Housebreaking the Vizsla

Today on my morning walk with Ralphie as he was doing his potty duty outside I was having flashbacks of housebreaking the Vizsla ... both my long-gone Jazz and my now Ralphie.  It amazes me that Ralphie is living with an old Yorkie, Ollie, who is deaf, blind, and has dementia.  Ollie has no idea if he's doing his business inside or outside.  Lately it's more so inside.  Ralphie sees this everyday.  What makes Ralphie know that it's not okay for him to go in the house like Ollie?  Of course Ralphie has been housebroken for a long time, but he sees Ollie doing his business inside and he sees me cleaning it up.

Then I talk to numerous dog owners at the dog park having problems with housebreaking their pups/dogs.  Why was it so easy for me with both Jazz and Ralphie?  Does a Vizsla have this abnormal doggy intelligence?  Maybe, not so sure.  I've also talked to other Vizsla owners that tell me about their trials and tribulations of potty training.  I don't know, maybe I just got lucky and got 2 smart Vs.  So what did I do to make the potty training process easy?

• The minute I brought my pups home, potty training starts immediately
• Every 2 hours or sometimes even more often, I let my pup outside
• When he does his business, I praise him obnoxiously a lot, just to make sure he knew he did    the right thing
• I crated them when I left the house.  Ralphie was crated up until he was about 1 year, 9 months old
• I just never gave him a chance to go in the house, because I was taking him outside that often

That's all I did.  Ralphie had only 2 accidents in the house.  Once as a pup...a pee accident.  And the other just recently, a bout of diarrhea.  Obviously he had no control...I was not home and he had an upset stomach.  

I'm still not sure why Ralphie doesn't pick up Ollie's bad habit doing his business in the house...maybe Ralphie knows Ollie is old and can't help what he's doing.  I do see Ralphie staring at Ollie often...I always wonder what's going on in Ralphie's brain.  Yep, I believe Vizslas are extremely smart dogs and yep, the most lovable!  Vizslas are THE BEST!