Bell training

butterfly8199

I have heard bell training can be very effective. Any good ways to start that with my 11w old pup? Is it as simple as hanging it on the door and ringing it when we go outside?

 

My concern with it is that my 20mth DD will just sit there and ring it all day and really confuse the pup..

MrsBzb

This is something we are trying to do with our 14 week old puppy. We have been following this training: http://poochie-pets.net/Training.html but so far he thinks the bell is a toy.

ifeelgoodifeelgreatifeelwonderful

I didn't have much luck with the bell training. My dog knew that the bell meant we would go outside but never caught on to hitting it herself to have us take her outside.

sandollar1010

I thought it sounded like a great idea, but once my pup figured it out, she was always ringing it to go out and play.  I had to stop using it

AllisonW423

We started using the bell when my Boston Terrier was about a year old. We just hung it up on our back door and rang it before she went outside. She picked up on it almost immediately and started hitting it with her nose to go out, but she has always been pretty smart so that wasn't a surprise. The bad thing? She also quickly figured out that ringing bell=humans jump up and rush over. So now she rings the bell when she wants to go out, when she wants to play, when she is hungry, when she wants a belly rub, etc. Her dinner time is 5:30 and we start hearing the bell at around 3:30 just to remind us that it's almost time to eat

 

brij2006

We trained our Collie to do this when  she was a pup. We just hung the bells on the door, and we rang them each time we let her out to potty.  They were not rung when we would go out to play or for any other reason. She started to catch on that this was associated with potty time, and would ring them, go out, then come in and get a treat.

Fast forward a little bit, and she began what PP mentioned, ringing it to go play, get us to come to her, etc. So we learned that when we take her out to play, we go through a door without the bells on it. It's a little inconvenient, but it was the only way to teach her that ringing them didn't mean play time.

The only suggestion I have is to get ones that are somewhat loud. We have a bigger house, and have found ourselves on the 2nd floor many times, not hearing her ringing them. So be sure to invest in ones that are loud enough to hear throughout the house.