Some small breed questions!

[misticaleclipse]

I have a Shih tzu and wanted to know when your dog did certain things
and at what age?

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing?

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid!

 

[pup-man]

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet.

At around 4 months.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing?

At around 6-7 months

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid!

At around 6 months

This is what happened with my 4lb poodle mix.

 

[Tinaweena]

I have a Shih tzu and wanted to know when your dog did certain things
and at what age?

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing?

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid!

I also have a shih tzu Emily. She was an apartment dweller till she was 1 year, so that's when she learned stairs.
She stopped growing around 6-7 months old.
She was about 8 months old before she was totally house broke. (also due to peeing a pee pad girl while we were in the apartment, and a backyard dog when we moved)
And here she is, for good measure.

 

[misticaleclipse]

Thank you very much. I have another question also.

When did they start sleeping through the whole night in there crate/without going outside?

Edited to add that I love the picture, very cute!

 

[pup-man]

Mine slept around around 4 months old.

 

[Keana]

I don't have a shih tzu, but I have a chi. He started going down stairs at around 4 mos. He reached his full height and length at around 10-12 mos., but continued to fill out until he was almost 18 mos. old. And, he was fully potty trained at about 5-6 mos. Hope this helps. Charlie is adorable btw.

 

[bubbatd]

I really have no clues about small breeds....only know my Golden pups did stairs from 6 weeks on .

 

[RD]

Ripley didn't go up and down stairs on his own until he was about 8 months old. He was capable of it long before that, but I was an overprotective mom and since he only weighed about 3lbs, I just carried him.

Ripley stopped growing at about 6 months, I think he was completely done (growth plates closed, etc) at 7-8 months.

He's still not housetrained reliably at 2.5 years of age.

 

[misticaleclipse]

Ah thank you He has received his compliment quota for the day though so ill pass it on tommorow (wouldn't want it to go to his head, jk )

 

[misticaleclipse]

The reason I'm asking about the sleeping is because he still does not seem to sleep through the night. I say seem because I go to bed with him and then my fiance goes to a bed a few hours later after letting him outside again. We started doing it this way because otherwise he was waking me up at 3-4am and I didn't feel safe going out alone at that hour with him.

He has slept the whole night a few times since then, but I'm not sure if I should try getting him to sleep the whole night again because most of the time I try he wines and if I don't let him out I'm affraid he could mess in his crate.

Should a 6 month old shih tzu be able to hold it for 8 hours over night?? (also hes small for its age i've been told at under 10 pounds)

 

[Aussie Red]

I raised Barney from a puppie before I got into animal rescue but he was about 3 months old for stairs. same for house breaking as I left the back door open and he loved the outside but he was around 5 months before it was fool proof on out side potty. Never was crated he slept through the night with me on the bed was 2 1/2 mo. old before he quit waking me up to potty. He was a smaller Shih-Tzu full grown at about 8 mo. weighed 9 lbs

 

[LabBreeder]

I have a Shih tzu and wanted to know when your dog did certain things
and at what age?

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing?

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid!

1. At 9 1/2 weeks for both.
2. No small dog, but Tira topped off height/weight wise around 1 year (at least that I can see)
3. Tira was quite awhile cause we had her pad trained due to where we lived when we first got her (3 roads right by the house). She used the pads solely within 2 or 3 weeks of getting her. Gunner uses the pads (2 - one for pee, one for poo...he's picky, lol) at night and goes outside during the day. No accidents at all from 10am til 4am (when I get up and go to bed usually). It took him about 2 or 3 weeks to go outside with no indoor accidents while we're up.

 

[LabBreeder]

nvm....

 

[misticaleclipse]

nvm? not sure what that means?

 

[suzanne118]

I have a Shih tzu and wanted to know when your dog did certain things
and at what age?

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing?

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid!

1)My dogs went up and down the stairs out 4 mon ths old.

2)Rosie my cavalier gained weight when she got spayed, emz has not been spayed yet she is still skinny

3)My dogs learnt quite quickly they learnt about 4 or 5 months of age

 

[girlbuffalo1]

holding it

I understand that each dog is different but he should be able ot hold it all night by 6 months--Wrigley could hold it all night by 3months (he weighed around 6lbs at the time). Wrigleys growing has slowed a bunch (he is almost 6 mo and now 11 lbs) I can't forsee him getting any heavier maybe just a bit taller....

 

[RetrieverLove]

Of course my answers are a bit different considering I have a Golden Retriever.

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet. Emma was able to go up and down the stairs as soon as we brought her home at 12 weeks.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing? Emma techincally didn't stop growing until she was 2, but after 1yr of age the changes were very small.

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid! Emma was completely housetrained almost 2 weeks after we brought her home. She did have a few slip ups so I'm going to say that she was totally house trained by four months of age.

I wish you the best of luck with your Shih Tzu! They certainly are adorable dogs.

 

[misticaleclipse]

***update***

Charlie has slept through the night the last two nights, yea! I'm very happy!

I also think the house training is completed, but I'm being very careful just incase.

As for the stairs. Its strange because when he was 3 months old he was giong up them consistently and then he just stopped. He never had any big tumbles or injuries, but maybe it spooked him and its just a mental thing.

 

[Southpaw]

1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? Charlie is 6 months old and does not go up or down stairs yet.
--Lucy started doing this at about 11 or 12 weeks old. We didn't get her until she was 10 weeks old, and there weren't any stairs at her breeder's house so it was totally new for her. Getting her to go down the stairs took a bit of time, but once she got the hang of it, it was no big deal.

2) He does not seem to be gaining that much weight. I have seen many shih tzu's many sizes. At what age did your small dog stop really growing?
--Can't really say anything about this because Lucy is just coming on 5 months old and I'm sure she's still growing.

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? It appears that we are not, but im very paranoid!
--Once again, not at that point yet lol...Lucy will be 5 months old on July 1st though and she's *very* close to being housebroken!

4) When did they start sleeping through the whole night in there crate/without going outside?
--Maybe I'm a meanie but we have never let Lucy outside in the middle of the night. She's always held it all night, and she never makes a peep during the night so I don't think it bothers her.

She's a bichon/toy poodle mix, by the way...last month she weighed 3 pounds so we might be up to 4 pounds now, lol.

 

[Zan]

I have 2 Shih Tzus


1) When did your dog go up and down stairs? They both went upstairs at about 3 months. One was afraid to go down until around 5 months, the other 4 months. We tricked the one that was scared. We would leave him upstairs and then act like we were having so much fun downstairs. He would whine and whine and then one day he just came down!!!

2) At what age did your small dog stop really growing? They both weigh exactly 15 pounds and seem to be stable.

3) How long did it take to be 100% housetrained? I would say around 5-6 months where we can trust them totally not to pee in the house.

I think you also asked about sleeping through the night. Typically, your dog should be able to hold it for however old they are in months + 1 hours is how many hours they should be expected to hold it. So, 8 hours for a 6 month old is not good. It should only be 7 hours. Guess you'll have to lose an extra hour of sleep for another month! Or, my pups still don't sleep through the night, but they have a doggie door inside their indoor fenced in area so they go out and play and poop whenever they want! It's great!!!

Zan