How Can I Putty Train My 7 Weeks Old Puppy?

I have no idea why someone decided to give you a puppy when you have a newborn. Or was this your idea? And how did you get a puppy at 7 weeks? Usually they aren't taken from their mother until 8 weeks.

Have you ever owned a dog? It doesn't sound like you have any experience. Have you been to a vet yet?

You need to get into a class or have a professional trainer come to the house (probably the latter since your puppy hasn't had all its shots and can't be with other dogs yet). You need to be taught the necessary skills.

Puppies take time, as everyone says below. You have a baby so you know you'll be doing everything for years. You will be doing everything, every hour of the day, for a puppy for a full year, and if you don't do it right, you'll be doing it longer. Everyone, including the dog, will be miserable.

Truthfully, if you don't have time or knowledge, I would quickly re-home this puppy to a knowledgeable dog owner before the animal is attached to you. When your child is older and you have had time to learn about dogs and decide if you are ready for a 15 year commitment, then you can volunteer at a shelter and learn about dog care. You're not ready.

Did you not research the care and keeping of a pet before you got one?
And you are trying to be a first time pet owner when you just had a baby?
That means you have 2 babies - one human and one canine.
Babies poop when ever they need to poop and it takes quite awhile for them to be potty trained for a human or house broken for a dog.
It sounds like he's too young to be away from his mother - he's not doing well on food yet when he needs to nurse.

Do the kindest thing you can do for the animal and take it back to where ever you got it.
When your child is a few years old - and AFTER you have researched what it takes to care for an animal - then you can try owning a pet.

The breeder or shelter should have gone over all of this with you.
Make an appointment with a vet NOW so you can get your puppy's health checked, shots, etc. The vet will talk to you about feeding and training.
You can also find books about puppies and dog health and development in general at the library or bookstore (or Petco, Petsmart.)
I can't imagine why on earth you would get a puppy when you have a newborn but what's done is done :-(

Puppies are a lot of work. Especially small dogs like maltese...they cannot hold it very long. Please 1. talk to your vet to ask advice 2. read some articles about how to care of a puppy and how to potty train and 3. sign up for a puppy training class. Feed your puppy twice a day - morning and night. Feed him puppy food (not adult dog food). He is a puppy for the next year and requires a lot of time, attention and training. You HAVE to do it even if you are tired...that is what being a dog owner is all about. Take him outside regularly and praise him like crazy when he goes to the bathroom out there. When he pees inside immediately tell him NO and then take him outside.Take him outside 15m after eating or drinking. Take him outside right after he wakes up from napping. You have to be on it. You have to be with him and you have to be paying attention. Take him out before you go to bed at night and set an alarm to get up early and take him out first thing in the morning. He can't help it in the kennel at night so don't punish him if he goes in his kennel...he doesn't want to do that. His natural instinct is to not want to defecate where he sleeps. Sign up for puppy training classes TODAY. Don't use the excuse that you have a newborn... if you get a puppy you are making a commitment to do the work for the next year. If you want a good dog you have to put in the WORK. After you are done with the puppy training class then immediately sign up for a dog obedience class...this will help you be a better dog owner. Don't forget to take him on a couple walks a day. Right now he probably doesn't know how to walk on a leash so read up on leash training.

Today, make an initial checkup appointment with a vet. While you are there, get recommendations on what kind of food to give him and how often - puppies this young have special nutritional needs. When I was a kid, we got a dog this young who was abandoned, and actually had to feed him from a bottle for a few weeks because he was taken from his mom before he should have been weaned. His little body couldn't process hard food. At only 7 weeks old, your puppy may be similar.

A 7 week old puppy is still a baby. Your human baby can't hold it all night, and neither can a baby dog. You will need to get up at least once in the night to take him to his pad to potty.

You will also want to make an appointment for puppy training (local pet stores offer it). But, he's actually too young even for this. You'll probably need to wait until he's about 6 months old to do any meaningful training.

I'm sorry if this sounds like too much when you have a newborn, but it's not the poor puppy's fault if you took on too much. You are going to have to summon up the energy and get through this.

Did they not provide you with all this info when you adopted your puppy? I would call so you can keep him on same schedule - easiest for you and for pup. My friend just adopted her pup and that's what she did to make transition easiest.

She started potty training as soon as she adopted, but hers was a bit older. Seven weeks seems the youngest I've heard of. She's had hers just over a month now, and occasionally has to get up once a night to take hers outside.

Honestly at 7 weeks he shouldn't even be away from his mother yet nor eating solid foods as his main source of nutrition, so he may not be processing it well. What ever you do you need to get him checked up at the vet ASAP. For house-training you may have to wait a bit, he is still a tiny baby.

Crate training has always worked for us with our dogs. You put them in the crate at night, when you aren't home and potentially various times throughout the day depending on how close of an eye you can keep on him. He will need to go out during the night for the first couple months but that shouldn't last too long.

With our lab puppy she ate at 7 am, 12 PM and 5 PM until she was 6 months old, then we eliminated the afternoon feeding. It is important to try to maintain the schedule as much as possible. Our lab is now over a year and she knows when it's dinnertime! It is a lot of work at first, like an infant, but if you can get through those first 6 months it really shouldn't take much longer than that for them to at least be able to tell you when they need to go potty. We even would have a pet sitter come in if we were going to be gone longer than 4 hours to relieve our dog.

Another important thing is when you take them out of the crate, you bring them straight outside. I would always say "go pee pee" when our puppy peed outside and most times when we take her out now if we say "go pee pee" she'll go.

Good luck!

I've potty trained two puppies. When they wake up, you take them outside, when they drink water, you take them outside. when they eat, you take them outside. Basically you take them outside most of the day. If you are consistent about taking them out and don't let them have any accidents inside, they won't get into the habit of having accidents. Prevention is 99%.

Puppies can only hold their bladder/bowls for as many months old they are. They cannot go all night. You will need to wake up and potty the dog 1-2x a night until the dog is a good 6 or 7 months, and can then go 6-7 hours. This has nothing to do with feeding schedule. It's developmental and there isn't much you can do about this. Puppies are infants that need almost as much care as human infants.

If you allow the dog to have accidents, they get into the habit of having accidents and you will end up with an older dog who has accidents. So it's imperative that you make the time to potty train NOW, otherwise, you will have a 2 or 3 year old dog that has accidents.

I don't recall feeding schedule.

I'm glad you took him to your vet. In the meantime, a toy breed puppy this young should be fed at least three times a day, likely more-- they can get low blood sugar very easily. Around four months old you can drop him to two meals a day.

Definitely talk to your vet about the feedings and the watery poo. Is he eating the same brand food he came to you with?
take him out about 10-20 mins after eating. make a big deal when he potties outside. watch for signs of needing to potty and take him out then. (lots of sniffing) if you catch him mid potty run him to the door. With a guy that little pooping in the cage is pretty normal. make sure he only has enough room to sleep that will help with going in there but make sure you are taking him out at night too.

Taking her to the vet is the best thing to do.