Toilet training

Maybe you could think up a word or phrase that you say when he is performing, like 'good try', so that he connects it with going. Then when you are outside you could try saying it to tell him that it is a good time or place to go. A friend used this method and her dog usually did his duty on command. She also used 'no' when it was the wrong place.
Good luck with your puppy, your hard work in early all round training will be rewarded!
What is his name?.

Hi Seasider. When you get in from the walk take him and the training pad straight outside where you want him to go and keep him there tiil he performs, then reward him immediately with praise or a tiny treat. Repeat it after every walk, even when you know he's caught on, to reinforce the message. Take the training pad out of his crate when you are at home with him.

When you're at home take him outside every hour and use your trigger words like 'do a wee' until he obliges. Ignore mistakes in the house and say nothing but just take him out to his spot. Always keep him out after playing with a toy, excitement and after food and water.

He'll cotton on soon enough and by six or seven months should be 90% house trained. Good luck.

Forgot to say, when he learns what your command to perform means, he will know he has permission to do it when and where you tell him. Dogs are very practised at doing little wees all over the place to mark where they've been, so it will come naturally.

I have always found male dogs harder to train than female for some reason,maybe it's the need to leave their scent behind them,but if you do as when suggests you won't go far wrong I have always left the door to the garden open when I can so puppies can go in and out when necessary and leaving him outside after meal or drink will get him into the habit,never go anywhere without a pocketful of treats they are invaluable.

I've found all but one of my dogs impossible to toilet train [she says returning to the utility room to continue the mopping ]. Needles to say the current dog isn't the one.

..has anyone noticed I've learned to do underlining ...

I used to watch the puppy like a hawk and the second (s)he started to sniff a bit of floor, scooped up and rushed outside with the exhortation to "Be quick" Also taken outside after every meal, same exhortation and wait until (s)he "did".
Don't get the logic of doing it in the puppy cage as dogs rarely like to soil their sleeping area. I used decreasing sizes of newspaper sheets in the kitchen as they hadn't invented puppy cages when our lab was a pup.

With a name like Shih Tzu, though, I can see it might be even more of a challenge

crimson we used to have the most beautiful clumber spaniel who was clueless when it came to house training. Despite training from the age of 9 weeks, she would do a puddle by the open back door and then look at me with those deep amber eyes, as though to say 'I'm as puzzled as you are!' It was hit and miss whether she would make it outside for the whole of her life, and she would spend all afternoon plodding round the garden or lying in the sunshine, and still do it in the wrong place! Good job we loved her and had a stone floor!

Most of my dogs were cocker spaniels; one was born in the kitchen and never understood why, if she wee'd there when she was tiny she couldn't just carry on doing so. Sometimes I'd overlap a young dog with an old one that had become incontinent, so they got mixed messages. Then I had a whippet who, from the minute she came to my house as a puppy till the time just before she died and was struggling to walk, never once had an accident in the house. The latest whippet, alas, is one that will go for months without having an accident and then we have a couple of weeks of puddles. Like, now. Mind you, whippets hate rain [when will it ever stop raining, I ask myself] so she may be loathe to go out. My first dog was a cocker who went blind at quite a young age. She was so confused about not having access to the rooms that she's been used to that I resolved to always keep my dogs in the kitchen where, if they had accidents, it wouldn't matter. She used to bark in the night, not knowing day from night. Went to the vets about it and he gave her some valium; as I was about to leave he said to me 'by the way, it's for the dog..not you'....

crimson

We have had several cocker spaniels (have I told you before?). Cantankerous didn't describe them, especially the golden one, who would stare pointedly at the wall with her nose one inch away from it, whenever I had words with her! My basset doesn't like the rain, but will happily stand waist high in a deep puddle! She has house-trained really well and can wait till she's had her breakfast before wandering into the garden, 9 hours or so after her late walk at night. (She has different foibles - stubbornness being the principal one!

We introduced a puppy to my blind dog and she sulked for days; wouldn't have anything to do with me at all. The puppy was the love of my life, the exact dog that I'd seen in my Observers Book of Dogs as a child. She died of cancer at the oh so young age of six and left me with the stupidest puppy ever to live..even by spaniel standards. Then began my love of sighthounds. Mind you, I saw nine week old cockapoo puppy the other week. Adorable doesn't begin to describe it.

crimson

Thanks ladies I followed your advice and "Gizmo" ( named by my son because he looks like a gremlin!) has had his first poo and wee outside tonight. I did have to sit in the garden with him for almost an hour but I am sure it will be worth it! (Whenim64-you must think I am mad getting a puppy with everything else that is going on but our youngest son has been begging for a dog for two years and it seemed a good time to settle him in while DP was not working). We have had him for 4 weeks and he is one of the family already.

Great name seasider! I hope your patience will be rewarded. I know you will have years of fun with a dog in the family!

Seasider on the contrary, a puppy is exactly the antidote to distract you from all the other tribunal worries you have been dealing with. They are such great levellers, aren't they? There's nothing like coming home after a hard day to be greeted by unconditional, enthusiastic adoration from a dog who knows nothing of financial or relationship worries. Puts everything back in perspective (smile)

I think I spoke too soon! Gizmo started to poo inside today so I whipped him outside but he then promptly sat down and the poo stuck to his fur . It took me some time to clean him up and did bring to mind the old joke about the bear and the rabbit!

Bear? Rabbit? Don't know that one.

I think the others are right, seasider - you're getting some fun with Gizmo, and that's good to hear with everything else that you're dealing with.

A bear and a rabbit were walking through the woods having an intellectual chat about politics, religion etc when the bear said "rabbit can I ask you a personal question?" The rabbit replied of course bear. The bear said do you have trouble with s**t sticking to your fur? to which the rabbit replied no. Oh good said the bear and promptly picked the rabbit up and wiped his bum with him! (very old joke).