older though.

I posted what Ginger does, but since this post first started, we've adopted Storm, and we didn't train him to anything to tell us when he has to go, he walks to the door, and stands there. If I don't get there right away, he'll patiently wait laying down until I open the door for him. Sometimes he just wants to go outside and lay in the sun for 15 minutes to get his vitamin D. If that's the case, I'll leave the door a little open (since we have the A/C on) and he comes in when he's done getting does of vitamin D.

Pax learned the bells when he was very young in about 2 days. We had a couple times where he did play with them, but like someone said earlier you can tell the difference. When Pax has to go to the bathroom he walks along next to the door and hits the bells when he just wants to play he puts them in his mouth and shakes them around. I quickly corrected that though.

Now every time Pax rings the bells Marley will take off running and jump into the bells and swat at them like a kitten.

Success!

We've been working on the bells since we got Ghost 2.5 weeks ago, and we had a huge breakthrough this week. 2 days ago she started ringing the bells on command, and then today she has been consistently going to the door and ringing on her own. Persistence pays off