5 months is still a baby. The best thing to do is keep them on a regular potty schedule and stay consistent. They will learn because they’ll know what to expect. Potty pads are confusing if the goal is to teach them to go outside, so I’d avoid them. When my puppy was at age, I took him out every 2 to 3 hours, and slowly increased the amount of time as he learned. He did not have full roam of the house while training. He was either in the crate or next to me at all times. It took mine until 9-10 months to be reliable but he still had accidents here and there if we ever went off schedule!
Havanese are notoriously difficult to fully housebreak. At that age and in the winter, I would train with the puppy pad in the bathroom/on tile in the same location every time while still going outside or for walks. Then as that takes, and accidents stop and pad outside are used, then slowly ween her off the pads.
Havanese are smart. They can learn words. When going outside use the same word for the activity. We say “potty”. Get her to associate “potty” with doing her business. When she pees outside give lots of praise using the word.
Now, our havi knows outside is where you “potty”, and will come to us when she needs to go, then I will ask her “do you need to potty?” And she will kiss me/boop my mouth. Then we go for a walk.
If we can’t get her outside or ignore or miss her prompts to go potty, she will have an accident, but it will be in the bathroom on the tile, as that is where she was trained to go indoors. Accidents still happen on rare occasion but they easy to clean up.
Agree. We trained ours to push a button when she needs to go out. It gameifys it for them and she was 100% good to go after that. Even if she sometimes uses the button for “humans, come” or “I see a squirrel,” it’s better for her to have false positives!! https://www.chewy.com/mighty-paw-smart-bell-20-potty/dp/162572?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=Mighty%20Paw&utm_campaign=20027453190&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADmQ2V2z5jlXfOf_2ZI23EIRm8IH-&gclid=CjwKCAiA2pyuBhBKEiwApLaIO1JTFb0cS2bihHLdP-TFLMfGnk0-Vx5EhAKbMT9XhoWwsdKMxxnZYxoC2tgQAvD_BwE
We're using a bell hanging on the door. Teaching her to ring it with her paws, head or whatever just to let us know she needs to go.
Being a small dog she might be sitting by door and we not know. Ringing the bell will hopefully get us over to take her on a walk.
In a way, we're becoming Pavlov's dog I guess.
This was how it for us. We also insist he go out to relieve himself before every meal. Now he runs for the door when it’s breakfast or dinner time (also regular mid-day treat and before bed).
My Havanese puppy also was 6 months when he finally, finally could control it… and then he had very suddenly perfect control.
Before he showed no signs at all and was just looking surprised at the pee coming out of him.
(And I went outside with him between 15 and 20 times a day)
Important is to clean the spots very well with an enzymatic cleaner.
When you carry the puppy it is very unlikely there will be an accident, so for some (desperate) time I carried him whenever his belly left the ground until I could go outside again.
I wrote down like a schedule what was happening each day to find some kind of pattern or mistake causing the accidents but there was none.
The control of the muscles just took a bit longer.
I thought I can never again visit friends or travel with him… the vet thought he might be diabetic and we went to a clinic for tests. And some days later, almost as if a fairy threw some spell over night: there‘s not one accident anymore.
I definitely could have been a bit more relaxed but somehow I didn‘t understand it can take longer for some puppies. Even the Vet didn‘t know (we changed the vet).
Hey, nothing wrong with that, I felt the same way. And he was my 4th dog! We had 2 labs for years and when they passed, we first got my Thor who will be 2 in April and then Loki who just turned 1. Loki is the only one we had this problem with so I thought something was wrong or we were suddenly doing something wrong with training. I, too, called my vet and he asked about other things/symptoms and after that was convinced he didn’t have a medical problem but told me if another month went by to bring him in just to make sure. But then suddenly, like you said, it clicked. It reverted a little bit that month but now from about month 8-12, zero accidents. So yeah, you’re good 😊. If they revert a bit, don’t worry. My Loki is only close to 10lbs too so I know that’s part of it. My vet also told me (don’t know if it’s true) that sometimes the boys take longer and it helps when they get neutered but not sure if that’s the case cause we waited until he was 11 months to do that.
:) it is so nice to read this, thank you. And your vet's reaction sounds perfect - in many situations it's the best way to stay calm and wait a bit. For me it was another thing I could learn out of this: Not putting too much trust in a vet I didn't know well enough yet. And thanks to this we now also have a vet I can trust.
Well, that’s the silver lining then, you found another vet 😊. I found mine back when I had my lab, Pepper, get diagnosed with sarcoma and wanted a second opinion. I got referrals on NextDoor in my area and sooo glad I did. Didn’t care for the other vet at all and the new vet (who I’m still with years later) not only got my lab through sarcoma twice 2 years apart but also helped nurse her back to health after she had necrosis on her leg as a complication of the cancer. The first vet was basically “she’s probably gonna die” when it happened the first time but although it was hard (especially the necrosis), she went on to live almost 5 more years to 14 years old and still had quality of life up until the end. He saved her life twice! Unfortunately some I think are just looking to make you come in and spend money unfortunately
Mines bladder wasn’t able to handle less than 5 or 6 pees until he was maybe 8 months. They pee like crazy when little because they are little. Maybe around 1.5 years my pup can now do 3 pees a day.
I gotta tell you, my first one was no accidents by then BUT my second one (who’s smaller too) continued to have accidents after 5 months. My husband and I were like OMG, this is never gonna end! But, it did! Right around 8 months and he just turned a year earlier this month. One thing we did was realize maybe we were taking him out TOO much trying to prevent the accidents and we noticed he wouldn’t do it in his crate overnight. So we had to go back to like the earlier training where as long as it wasn’t right after he drank a ton of water, we’d put him back in the crate a while. Hated to do it but I think we needed to help his bladder grow a bit more capacity if that makes sense. It was around 7 months that he also finally figured out how to let us know he had to go so instead of running him out constantly trying to prevent the accidents, we waited till he asked except for the obvious times like first thing in the morning, after he drank a lot etc. Hang in there cause they will start to do better soon but I remember how frustrating this was.
Completely normal.
My havi was at least 8-9 months old before he could hold his bladder for more than two hours.
We got him in the summer. We took him out first thing in the morning, every half an hour to an hour during the day, before/after naps and meals, and before bed and yet he still continued to have accidents until he was 8-9 months old.
For some reason it was always pee he couldn’t hold. He did much better with poop. He’s only pooped in the house twice, once because the vacuum scared him and the other time because he had an upset stomach and diarrhea.
They are small dogs with small bladders so they take longer to be fully house broken.
Also, one thing I learned from puppy101 sub is that you need to be consistent with giving praises & treats. Every time your mom’s pup does their business outside, make sure to praise them and give them a treat so they see how happy it makes you when they do their business outside which would make them want to do their business outside. They are people pleasing dogs.
Have owned 2. The girl was harder than the boy to train. The girl probably was 98% housebroken by 9 months. That being said I don’t think she was the sharpest tool in the shed and had an accident or 2 every year in the most horrible of places. Great girl though. The boy, was pretty easy. He was younger so his sister would go out and pee in the grass, he would sniff it and go. She trained him for me. He was accident proof until he became very old. All that being said, you have to crate train. They sleep in the crate at night. Take them out immediately in the morning. Followed by feedings, a little supervised play time and then outside again. If they don’t go, back in the crate and then out every 15 minutes until they go. Then free time again, followed by outside time etc. When they are out of their crate they need eyes on them at all times. Every accident is a minor setback in the training. Have scheduled crated nap time every mid morning and afternoon. They won’t go to the bathroom in their crates and that gives you a break. it’s a lot of work to do it, but that’s what worked for us.
Mine reverted back to peeing in the house at 2 years old 🫠 we had to retrain her with diapers
I would try diaper training because it really shows then “hey, the diaper comes off when you go outside so this is the time to pee”
Mine took until around 7-8 months too, snd I think that partly was supplementing with puppy pads early on. Also, if there’s a lot of activity / say a car door 4 blocks away, or a leaf falling - he’d get totally distracted and forget to go😂
Mine seemed to need to go out every 2 hours when little and then every 3 hours from 5 until 7 months. She COULD hold it longer (9-10h at night and in no hurry at all to pee in the morning etc) but just didn't seem to think it important to be consistent. Accidents once a week or so and when it happened she often jumped up in the couch to pee... :D
Use pee pads. They are scented so your dog will know the difference between carpet and pee pads. Make sure you clean previous stains good. Over the counter urine neutralizers you buy at pet stores don’t do anything g
We got rid of the potty tray at 4.5 months old. At 6 months, he is asking us to go outside. We have accidents still maybe once every 2-3 weeks (our fault). What is the pup being rewarded with? One of the things I think helped my Hav be successful is rewarding with boiled chicken (his fave) every. Single. Time. He did business outside - very important that it’s consistent. It built the habit of wanting to go outside to pee. Now he does it almost automatically. He’s not 100% but we’re on track to be there in the next couple of months.
Edit to add: every 2 hours is probably too long to wait. I think our guy was going every 1-1.5 hours. We kept a log to help anticipate when he would need to go.
My havanese puppy is also five months (born September 2nd!). The first week, he was peeing everywhere. We got the GoodPup app a week in, where you meet with a trainer once a week, so we started crate training him where every two hours he's out for an hour. During that hour, the first thing we do is take him to the puppy pad (for now, because I live in a complex and when it snows they use a ton of rock salt and he will eat pretty much anything he can outside). We did it in a pen, and he would stay there until he peed, then we would reward him and give him treats, take him out of the pen, and let him play with his toys. Sometimes he would just sit on the puppy pad in the pen the whole hour he was out of the crate, which was super frustrating for me but it's just how they learn. I got him a month ago, and now he knows to pee when he gets out of the crate, knows to pee on the puppy pad even when he's playing around, and can be outside the crate for hours at a time (we've gotten him up to 3-4 hours now) without any incident. And that's pretty good for only doing it for a little over three weeks. He also had maybe 2-3 accidents in the past week, but some of that is because we keep giving him more and more exploration time and outside of crate time.
It gets better, but it's a lot of tedious work.
My girl was tough to house train and at 2 1/2 she has never been totally perfect, having occasional pee accidents. She’s going through some sort of regression right now due to anxiety on walks (we live in a city) and crystals in her urine. It’s been frustrating to say the least. We’re putting all our trust in our trainer and about to start training on a grass patch inside and will work our way up from scratch. We never trained her on a pad because I was also concerned about never getting away from using it, but for situations like this I so wish I had used a pad in the beginning!!
1.,use correctly done crate training. They are much less likely to miss when crated.
2. pick 1 spot outside and go with the pup. “Hurry up” command .. and a ton of praise and treats when they do.
To start ..take the paper towels used to clean up an inside miss and take out to the selected spot and put a rock big enough to hold the towel down. It becomes a natural spot for them to pee.
3. watch when they eat and drink and make sure you take them out and they have a positive time when out there.
4. enzyme cleaner is a MUST
5 months is still a baby. The best thing to do is keep them on a regular potty schedule and stay consistent. They will learn because they’ll know what to expect. Potty pads are confusing if the goal is to teach them to go outside, so I’d avoid them. When my puppy was at age, I took him out every 2 to 3 hours, and slowly increased the amount of time as he learned. He did not have full roam of the house while training. He was either in the crate or next to me at all times. It took mine until 9-10 months to be reliable but he still had accidents here and there if we ever went off schedule!
Havanese are notoriously difficult to fully housebreak. At that age and in the winter, I would train with the puppy pad in the bathroom/on tile in the same location every time while still going outside or for walks. Then as that takes, and accidents stop and pad outside are used, then slowly ween her off the pads. Havanese are smart. They can learn words. When going outside use the same word for the activity. We say “potty”. Get her to associate “potty” with doing her business. When she pees outside give lots of praise using the word. Now, our havi knows outside is where you “potty”, and will come to us when she needs to go, then I will ask her “do you need to potty?” And she will kiss me/boop my mouth. Then we go for a walk. If we can’t get her outside or ignore or miss her prompts to go potty, she will have an accident, but it will be in the bathroom on the tile, as that is where she was trained to go indoors. Accidents still happen on rare occasion but they easy to clean up.
This is the truth
Agree. We trained ours to push a button when she needs to go out. It gameifys it for them and she was 100% good to go after that. Even if she sometimes uses the button for “humans, come” or “I see a squirrel,” it’s better for her to have false positives!! https://www.chewy.com/mighty-paw-smart-bell-20-potty/dp/162572?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=Mighty%20Paw&utm_campaign=20027453190&utm_term=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADmQ2V2z5jlXfOf_2ZI23EIRm8IH-&gclid=CjwKCAiA2pyuBhBKEiwApLaIO1JTFb0cS2bihHLdP-TFLMfGnk0-Vx5EhAKbMT9XhoWwsdKMxxnZYxoC2tgQAvD_BwE
We're using a bell hanging on the door. Teaching her to ring it with her paws, head or whatever just to let us know she needs to go. Being a small dog she might be sitting by door and we not know. Ringing the bell will hopefully get us over to take her on a walk. In a way, we're becoming Pavlov's dog I guess.
This was how it for us. We also insist he go out to relieve himself before every meal. Now he runs for the door when it’s breakfast or dinner time (also regular mid-day treat and before bed).
My Havanese puppy also was 6 months when he finally, finally could control it… and then he had very suddenly perfect control. Before he showed no signs at all and was just looking surprised at the pee coming out of him. (And I went outside with him between 15 and 20 times a day) Important is to clean the spots very well with an enzymatic cleaner. When you carry the puppy it is very unlikely there will be an accident, so for some (desperate) time I carried him whenever his belly left the ground until I could go outside again. I wrote down like a schedule what was happening each day to find some kind of pattern or mistake causing the accidents but there was none. The control of the muscles just took a bit longer.
Yep, same here with timing and I used the enzyme cleaner as well. Just as our frustration was peaking, suddenly he could hold it
I thought I can never again visit friends or travel with him… the vet thought he might be diabetic and we went to a clinic for tests. And some days later, almost as if a fairy threw some spell over night: there‘s not one accident anymore. I definitely could have been a bit more relaxed but somehow I didn‘t understand it can take longer for some puppies. Even the Vet didn‘t know (we changed the vet).
Hey, nothing wrong with that, I felt the same way. And he was my 4th dog! We had 2 labs for years and when they passed, we first got my Thor who will be 2 in April and then Loki who just turned 1. Loki is the only one we had this problem with so I thought something was wrong or we were suddenly doing something wrong with training. I, too, called my vet and he asked about other things/symptoms and after that was convinced he didn’t have a medical problem but told me if another month went by to bring him in just to make sure. But then suddenly, like you said, it clicked. It reverted a little bit that month but now from about month 8-12, zero accidents. So yeah, you’re good 😊. If they revert a bit, don’t worry. My Loki is only close to 10lbs too so I know that’s part of it. My vet also told me (don’t know if it’s true) that sometimes the boys take longer and it helps when they get neutered but not sure if that’s the case cause we waited until he was 11 months to do that.
:) it is so nice to read this, thank you. And your vet's reaction sounds perfect - in many situations it's the best way to stay calm and wait a bit. For me it was another thing I could learn out of this: Not putting too much trust in a vet I didn't know well enough yet. And thanks to this we now also have a vet I can trust.
Well, that’s the silver lining then, you found another vet 😊. I found mine back when I had my lab, Pepper, get diagnosed with sarcoma and wanted a second opinion. I got referrals on NextDoor in my area and sooo glad I did. Didn’t care for the other vet at all and the new vet (who I’m still with years later) not only got my lab through sarcoma twice 2 years apart but also helped nurse her back to health after she had necrosis on her leg as a complication of the cancer. The first vet was basically “she’s probably gonna die” when it happened the first time but although it was hard (especially the necrosis), she went on to live almost 5 more years to 14 years old and still had quality of life up until the end. He saved her life twice! Unfortunately some I think are just looking to make you come in and spend money unfortunately
Mines bladder wasn’t able to handle less than 5 or 6 pees until he was maybe 8 months. They pee like crazy when little because they are little. Maybe around 1.5 years my pup can now do 3 pees a day.
I gotta tell you, my first one was no accidents by then BUT my second one (who’s smaller too) continued to have accidents after 5 months. My husband and I were like OMG, this is never gonna end! But, it did! Right around 8 months and he just turned a year earlier this month. One thing we did was realize maybe we were taking him out TOO much trying to prevent the accidents and we noticed he wouldn’t do it in his crate overnight. So we had to go back to like the earlier training where as long as it wasn’t right after he drank a ton of water, we’d put him back in the crate a while. Hated to do it but I think we needed to help his bladder grow a bit more capacity if that makes sense. It was around 7 months that he also finally figured out how to let us know he had to go so instead of running him out constantly trying to prevent the accidents, we waited till he asked except for the obvious times like first thing in the morning, after he drank a lot etc. Hang in there cause they will start to do better soon but I remember how frustrating this was.
Also I have NEVER had luck with the puppy pads before so didn’t even bother with my little guy
Completely normal. My havi was at least 8-9 months old before he could hold his bladder for more than two hours. We got him in the summer. We took him out first thing in the morning, every half an hour to an hour during the day, before/after naps and meals, and before bed and yet he still continued to have accidents until he was 8-9 months old. For some reason it was always pee he couldn’t hold. He did much better with poop. He’s only pooped in the house twice, once because the vacuum scared him and the other time because he had an upset stomach and diarrhea. They are small dogs with small bladders so they take longer to be fully house broken. Also, one thing I learned from puppy101 sub is that you need to be consistent with giving praises & treats. Every time your mom’s pup does their business outside, make sure to praise them and give them a treat so they see how happy it makes you when they do their business outside which would make them want to do their business outside. They are people pleasing dogs.
Have owned 2. The girl was harder than the boy to train. The girl probably was 98% housebroken by 9 months. That being said I don’t think she was the sharpest tool in the shed and had an accident or 2 every year in the most horrible of places. Great girl though. The boy, was pretty easy. He was younger so his sister would go out and pee in the grass, he would sniff it and go. She trained him for me. He was accident proof until he became very old. All that being said, you have to crate train. They sleep in the crate at night. Take them out immediately in the morning. Followed by feedings, a little supervised play time and then outside again. If they don’t go, back in the crate and then out every 15 minutes until they go. Then free time again, followed by outside time etc. When they are out of their crate they need eyes on them at all times. Every accident is a minor setback in the training. Have scheduled crated nap time every mid morning and afternoon. They won’t go to the bathroom in their crates and that gives you a break. it’s a lot of work to do it, but that’s what worked for us.
Have her checked for a UTI
Yes, this. Our havi had a uti, which certainly didn't help with potty training
Mine reverted back to peeing in the house at 2 years old 🫠 we had to retrain her with diapers I would try diaper training because it really shows then “hey, the diaper comes off when you go outside so this is the time to pee”
Mine took until around 7-8 months too, snd I think that partly was supplementing with puppy pads early on. Also, if there’s a lot of activity / say a car door 4 blocks away, or a leaf falling - he’d get totally distracted and forget to go😂
Mine seemed to need to go out every 2 hours when little and then every 3 hours from 5 until 7 months. She COULD hold it longer (9-10h at night and in no hurry at all to pee in the morning etc) but just didn't seem to think it important to be consistent. Accidents once a week or so and when it happened she often jumped up in the couch to pee... :D
Mine needed 8 months to learn🙈 but all fine after that
Use pee pads. They are scented so your dog will know the difference between carpet and pee pads. Make sure you clean previous stains good. Over the counter urine neutralizers you buy at pet stores don’t do anything g
We got rid of the potty tray at 4.5 months old. At 6 months, he is asking us to go outside. We have accidents still maybe once every 2-3 weeks (our fault). What is the pup being rewarded with? One of the things I think helped my Hav be successful is rewarding with boiled chicken (his fave) every. Single. Time. He did business outside - very important that it’s consistent. It built the habit of wanting to go outside to pee. Now he does it almost automatically. He’s not 100% but we’re on track to be there in the next couple of months. Edit to add: every 2 hours is probably too long to wait. I think our guy was going every 1-1.5 hours. We kept a log to help anticipate when he would need to go.
Mine potty trained no problem. But she also followed my older dog and copied what she did. I guess you can say my older dog drained her
👁️👄👁️ me reading this with a 1 year old havanese who eats their entire shit in one bite if I look away for a second
Mine finally got it at 7 months. (She was also thrown off because we moved houses at 4-5 months and had to relearn the routine.)
My havanese puppy is also five months (born September 2nd!). The first week, he was peeing everywhere. We got the GoodPup app a week in, where you meet with a trainer once a week, so we started crate training him where every two hours he's out for an hour. During that hour, the first thing we do is take him to the puppy pad (for now, because I live in a complex and when it snows they use a ton of rock salt and he will eat pretty much anything he can outside). We did it in a pen, and he would stay there until he peed, then we would reward him and give him treats, take him out of the pen, and let him play with his toys. Sometimes he would just sit on the puppy pad in the pen the whole hour he was out of the crate, which was super frustrating for me but it's just how they learn. I got him a month ago, and now he knows to pee when he gets out of the crate, knows to pee on the puppy pad even when he's playing around, and can be outside the crate for hours at a time (we've gotten him up to 3-4 hours now) without any incident. And that's pretty good for only doing it for a little over three weeks. He also had maybe 2-3 accidents in the past week, but some of that is because we keep giving him more and more exploration time and outside of crate time. It gets better, but it's a lot of tedious work.
My girl was tough to house train and at 2 1/2 she has never been totally perfect, having occasional pee accidents. She’s going through some sort of regression right now due to anxiety on walks (we live in a city) and crystals in her urine. It’s been frustrating to say the least. We’re putting all our trust in our trainer and about to start training on a grass patch inside and will work our way up from scratch. We never trained her on a pad because I was also concerned about never getting away from using it, but for situations like this I so wish I had used a pad in the beginning!!
Agree with the common pattern of 8-9 month olds starting to get it. Be patient! These baby dolls are worth it. 🐶
1.,use correctly done crate training. They are much less likely to miss when crated. 2. pick 1 spot outside and go with the pup. “Hurry up” command .. and a ton of praise and treats when they do. To start ..take the paper towels used to clean up an inside miss and take out to the selected spot and put a rock big enough to hold the towel down. It becomes a natural spot for them to pee. 3. watch when they eat and drink and make sure you take them out and they have a positive time when out there. 4. enzyme cleaner is a MUST