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Congratulations on your new puppy! She’s a beauty
Jose has some great suggestions. I just want to add a few more things…
1). Get rid of the doorbell. Not only is it counterproductive to house training in most case, it is also against pack structure rules. ( see pack structure in the self help section for starting your relationship on the right foot )Your pup rings the bell and you give access to outside . Only the leader has the right to initiate. Also What happens if she rings the bell and no one is around?
2) get rid of the wee wee pads. The general rule for how long a puppy can physically hold their urine is:
Number of age in months + 1= the number of hours puppy can hold their urine
So your puppy is 2.5 months +1= 3.5 hoursIf you will be leaving her for more than 3.5 hours, have a dog walker come or give her access to the wee wee pads only during that time. Pick up wee wee pads when you are home and use supervision, crate and schedule instead.
Otherwise, use of wee wee pads contributes to the idea that a puppy should pee every time they get the urge. Peeing in the right spot is only half the equation, holding it until you get there is the other half. This is not necessarily a problem for dogs who will have a wee wee pad to use heur whole life. I will assume you will not have wee wee pads out for your adult German Shepherd
so just do away with it now.At 10 weeks she is still very young, and will need to go out often. Also keep in mind that she will have the need to go shortly after playing eating, sleeping or drinking so just bring her out after those times. Otherwise try to stick to some sort of schedule like every 1-2 hours etc. Gradually increase the time between walks.
I also do not use food as a reward for housebreaking, praise has always worked just fine. I will sometimes use a reward if I find a dog having a particularly hard time figuring things out.
Sounds like you are headed in the right direction with the food issue.
Keep up the good work and keep us posted!
