When dogs are around you long enough, they learn to communicate with you. We have a dog that lives in the house with us. When she wants to go outside, she’ll go to the door then back to us. She’ll keep repeating this until we do let her outside. She’s good at doing her duties and then coming back to us, but occasionally she’ll get sidetracked and want to do something else. This is frustrating. One thing that does help that we give her a treat when she comes back and we go inside.

When we first got her she was 4 months old. She’s now 2.

We trained her when she was young on a leash. I would be saying “wee wee”, and when she finally did that I made a big deal out of it and gave her a treat. At this age we didn’t play outside, just inside. I wanted her to understand that outside was for her “duties”. She started understanding to “wee wee” when I said this. Poo poo was her other command, and she learned this fast too.

Now to her age now, she’s 2. During the day we finally do go outside and play. She loves playing with her ball. I let her outside for the last time at about 9:30 pm. She understands when I say sit, stay, want your dinner, and want to go outside. She knows many more words, but those are the main ones. She sleeps with me during the night and when she gets a little restless, I know she wants to go outside. I tell her to stay, I put my slippers on and a bathrobe, then ask her if she wants to go outside. She runs for the door. I can point to any door and she heads for it. This is where past training comes in handy. I put a leash on her and she goes right around the corner to a rock bed with ivy plants in it. When she was younger she would do her outside duties in it sometimes. Now we use it every time during the night. I tell her to “wee wee” in the ivy and she does. The is a quick, and easy way to get her job done and especially nice to get it done fast when it’s cold or nasty outside.

It doesn’t matter how old your dog is to train them this way and it’s very rewarding.