Wait, you want me to pee outside? In the cold? On the gravel? Even if it’s raining? Whaaaaaaa?
So might say Tootsie, who was rescued by the good people at Lucky Star Cavalier Rescue, thanks to an amazing woman who pulled her, and a multitude of other dogs, from a northern Wisconsin puppy mill.
Through a wonderful moment of serendipity, I’ve just learned the details of Tootsie’s past. She was taken from a puppy mill with large numbers of dogs living in “horrendous conditions”. Most of the dogs lived in a disgustingly filthy barn, but Tootsie was one of a group of Cavaliers who lived on the equally disgusting concrete pad of an old silo, pumping out puppies in spite of serious health concerns. She had to have 21 teeth extracted after she was rescued, because her mouth was a cesspool of infection. Her ears were so badly compromised that they reportedly were dripping green goo. However, her years in an outdoor cage gave her an advantage. Unlike the dogs in the barn, she could see people coming and going, smell fresh air and hear a variety of sounds.
But no wonder her preferred place to urinate was first inside the house (home = bathroom), and the concrete slab where we park our cars (cement = toilet). That’s why house training was job one the day we got her. I knew far too well that dogs who grew up eliminating in their own homes take some energy to house train. In Tootsie’s case it didn’t take long–we took her out those first few days about every ten minutes. (Literally. I’m always shocked when people are advised to take a new dog out once an hour. Waaaay too long between trips outside!) She got pieces of chicken for pottying outside, and soon she learned to control her bladder, and urinate and defecate outside. Just recently she began peeing on the concrete again, instead of the gravel driveway, and so back we went to treats as reinforcement. It took two weeks, and she’s back to trotting over the concrete onto the driveway.
This new found connection with Tootsie’s original rescuer, as well as her short-termed house training regression reminded me how much I owe her and Lucky Star Rescue. In celebration of shelters and rescue groups, and the time of year that all of us are donating to special causes, we are joining with Dogwise to make a Special Offer to Donors that grants free shipping for all large orders of Way to Go! How to Housetrain a Dog of Any Age. (It happens automatically in check out.) We sell it at cost anyway ($1.00 each for orders over 100), because we are all committed to helping dogs who had sketchy starts in life. Here’s a chance, through December 20th, to give every dog a better chance of staying in a forever home.
Keep in mind that training dogs to eliminate outside of our homes may seem like a trivial problem, but it’s not. House training problems can be serious problems indeed. It is hard to maintain a loving relationship with an individual who poops on your pillow. I can’t count the number of couples I saw whose relationship had degraded into endless fighting about Ginger or Buster, whose urine ruined their oriental carpet, or whose dog ended up going back to the shelter because of house training problems. It is more gratifying than I can say that several organizations say it has helped them immensely by reducing calls to their help line and the number of returns they get.
Speaking of house training problems, there’s a new book for dog trainers from Dogwise, titled Hard to House Train: Practical Solutions for Dog Trainers. It is much more extensive than the concise Way to Go!, and is designed to be a “go-to reference guide for trainers who encounter difficult house training cases”. I love the inclusion of lots of case studies, but will admit to wishing there was a bit more about dogs who were indeed “house trained”–as in dogs who learned to eliminate in their houses in neglectful situations. But it’s a valuable resource for trainers; check it out if that includes you.
MEANWHILE, back on the farm: 15 degrees Fahrenheit tonight? Oh my.
One more ewe bred. Check out the two blue butts! Three to go.
Maggie just did awesome work holding the lambs off the feeders so I could add the grain. I wasn’t able to get photos of her quarter-horsing right and left to stop the lambs from breaking out of the corner (too busy watching to be sure it went well), but she was fantastic. See the lamb in the middle looking right at Maggie? Immediately after I took this photo she broke to the right, and Maggie dashed to block her and put her back in the corner. Then the brown lamb on the left broke left and practically lept over Maggie, but she got around and brought the lamb back. Looks like her confidence of coming back. Yay!
Here’s the rest of the flock, waiting to come in to get their hay. None of these ewes will be bred this year–too old or not good mommas. That’s Lady Godiva on the left with the white nose. She is now retired from lambing due to her age and health challenges. So glad she’s still with us!
Hope your week is a good one.
Beth says
Good job Maggie! And so glad Tootsie gets to spend the second, better part of her life with you.
I am reminded by this of the puzzling degrees to which various dogs are housebroken. Our Jack is positively horrified if he is ill and has an accident inside. I arrived home from work one day to a frantic dog who barreled at me full-speed (he normally greets us calmly, if he bothers to get up from his nap that is), jumping and wide-eyed, because he had defecated in the house due to a tummy bug. Clearly he did not fear punishment (he’d never been scolded during house-breaking) and in fact was coming to me to report the horrors of the day. “Mom, mom, it was AWFUL!! I had to poop on the floor and then I was stuck here and please take me out, I am mortified”.
Our much-missed Madison, on the other hand, would do her absolute best to hold it as long as she could, but if the worst happened and she had to go inside, she seemed not at all bothered by it. And she never did learn to ask to go out, so if something made her have to go off of her normal adult-dog schedule, she had no way to tell us. Unfortunately for us all, including Jack who seemed a bit disgusted.
Gayle says
Greyhound adoption groups are bracing for an onslaught of hounds after Florida voters banned racing last week (we were hoping for a phased approach and funding to help with adoption efforts, which did not happen). Since greyhounds are turned out several times a day at the kennels they tend to be easily housetrained, but there’s always an exception. I’m sure this booklet will come in handy for new adopters of any breed – thanks, Patricia!
Margaret J Rucker says
Do you think it is more difficult to train a dog to go outside to urinate/defecate when they have been allowed, as puppies, to use pee pads in the house? My perception is that it is more difficult to train once they have been allowed to go “in the house” even though it is on pee pads. I am a veterinarian ( for 44 years) with a special interest in behavior, and often find that owners find it tough to start their puppies outside given today’s busy life styles….I would appreciate your thoughts.
Kitti says
Regarding the title (you want me to go out in the rain!?) I have an Am Staff (so no hair to speak of) who hates rain. He has figured out he can go out and duck under the deck and pee there. So funny to see the look on his face when I open the door and he realizes it’s wet outhside…
Trisha says
Great question Margaret. My guess is that it is indeed harder to train a dog to go outside once it’s been trained on pee pads. But I’ve never seen any study or data on the issue. Just anecdotally I had a number of clients who started their dogs on pee pads and then had trouble with them going in other areas of the house. It also seems intuitively as though it would be easier for dogs to get the distinction “outside” versus “inside” than “on this thing inside” but “not on these other things inside”. That said, cats have little trouble getting it, but I’m not sure that it is useful to compare. Perhaps dogs going on a totally different substrate (like cats do) in a kind of a box would help? I helped my mother set that up, but her small dogs still peed on the carpet. Any one else with experience with pee pads, either positive or negative?
Julie says
My rescued coonhound, Lennon, would eat then pee in his empty bowl (he was amazingly accurate) when I first got him. He was a week off his neuter and I expected a lot of marking behavior, but that was a new one. I’m told it’s a sign of a dog who was confined to a small space – if so it’s a brilliant solution to not lying in his own pee.
My Rosee, also a rescued former hunting hound, was also probably in a confined space, judging b7 the calluses on her ever-wagging tail. She never peed in her bowl, but did quickly figure out she should not defecate indoors. She is just getting over a tummy bug that came with diarrhea, and while she is normally a calm dog, she figured out that the way to get me out of bed in the middle of the night to let her out was to bark like it’s the end of the world. Way to go Rosee!
emje mccarty says
i just read “the education of will” while i am attempting to house train my cattle dog puppy. i was hoping you would figure out why the two border collie puppies were such enthusiastic pee-ers & difficult to house train because bluejean is kind of doing the same thing. she totally gets peeing outside & does it as soon as we go out (while looking over her shoulder to make sure i see her.) but she also pees in the house. as the training goes on, she has now started putting smaller & smaller puddles on the floor as if asking, “is it okay if i pee this much in the house?” having figured out that i am unhappy with the bigger puddles. i just don’t remember housetraining being this hard! i once housetrained a blind dog for DCHS & didn’t struggle this much (my brag to prove that i kind of know what i’m doing.) i am hoping the puddles–as they shrink in size–will soon disappear altogether. however, if not, now i know where to turn! thank you.
Vic says
You mention serendipity, Trish, well I too recently had a serendipitous occasion as a few weeks ago we learned of a Leonberger impostor who had been moved from a shelter to a foster mom who thankfully was prepared for dogs that think marking their way through life is acceptable behavior.
She had Buddy start wearing a belly band – think cummerbund covering a dog where it’ll catch the urine before it’ll hit the intended target – and when I picked him up in Pennsylvania I continued the procedure for the nine hour ride home and thereafter.
https://vicnphotos.smugmug.com/Yulees-Buddy/i-zT2JCf6/A
It’s simply an attempt at stoping the marking cycle before it begins and it works wonders. The moment Buddy came into our house and started his requisite sniffing he immediately lifted his leg over the recliner probably thinking I’ll show my new big brother, Yulee that I’ve arrived.
But alas, the recliner was untouched as the incontinence pad in the belly band caught and absorbed the spray and that was the last time Buddy lifted his leg in our house. In addition to utilizing all the suggestions you have for minimizing the chance for accidents I realized that we would need to put the band on every time he came back inside even after a logical assumption that his bladder had been emptied appropriately outside. Does a dog ever run out of urine? I think not based on the empirical evidence of five decades of living with dogs.
He only wore the band when he wasn’t outside or sleeping in his crate and after exactly a week I felt confident that he wouldn’t betray my trust in him. So confident that he was allowed to join Yulee and I on my bed sans belly band:
https://vicnphotos.smugmug.com/Yulees-Buddy/i-rBHJcVr/A
It’s almost three weeks since Buddy has lovingly joined our family and life is wonderful! I haven’t thrown out the Nature’s Miracle container but I’m quite certain it’ll just sit on the shelf collecting dust.
Carol says
My darling Sophie, almost certainly a Catahoula, would rather die than pee in the house. Poor girl: it took a while for her to house-train me. She was 5 months when I got her so I thought taking her out every couple of hours would do. Well, girlie wanted to go out when she wanted to go out so she kept walking from the front door (out of my line of sight) to me to door to me and it’s embarrassing how long it took for her point to sink in. She has neither pooped nor peed in the house since she got me properly trained.
Renee Clodfelter says
Hi Patricia,
I have a nine year old Maltese female named Emy. She has learned that it is proper to go outside, but if mom and dad are away too long, she will use the pee pad. She rarely has an accident anywhere in the house. She would prefer to pee on carpet, so I keep my carpeted room doors closed or have a pee pad in the room. I had confined her to the kitchen previously and put a pee pad in the bathroom off of the kitchen. She would go all day and not pee anywhere, so when I unconfined her to the rest of the house, she used the pee pad when she needed to go. Maybe the bathroom was too close to the kitchen? Also when she did have an accident it was never on the hard floor, always on the carpet, so where there is carpet and an open door to that room for her during the day (rarely) there is also a pee pad.
I don’t want to confine her to a kennel during the day so it is the risk I took, but she seems to know that pee pads are for peeing, but when mom and/or dad are home, we go outside to do our business.
HFR says
When I lived in the city, you had no choice but to let your puppy go inside. The vet would scare you to death to let their paws touch a city street (and indeed there were parvo cases around). So for the first 8 weeks you had the puppy (assuming they were 8 weeks old when you got them) you had to paper train them. I have to say I never had any big problems housebreaking after that. When the pup was fully vaccinated, I would take a soiled newspaper out onto the street put it down and then let the puppy go on the paper there. I would do that for about a week and then slowly take the paper away. I would leave them in an ex-pen when I was at work with paper in the ex-pen. I would have a dog walker come a couple of times a day, but still you can’t expect a 4 month old puppy to hold it in that long. So it definitely takes longer than it would if I were home all day and able to take them out more often. I totally agree it’s every 10 minutes not once an hour! You’ve got to take them out before they even know they have to go. So, in my experience, I didn’t find it harder to housebreak once they were paper trained. But come to think of it, I’ve never had the luxury of housebreaking a dog when I was home all day and able to take them out more often, so maybe it is harder and I just don’t know it. 🙂
Just recently a friend of mine’s cousin called me (!) to ask about her little dog who won’t stop peeing in the house. (No, I am not a trainer, but in a world of regular dog people, I’m the expert, much to my chagrin.) After telling her I’m not a trainer and perhaps she needs one, I asked her a million questions. But the one that struck me was that they all scolded the dog when they caught it peeing in the house. With all the info out there, why do people still do this? I’m old enough to remember putting the dog’s nose in the mess and then smacking its nose with rolled up newspaper, but sheesh, that’s been debunked for years. Anyway, so he always peed by the front door. They were thrilled when he stopped doing that for a week or so and they thought “Wow, we did it!”. Then she noticed a foul odor in the living room. Lo and behold, he had started going on the shag rug in the living room which soaked thru to the hardwoods and ruined the floor. Her husband is insisting they get rid of the dog. I told her to stop yelling at the dog since all that tells him is not to go by the front door. I am going to buy her this book now! Once again, a timely subject and thanks!!
Trisha says
Great points about a belly band, and congratulations on your new family!
Margaret says
@ other Margaret and Trisha: I have used pee pads for both my own puppies and guide dog puppies. I work 3rd shift, and am gone from about 10p to just after 7a, and time off has to be arranged weeks in advance–so the puppies just have to suck it up
I put them in an x-pen with a pee pad and an old towel for bedding. Anecdotally, I’d estimate it does slow house training by at least a couple of weeks. I have a very small house and can’t use a separate room, but I do notice that if they do pee inside it is not usually where the x-pen was. I do spray the area with Nature’s Miracle every morning after I fold up the pen.
Sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do. They have all become housetrained in the end, and none of the guide dogs has ever been career-changed for that issue.
LisaW says
It took Olive a very long time to be mostly reliable as far as going outside (pee and poop:( Of all the dogs we’ve had, she’s the only one to ever pee on the bed. That was a very bad night for all of us. We had her tested a few times for a bladder infection or other internal causes. All negative.
I read that if there have been no accidents for one year, then the dog is house trained save being sick or traumatized or some unusual circumstance. Is that right? Olive would get to month 10 or 11 and have a set back. (I kept looking for a calendar under her bed.) So, we all had to move back a little and start from there. I started really doubting the year rule.
She would also pee while she was running after the ball or a toy outside. Any idea what that was about? Someone told me that some dogs pee while exercising? Some kind of trigger? She only did that for a short period of time.
As in all things Olive, it was harder than any of us had imagined.
Phoebe, on the other hand, will do anything to not walk close to pee or poop and goes out of her way to eliminate in a virgin spot. Despite spending her first four months in a crate, she was easy to house train due to her abhorrence of anything that your body expels. Olive’s house training was super hard on Phoebe, who would refuse to come in a room if she thought there may have been an accident. Just the thought of it was enough for her.
I’m glad we now only have a large bottle of Nature’s Miracle around for the skunk encounters. Being okay about a skunk spray shows how hard house training was; it’s all relative.
Pat says
Hi Trisha and Margaret,
I wanted to add to your comments about dog’s toileting inside vs outside and what training issues present with either option. I live in an apartment and have a toy poodle named Kona. Kona is the first dog that I have trained so my experience is purely limited to a sample size of one!
Kona’s and my preference is that he will toilet outside; however, I wanted to make sure that Kona had options (options also save my carpet/furniture) so from the moment I got him at 12 weeks old I rewarded him for toileting outside on our hourly walks. Between those walks and overnight (when crate training) I placed him on a square of fake grass in the shower recess and continued the same reward practices as used outside.
I want to say here that your books (and some others I had) gave me much reassurance during this phase of training – there are some unrealistic expectations out in the world about how long toilet training takes and at one point, I thought I was an absolute training failure!
The dual options that Kona now has for toileting (outside on walks and fake grass in shower) work brilliantly for us. We live in a place with some weather extremes so going outside isn’t always an option and if Kona has a tummy upset or some other emergency he has a safe place to go that doesn’t “soil” his living space. Bonus clean-up is a breeze!
Thanks again for you blog and this community. As an avid reader of your books and blog you have on many occasions saved my sanity from afar!
Jann Becker says
We’ve had problems with Dooley–he doesn’t like to get his little tushie wet, and we’re due for 4″ of snow tonight so tomorrow we may Have Issues. And when he’s stressed, it goes to his gut; I had a major cleanup in Petsmart the other day. It seems that each dog we get is harder to house train than the one before…this one knows what he’s supposed to do (I’m pretty sure) but he’s not always willing or able to do it.
Kat says
Finna would submissive pee when we first adopted her. She understood that if she needed to eliminate she should ask to go outside but she also thought that anything that made her uncertain required peeing immediately. I’m not sure how she survived long enough to develop enough confidence stop the submissive peeing since we all fantasized about feeding her to some bears as we cleaned up yet again. Fortunately, she did adjust to life outside the hoarding situation she grew up in and gave up the submissive peeing.
Ranger was always too polite to eliminate anywhere but away from his home. Sadly we had to let him go last week. The cancer had come back and the pain meds weren’t doing the job anymore. He is sadly missed by everyone. I think I have an inkling now how the families of celebrities feel when the celebrity passes away. Ranger belonged not just to us but to people all around the globe. He lived a very rich, full, well loved life. https://www.flickr.com/photos/33350160@N02/albums/72157703494116935
Trisha says
Oh, damn. Because of you Kay, Ranger was indeed loved by so many of us all around the world. So strange how we can feel such a loss about a dog we’ve never met. I will miss him, truly. I know I can speak for many when I say our hearts go out to you.
HFR says
Kat — I’m so sorry to hear about Ranger. I was one of those people around the globe who felt like I knew him. Run free, Ranger.
LisaW says
Ranger was the dog many of us wished we were honorable enough to share a life with.
My heartfelt farewell and true sympathy.
Peri Norman says
I have a 12 year old bitch and a medically compromised bitch that are pretty much in the house unsupervised 24/7 with occasional excursions outside for peeing and playing. I generally plan my outings so that I can get home and potty them within about a five hour window. Once in while things go terribly awry and I am delayed by something beyond my control. To my delight, these two girls will hold as long as they can, and when they can’t, they pee on the bathroom rug in front of the toilet. Clean up is easy peasy and I am thrilled that my girls are so bright. I would love to take credit for somehow training that, but I can’t even make up a plausible story.
rheather says
Oh, Kat. I’m so sorry. I also feel like I’ve known Ranger and will miss hearing about his life.
KKB says
Oh yes! My dog came from a heinous situation and while she was only 16 weeks old, her first 16 weeks had been deeply unpleasant, stressful, terrifying, and seriously gross. It took quite a while for me to get her to understand that we sleep on a bed, but we don’t pee on it. She was used to doing her business wherever she was, whenever, and I – who had no idea what it meant to deal with a dog from a bad situation like that – was not nearly as patient as I have learned to become. Your books and Debbie Jacobs saved us! And we use treats for reinforcement for everything now!
maggie jones says
I just read that Donald McCaig died on Nov 12th, a brilliant author. Forgive me if this is a repeat of a previous post- Maggie Jones
Lucille White says
When I got my malti-pom, Possum, she was just 8 weeks old. Since it was late March and our house was on a hill which was grass over clay. She had experienced hypothermia early-on. Since my husband and I were both medically compromised and I didn’t relish the 2:00 or 3:00 AM walks to relieve her puppy- sized bladder as I had done with every other pup, I bought an under the bed plastic container on wheels and instead of using papers, I used an adult under pad that fit perfectly. A quick roll up each day and a spray to clean it out was simple. No one fell or got injured. No bundling Possum up in cold weather because Pos used it all 12 1/2 of years of her life. As she aged and had problems hoping over the 4″ side, we cut a door in the side. Problem solved! We had great luck with it.
Grace says
When I got my male Basenji from a breeder at 8 weeks of age, he was litter-box trained (small plastic tub with 2-3 inches of recycled newspaper pellets). He had no problems learning how to do his business outside, but it was really nice for those midnight or early morning puppy potty breaks for me not to have to get dressed & go outside. As he grew I had to get bigger litter boxes, but around the age of 5 months, and as his circling to find just the right spot widened, he would sometimes miss the box when he pooped. I don’t know if the inability to widen his circling or missing the box are what did it, but one day he just decided he was DONE with the litter box. He’s very good at letting me know when he needs to go outside except for when it rains. He would probably hold it all day if I let him, no matter how uncomfortable it would be. But he knows that’s not going to happen so he is now like a runner training for a race when he has to do his business in the rain!! On the days when it’s raining buckets, I think about investing in a large plastic tub or small kiddie pool and some paper-pellet litter…
Chris from Boise says
Kat – we too mourn Ranger’s passing. Thank you for sharing him with this community for these many years. He was one of the Truly Great Dogs. Our thoughts also go to Finna as she learns to navigate her world without his steady presence.
Frances says
So very sad to learn of Ranger’s passing. A great and much loved soul.
I wish I had taught my dogs to use a specific pad indoors as pups, for emergency use as adults. I find that as I get older broken nights leave me feeling jet lagged, and Poppy had me up five times in one night this week. She has just had major surgery, so each trip involved putting on my dressing gown without letting go of her lead, carrying her downstairs, finding a torch, escorting her through wind and rain to the favoured patch of grass, back home, back up the stairs, and rearranging ourselves back in bed, where she snuggled into me until she was dry and warm again. Sophy is far more ho-hum about the whole thing, and long ago decided the bath mat was a very present help in time of need – an arrangement that suits both of us as it machine washes so well!
Beth says
Kat, I am so sorry to hear about Ranger. He had a beautiful soul.
We had Maddie in a cart for nearly a year. A Corgi in a cart gathers a lot of attention. For many months after we lost her, people would stop us and ask where our “other one” was when we walked Jack. The hardest was when little kids asked. I wasn’t sure if they even knew what death was. How do I explain to someone else’s five-year-old that she was now with us only in spirit? It was not easy. I felt it necessary to explain on Facebook what our thinking would be before the time came, since her smiling photos had such a following.
Nic1 says
Kat, sincere condolences. I loved reading about Ranger and Finna and your various adventures.
We lost Lily to cancer and complications due to treatment earlier this year. Unbearably sad but grateful to have shared my life with such a wonderful being. I would never have found my way here to share so much and learn from other people and their dogs in this community if it was not for her.
The photos are just gorgeous. What a wonderful companion and that smile….. Run free Ranger, that’ll do….🐾 🌈 🌉
Chris from Boise says
Darn, it has been a tough year for some of the dogs we’ve come to know and love through Trisha’s community. Nic1, I’m sorry too for your loss – Lily was a spunk of a girl, and what a cutie pie face! You were fortunate to find each other.
Trisha says
Oh, shoot. I am so sorry to hear about Lily. I send her my thanks for bringing Nic1 and all her family to our village community. Someone told me once it was so hard to lose a dog they would never get one again. I do understand the desire to protect yourself from so much pain, but can’t imagine sacrificing the joy that dogs add to our lives. It sounds like Lily was one of the best at doing that. Off you go, Lily, our hearts are with you.
LisaW says
Ohh not Lily, too. I remember Nic1 and I remarking on how Lily and Olive’s impish look was so similar and their terrier toughness was a blessing and a curse. I am so sorry. To the fields, Lily. Good girl.
This community gives new meaning to the term village dogs. A little piece of us goes with each passing.
Nic1 says
Thanks so much Chris, Trisha and LisaW. So true that a little piece of our heart goes with their passing. I posted her 6 word obituary on Trisha’a original blog post, 6 Words, written when she lost her beloved Lassie back in 2010. To be able to write those words for her alongside other people’s similar experiences felt like I was adding to a global companion canine memorial in this digital ‘dogs and their people’ village Trisha has created. Amazing that people still post on there some 8 years later.
Seems grief is the price we pay for experiencing the loss of love and joy. If life with dogs has taught me anything it is to try to be mindful and to enjoy every single moment with them and others (even when those moments can be somewhat occasionally embarrassing and trying). Although Lily was an absolute star from day one at peeing on demand when we first brought her home, bless her.
Looking forward to adopting again in 2019.
Andy says
Not much to say on the subject at hand, just want to express condolences and appreciation to Kat and Nic1. Thanks for loving those precious dogs, they were lucky to have you. And Kat thanks for sharing those pictures, Ranger is just gorgeous.
HFR says
I’m so sorry to hear about Lily. Trisha, I always think that the ones who say they will never get another dog after losing one are exactly the kind of people who should have a dog.
Maureen Finn says
I adopted a 9 month old Rottweiler from a local shelter about 8 years ago. She was returned because the original adopters were unable to housetrain her (she spent her formative months in an outdoor kennel run with her dam and siblings). Their loss, my gain! 🙂 But I had her less than 24 hours and I realized she had a UTI – she was squatting every 10 minutes for about a half teaspoon of pee. I took her to the emergency vet (it was a holiday weekend) and the vet looked at the urine under a microscope and said it was a “raging” infection. Poor baby! We put her on antibiotics and within 2 days she was fine, and basically housetrained within the week. I let the shelter know, as an FYI – they were so surprised, but there’s no reason they could have known this.
I had a hard time kicking that bacteria completely – even though the urine culture told us we were using the right antibiotic, it came back at least 4 times, so I kept her on the antibiotic for longer and longer stretches after each recurrence, until finally it was gone for good (the last antibiotic treatment was 4 months long!). Just a reminder that it’s always good to double check this and rule it out with any housetraining issues.
Bethany says
Do you have any suggestions to train a dog to go outside during walks? My boyfriend and I just rescued a pup about a week ago. We take her out at least every hour, for long 15-20 minute walks every day. She has yet to pee outside during said potty time walks.
We live in an apartment, so it’s a bit difficult to get to the potty area. We have to harness her up and go all the way to the elevator, all the way down and out the garage and around the building to get to the front where the grass is. If she wasn’t afraid of stairs we’d get there a lot faster. She pooed outside during one walk. And the other day she ran to the back door of our deck, and when we let her out she pooed there (yayyy!!) we praised her both times with rubs and treats.
She’s a great dog very snuggly and lovey and listens well. She just won’t pee on walks. She’s peed maybe 4 times since we’ve got her a week ago. Twice on the carpet by accident, no discipline cause she didn’t mean to. Just firm no’s. And then she peed in her crate two separate times when I had run down to do the laundry, I had been gone less than 5 minutes.
We just don’t know how to make her go when we’re outside. I stayed outside for an hour the other day with her. She smells all around but doesn’t go. She usually just ends up sitting next to me like a little old man observing the world. We walk all over, where other dogs go. We got an extendable leash cause we though she would prefer to be far from us to go. We got spray that we read would work. “Go here” spray for them to sniff or whatever and help them know. Sprayed it all over the grass. And even the back deck. Nothing. She never pees on walks.
We even low key sprayed it in the parking garage cause it was kind of like her kennel she was rescued from. To see if she’d be more comfortable to go there. Still nothing. We don’t know what to do anymore. We’re getting stressed out cause she’s barely gone to the bathroom enough as it is. And always cleaning the pee ASAP in sight of her so she knows. Nothing has worked.
Mary Veerkamp says
My sweetie Lily (part spitz vet believes) likes to go out in our fenced backyard right before bedtime. We live where we have plenty of little lizards and she will run herself ragged chasing them. It’s impossible to get her to come inside. This behavior is a real challenge as she is so exhausted and frequently doesn’t take any time to pee. So last night I finally got her in and we went to bed – she angry with me – frowning. During the night she wet our bed – 1st time ever (she’s 5). I had to get up and completely strip the bedding. I can’t let her out again once I get her in because she’ll just start the chasing all over again (even if it’s pouring rain!). I am wondering if this exhaustion and not peeing before bedtime is what caused her to wet the bed. She was not happy with herself either….very sad.
Anna says
Dear Dr McConell,
Let me start by saying thank you for sharing your valuable knowledge with us. I’m preparing to welcome a puppy at my home in 2 months and I would like to make as few mistakes as possible. I’m planning to use the playpen as a crate substitute (or is it a bad idea?). I was wondering if it’s a good idea to buy an indoor potty and place it in the playpen during the night or the time when I’m not at home? Or would it encourage the puppy to go home and impede house training? Thank you in advance. Regards, Anna