House training blind lab puppy

[dianeholmes]

We have an 18 week lab puppy that is blind. We are struggling with her house training. I am using all the standard techniques I have used successfully with several other pups and it is just not happening. She will toilet in the garden when taken out but is not making any attempt to go to the garden when she needs to.

Anyone had to do anything different with a blind pup?? She is taken into the garden after each meal and sleep and if it seems a while since her last visit to the garden I take her out anyway. She gets heaps of praise and rewards for doing things in the right place. Then she will just go in house shortly after coming in!

The comic bit of this is that we are continuing using the verbal commands her foster Mum was using and our other puppy of the same age learned these really quickly so sometimes when I am still encouraging Sadie to go he has gone several times and is looking at me as if to say "you must be joking!".

 

[splashgirl45]

have not had dealings with blind dogs but do you carry her outside? if you do she wont be able to find her way on her own. also sometimes with any pup you have to be prepared to stay out in the garden until they have been however long that takes. sorry if i am telling you what you already know/are doing ,but no one else had replied.....well done for taking on a blind pup, not easy...

 

[CAYLA]

What splash girl said makes perfect sense, can you use positive association to help guide her....rattling a tin of treats and making a trail as to get her to use her scent where her vision cannot and her and have her follow you to the door (with a command), "wee wee" as opposed to picking her up?
Does she have free roam of the house, I she away supervised? is she crated for bed/when left?

 

[Arizahn]

We have a blind dog: now a year old and you cannot really tell that he is sightless as his other senses compensate well!

He stopped pooing indoors at six months. However, he still has puddles in the house. He will go outside, and he holds it if we are not at home. But at home he will wee when he wants to. Now, in his case, the blindness is due to brain damage, so this may impact on his toileting. He has normal pees which generally occur outside, and panic based pees which happen wherever he happens to be. These are usually preceded by anxious circling at high speed, but it is almost impossible to get him outside fast enough.

We found that we had to watch him more closely for signs of needing to pee. We also - and this is very icky but it worked - put down an old towel for him to use as his weeing towel, so he learned to wee on this as opposed to all over the house. Moved it into the kitchen, and gradually into the back garden. As he goes by smell, letting him have a spot that smells of wee has helped him - he memorises routes

I will only suggest one thing, and that is a long line for walking her! Unless you have an enclosed area to do off lead exercise, then a long line is the safest way with a blind dog. Eventually they do learn to recall by sound etc, but any obstacle can throw them off track and result in disaster.

Good luck, and well done for taking him

 

[dianeholmes]

Many thanks for the replies! Sadie has full run of the house and walks off lead with our other puppy - he wears bells so she can locate him. She has a good recall but we are very careful where we allow her to do so. Our other puppy plays rough and I am beginning to wonder if this has an impact on her willingness to go in the garden - I wonder if she feels vulnerable. She does wander round the garden with him and they team work destroying things like my courgettes in a grow bag!!!! This is when he is calm! She goes to puppy class and is doing well.

She is crate trained and so far we have not left her (only been with us a fortnight). Her foster mother used to let her out in the garden at 6-6.30 am and then put her back to bed. She now gets us out of bed then, happily goes in the garden, does the necessaries and then back to bed! We leave Sherlock in his crate until breakfast time.

This is a real learning curve despite having had dogs (labs) all my life!!!!

 

[CAYLA]

So she has full run of the house at all times? this may be where your problems lie, until she is fuly trained he needs to be supervised when out of the crate (the crate is her clan space) the space that teaches her to hold (till release) to prepare her (its you aid) if she otherwise can pass on he flors ad walk away from the mess she will do so, however if you confine her space until she is clean you are taking the oportunities away for her to pass freely everywhere, only when she is clean do you increase free roaming zones, if you can't see her squatting/cirling and getting ready to pass by rule of thumb you missed your chance to redirect her to the garden) until she is clean-er follow this rule, confine her space and crate her when unsupervised, so when you pop out, pop to the toilet, pop in the bath, take away all opportunties to have a pee fest lol.