Our 5 month old puppy Waffles has been with us since 10 weeks. He’s effectively house broken (maybe one accident that was our fault in the last 2 months).
He rings a bell by the door to signal having to go out, will then run away from the door. He’ll go back in less than a minute if we don’t acknowledge him for some reason. Not a big deal.
The problem is that once we get up to get him ready to go out (grab his harness, put on shoes, etc.), he then plays hard to get. He’ll run away, hide – basically like he’s playing. We’ll eventually catch him, at which point he’ll nip and mouth at our hands and arms while trying to get his harness on (our backyard isn’t 100% puppy proof yet and his recall isn’t consistent enough that we feel comfortable letting him out to pee off leash).
As soon as it’s on he basically forgets all biting, running away and walks to the door and sits patiently to go potty.
I’ve tried walking away when he’s acting up and waiting for him to calm down, but I don’t want him to have an accident, nor do I want him to think we’re ignoring his signaling. Maybe this is wrong.
Sometimes I bait him with treats to come to me, but he’s caught on to that. How can we train him to not think his potty signal is part of a game of tag?
submitted by /u/ChuckNasty10
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