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House training - when can a dog just roam?

We got our husky when she was almost a year. She's almost 2 now and I still feel like we need to keep a close eye on her in the house. We kennel her when we go out and over night, which she doesn't mind at all. She's usually out in the house when we're home, but if we are doing something where we can't really watch her, we kennel her. She doesn't have accidents in the house daily, but I feel like it's because we're so careful. She has been known to sneak upstairs and poop in a bedroom. How do you get to the point where a dog won't do that? How can I teach her to tell us when she needs to go out? When we take her out, she knows what to do. She's such a sweet and good dog and I'd love it if she could just be out more, ya know?

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Dogs are good with schedules and learning to anticipate you. If you make a schedule to take her out 4/3 times a day and in two of those times, make sure she actually goes, she will catch on to when she is supposed to go outside to potty. Does she have restricted areas in the house? When you first trained her did she have potty pads or was it straight to outdoor going? I might suggest you have a potty pad inside so she knows if she has to go there is one spot in the house. later on, she will get in the habit of going outside and you won't need the potty pad. It will just prevent messes in random places of your house.

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The schedule thing is a great tip! I think schedules and consistency are so important. In my experience, having potty pads inside just teaches the dog that going inside is what he/she is supposed to do and can make it hard to transition to outdoors only, but others may have had more success with it!

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Something you might try to teach her to signal when she needs to go out is using potty bells! They're bells you hang on the back door (or whatever door you regularly take her through to go potty). When I first taught my labradoodle to use them, I would ring them every time I took him out to go potty. I would give him a short period to go (30 seconds, 1 minute at most), and if he didn't I would put him in his kennel and then try again in a few minutes, ringing the bell once again when I took him out. This way they start to associate the bell sounds with going out to go potty only (not just going out to play). As he got older and started understanding the concept, I would have him be the one to ring the bell when I took him out. An easy way to do that is to hold the treat behind the bells and when he went to get the treat his nose would also hit and ring the bells. Same drill with putting him in his kennel if he didn't go. After a while, he started ringing the bell on his own when he needed to go out. The key is consistency!