Is it tooo late for bell training??

I wanted to see if I could train Holly to ring the bell to go outside do any of you think it's too late she is 20months old she goes out to go potty but it would be cool if she rang the bell :D And if it is not too late how do ya train her to do it??
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I don't think it's ever too late. We used a bell for awhile, and all the dogs learned (except little Tazz, he goes out a different door). They were all ages. I stopped, as it was too darn much bell ringing with all our dogs!

And I know all my friends in rescue who use bells have no problems with their foster dogs learning when they stay at their houses.
Go for it!
how do u start? just ring the bell everytime you go out any command to give??
I hung mine on the trim of the door frame. Initially we (humans) gave it a jingle before we let them out.
Mine either nudged it w/ their noses; turned a circle close to it, giving it a rub (Chewie :roll: ) or pawed at it (Maggie the coonhound). Some of mine seemed to rely on the others to ring the bell, then followed the group out, LOL.
Jack was an adult rescue, age unknown, when I taught him to ring the bells. Normally he waits for other dogs to go out and joins them or lets himself out if the storm door is open (broken latch). However, if main door closed, he will ring the bells.....gently. Get bells you can hear all over the house.......and think about the possibility of scraping damage, either toe nails or the bells themselves.

I got mine at Hobby Lobby at Christmas...sleigh bells on leather hung from door knob. I am the one who hears the bells......DH can't. So if hearing is a problem/excuse in your house......look for something bigger.....cow bells?? elephant bells? Maybe hook up a door bell at nose height and have them push the button?

Yes, training is with word and ringing bells as you leave the house. If they play with the bells.....send them outside to enforce what the bells mean. Eventually the brain figures it out.
Mine were the sleigh bells from Hobby Lobby too!
yeah, but if Chewie doesn't get a response, he's going to remove the bells from the door, find you, and ring them in your face. :lol:
SheepieBoss wrote:
yeah, but if Chewie doesn't get a response, he's going to remove the bells from the door, find you, and ring them in your face. :lol:


I hear them just fine....it's like your house - Todd is the one that's hearing impaired.... :roll:
And it was his Maggie that rang them best and never got a response from him! :(
Bally's 15 months old now and I taught him to ring the bell about 2 months ago because he was scratching up our door. I held the bell (on a string, of course) in my hand so it was resting just in front of his nose and held a treat out so he had to ring it with his nose to reach the treat. Once he'd worked that out I held it away from him and had him ring it to get a treat, then I hung it on the back door knob and held a treat next to it so he knew he still had to ring it even if I wasn't holding it. For the next two weeks or so we would practice that every day and ring the bell whenever we opened the door til he got the idea.
He's really good at it now and doesn't scratch at all anymore, but he also rings it to try get us to come out and pay him attention in the middle of the night :roll: :lol:
I taught Tiggy at 19 months, similiar process that Dominique used with Bally.
Tiggy also rings the bell occasionally in the middle of the night and then wants to play. I'd rather that than have to get up and mop up a puddle though.
We bell trained Luna t 11 months old. Nothing else was working consistently for her, and she picked it up within a day or two. A great side effect was that when we travel, we take the bell. In a new place, like a hotel, the girls may not know where "outside" is, but they know if they ring their bell, they get taken out. So it ended up being good training to have.

I just hung the bell on the door knob to the door we used to go out of for their potty breaks. Whenever we went out, it rang. Thats all it really took for our girls to put two and two together.
you guys are AWESOME!! :D Thanks I am going to try it with Holly and the new puppy Bella (shi tzu ) I can not get this puppy potty trained and it is driving me nuts!!! 8O My sheepie was so easy but not this thing!! Grrrr :twisted: I will stand out there for 15 min with her and as soon as I come in she goes to her puppy pad and goes there :evil: I know I must be doing this wrong but it is how I trained Holly and it worked but not with this one and she is 5months old now and I am starting to get discouraged !! If ya have any thoughts on this please feel free to let me know!!
Take the puppy pad outside.

This happened to me with my second dalmo. Every morning there was a puddle. He had been in a pen with lots of newspaper and I was putting newspaper down at the back door in case of accidents.

I took the paper outside with us and he started going outside then after a few days I took the paper away at night and bingo no puddle. Just a 5 month old who really wanted to get outside and pee. :D

Maybe it will help your pup.
ok I will give that a try ..... she is smart I don't understand why she is not catching on. She sleeps with my daughter all nite on her bed and when I get up in the morning I let her out with Holly but nothing she comes back in and piddles on the bad .... but I will try taking the pad outside...
Good luck :crossed:
Let us know if you have success.
We just got a bell about a month ago and started. We have a 3.5 year old OES and a 5 month old. They both know that when we ring the bell, it's time to go potty, but so far, only the baby has actually run the bell. She has only done it twice and we praised her and praised her.

We have had her 2 months and it has been challenging. We got Sophie (the older one) when she was 9 months old, so she had a bigger bladder. But she had been a total outside dog and she is an indoor dog now, so there was a learning curve.

We continue to ring the bell before we let them out to potty, but it isn't totally taking hold yet. I hope it will. We crate trained Sophie and now she never wants in her crate and she hasn't had an accident in years. We hope that Mollie (the baby) will get there soon, but she piddles all the time when she is excited, even if she just went outside. It is frustrating. I forgot what it was like to have a baby...
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