velmadobe said:
Because she can
If she is not trustworthy in the house yet, don't let her out of your site. Keep a leash on her indoors and when you can't do that, crate her till you can. 4 months is still a baby and it takes time, patience, and lots of simple solution - not to mentions zillions of paper towels.
Great answer! I totally agree. Don’t' get mad at your puppy either. She is a baby and cannot be expected to hold it. When she has to go, she has to go. She should not be punished for that, esp. after the fact. If you catch her going on your floor, you can say no and have her finish outside. Reward her when she pees outside. This has worked great for me. If you find an accident, just clean it up really good, that was your fault for not watching and giving too much freedom too soon.
My four month old hasn't had an accident in weeks and does her business outside right away, but I know beyond a doubt that doesn't mean she is trained (it just means I am trained <vbg>).
She is a baby and will ruin that streak if given the chance, but I just consider that a fact, it doesn't mean much except that she is still a baby and her body physically cannot hold it yet.
But I don't give her the opportunity to sneak off anywhere to do her business. When I can't watch her really close, she is crated or ex-penned.
When I can, all doors to all of the rooms are shut and the hall and other main areas are baby gated off, so she can't wander around and chew stuff/go to the bathroom. I have learned what time she needs to go (varies with how much water she drinks, the same time with poop) and I have learned to read her signals that mean she is going to go soon. I know all of the hard work I do will pay off quickly with such a smart and usually eager to learn breed.
I leashed one puppy to me on a long leash while he was roaming the house free. That way he couldn't run off and learn bad habits. That worked out fine too. He was house trained early and was able to roam loose in the house from an early age too. My big thing is to set them up to succeed and supervise them so they don't learn bad habits while they are puppies, too many accidents can become habit with some dogs.
Also it is a good idea to keep puppies on a feeding schedule, as someone else suggested. That makes it easy to know about when she might need to go.
If you keep up the training and watch her closely before you know it this stage will be long past and she will be totally reliable in your house. The puppy stage really does fly by...Good luck
And Tracy, the only thing that seems to work 100% for all the Chihuahuas in my life has been a doggie door =) One of my relatives litter box trained her Chi and that worked too.