Puppy Hates Being Picked Up for Potty Run

by Pat
(Vienna)

Hi, we adopted a lovely 10-week-old Miniature Australian Shepherd puppy three days ago.

From his second day home we began to potty train him. Our puppy appears to be a quick learner. Within a day he began to associate going outside with potty runs. So on his second night, we introduced puppy pads for his potty runs during night (sleep) time, which again he "got" straight away.

The problem is that I think he's preferring doing his business on the puppy pad now GENERALLY, because we suspect that going potty runs outside involves the element of getting picked up and held—which he seems to really dislike! We live on the second floor of an apartment building and there are two flights of slippery stairs to get to the outside. We pick up and carry our puppy up and down the stairs, with one hand supporting his chest and the other his hind legs. We can tell he HATES getting picked up: does not want to come near the stairs (as that means he'll soon get picked up!) and makes faint whimpering, "not amused" noises the entire way up or down.

Until he's got the second set of vaccinations in two weeks' time we want to avoid setting a regular walk schedule, but I guess once he gets regular scheduled walks he'll naturally learn to prefer to relieve himself during the walks.

Should we just continue to train him to just use the puppy pads until then, and not bother with outside potty business?

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