Puppy Training Bell Users Speak Out
Allow me to be the first to share my experience! I am Kim Peoples and my puppy, Gizmo, was my inspiration for this whole bell thing. I was at a point of daily frustration with cleaning up puppy potty messes in the house when I decided to hang a bell on the doorknob to train him. Gizmo was almost 6 months old. Initially there was one problem. I totally forgot the bell was there, and went on with the daily frustration routine, wondering if it would ever end. Then, one day a few weeks later I was at the other end of the house, and I heard a bell ring. Hmmm, I thought. Gizmo and I were the only two people (he thinks he's people, too) in the house, so what was that? As I made my way to the entry, I could see Gizmo standing next to the door where the bell was swaying. I was speechless! I praised him and let him out, and decided it was high time for Gizmo to train me to open the door whenever he rang the bell to go outside. I was diligent in working with him to use the bell several times every day. It was only about 2 ½ weeks before he was using the bell consistently, and my dog potty problems were no more.
My Gizmo, a handsome Boston Terrier, has always been a pretty smart dog. I should not have been so surprised by his desire to train me to use the bell. So, in his honor I created the custom Gizmo2wizmo training bell since only the best will do for my little friend.
Happy puppy potty training to all of you!
I, like you, had reached the end of the potty training frustration rope. We have a 2 and 1/2 year old daschound and a 4 month old great dane. It took two years for me to finally train my daschound (i hear they are extremely stubborn) and it also took us replacing 3 rooms of carpet. The previous owners of this house had replaced their carpeting due to heavy animal soiling (the entire neighborhood could smell it when the door was open) but they did not bother to replace the padding or clean any of the mess below. So thankfully, after putting down laminate hardwood, my Chloe has finally learned...
Now on with the bell training....I bought the bell for my great dane, Cassie. She came home and at first was doing wonderful. She did not have a single accident for like a week...then all of a sudden...pee and poo seemed to become part of my daily routine. So we decided maybe the lines of potty communication were just not as clear as they should be. hence the purchase of the bell. My very skeptical husband just watched me as I hung it on the door and began holding her foot and touching the bell with it as well as her nose and then giving her a treat. (I did not recieve the instructional booklet with mine so I went purely on instinct as far as teaching her how to use it)My husband began to call it the "treat bell". Ofcourse, that outlook changed when she actually began to hit it to go potty. Things still are not perfect....We have a considerable amount of learning left to do....Sometimes she will have an accident in the house and then go ring the bell, but that point of confusion is almost over for her....I think it was helpful to have read that I need to have her hit the bell every hour and "go potty"- then move to every two when she has no accidents- and so on.
I would recommend this product to anyone with dog traning problems or anyone who is getting a new dog and is ready to start training. It is just one of those purchases in which you cannot go wrong!
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Mary: Thank you so much for your comments! I'm glad that Cassie's bell training is going well. I hope she will be 100% potty trained soon. I am sorry to hear that you did not receive the instruction booklet with your Gizmo2wizmo training bell, and wish I knew sooner. I will send one to you. It seems as though I was packaging these in such a way that a few people did not find their instruction booklet. It is a small booklet, and I was wrapping it in the first fold of packaging paper, then wrapping the bell on the reverse of that fold, so I believe some of these were probably just never found, and perhaps discarded with the packaging. So, I have started wrapping them differently, so that the booklet is just next to the training bell. If there are any others who, like Mary, did not receive your Instruction Guide to Success, please email me at kim@gizmo2wizmo.com and I will make sure you get one.
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I began using the Gizmo2Wizmo when my Mini Schnauzer was 8 weeks old - as soon as we got him. Everytime we took him out, we would tap the bell with his paw and say, "outside." By 13 weeks, our puppy began using the bell himself to let us know he needed or wanted to go outside. He does not use it exclusively for going potty. He also uses if he wants to go outside to play. He is 16 weeks old now and his use of it is not perfect but I am pleased to see us heading that direction. Be patient. The younger they are the longer it takes for them to catch on. My puppy was even a little afraid of it at first so we had to ring it softly at first so as not to scare him.
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