Puppy Toileting

[Katie P]

Just a quick question, there may be several topics on this but......my pup (3 month cross) has been extremely good in regards to toilet training. However in the last 1.5 weeks he has had 5 accidents all bar 1 which have been in my sisters room, 3 in different areas of the floor and once on the bed. I find this puzzling as he sleeps in my bed at night the whole night through and has not had an accident once (we originally tried to crate train but found he just popped through the dog flap outside anyway when he needed to go) and from 5pm onwards keeps me company when I am studying in my room with no incidents. He always waited until I went downstairs for dinner. It appears to always be in the same room and with the same sister who is watching and with him that he has accidents.

Would there be an underlying reason for this? Is it a fixation on a particular room or ? We clean the areas throughly and put stuff on it to take out the smell. My parents have now banned him from coming up stairs. He had never had an accident since we brought him home 5 weeks ago, do you think there may be an underlying problem?

He is unbelievably hard to catch going to the toilet, he doesn't sniff around, or circle or anything, just sort of 'goes' and we have found it hard to 'praise' him when he did go outside because we could never catch him in the act. We tried going outside with him when it was sort of 'time' that he would go to the toilet and I have waited around for an hour, kept taking him out for regular intervals for a couple of hours and when I gave up 5 mins later he took himself outside and went (I could tell because he was damp )

I know he is only a pup and these things take time until they are at least 95% but it just seemed a bit abnormal in terms of circumstance. Plus I would rather my parents didn't get to the point where they ban him from coming inside (which really doesn't teach him anything). I pointed out it was normal for pups to have accidents but alas, its always my fault when he has an accident although I was never with him at the time. I have tried to educate my sister incase she was missing the 'signs' but she is quite aware and was quite puzzled.

FYI I have read some of the other posts on the same topic but it didn't really assist me in coming to a conclusion

[Bundyburger]

Do not give him access to that room. If he goes upstairs it is supervised. He is not toilet trained, so he needs to be supervised properly, and this sounds like a training issue to me.

You say you tried to crate train him, but he just popped out the doggy door to go outside. If he's in the crate, then the door should be SHUT so he cannot just go outside, otherwise it defeats the purpose... You need to get your dog into a routine and be more consistent with his toilet breaks. Doesn't matter if you have to take him outside more than once in a half hour period, as long as you get the end result. With my fella at one stage we'd go outside, he'd toilet, then inside, straight back out up to 3 times before he'd finish. Even now he gets distracted and wanders off mid pee and we have to remind him to finish

[poodlefan]

Sounds to me like he's at the stage where he still needs supervision and encouragement.

If someone reliable can't watch him, I suggest you consider crating him.

Close the door to your sister's room.

[whiskedaway]

I agree, don't allow access to that room. Once a dog pees in one spot, they'll often keep going back to it. Make sure the area is cleaned thoroughly and see if you can get an odour neutralising spray from the pet store, because if he can't smell that he's gone there before, he hopefully won't go back there.

[Katie P]

Well we had him in the crate the first night and yes the door was shut, but once he worked out how to get out through the doggy door he started to take himself out immediately so we instead changed tactic as this seemed to work better for him and us. At night and during the day he just pops outside whenever he needs to go to the toilet. He loves the crate to sleep in and I have now put him back downstairs in his crate at night. Especially since everyone goes back to school and work soon we prefer not to have him in his crate from 9am-3pm.

He is extremely reliable toileting wise when downstairs (he has his bed in the laundry and has never had an accident) and we leave the child gate open and he just goes in and out of the laundry and is allowed access into the 3 adjourning rooms but only when we are downstairs and supervising. We make an effort to praise him once we see he has gone to the toilet outside (although as I mentioned he is very hard to catch in the act).

It only occurs when he is in a particular sisters room and in two of the instances she was holding him at the time. He has not had an accident in any of the other rooms and is under strict supervision while upstairs. We spray with nuetralizing spray. I ended up talking to a dog trainer/behavourist and she seemed to think it was a 'pack order issue' since it was consistently with the same person and reccommended she start feeding him and working with him training wise. He hasn't seemed to bond much with her. What they said made sense and although I know puppies need heaps of encouragement and reinforcement, it was just abnormal after no accidents to suddenly have so many in such a small timeframe.

We have now decided to limit him to parts of downstairs only again and hopefully this will further encourage him to go outside. Or are we doing the toileting process completely wrong? We figured since he takes himself outside this was a positive step and eliminated the need to crate him consistently for toileting purposes?

Thank you for your assistance!