Can a dog be impossible to house train?

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Jamana

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Following on from Bosworth's thread about her whippet wetting it's bed, I thought I would ask for help myself. {not FOR myself you understand :eek: }

I have a 6 month old Curly Coat dog pup, Peter, and I am beginning to think he is impossible to house train. I have crate trained dogs for years and have never come across one like Peter. We had him at 15 wks and his breeder said he was paper trained, though I doubt this. My understanding is that he spent the daytime in/out of the house and garden but over-nighted in an indoor kennel block with his mother. We have wondered if because of this he doesn't associate going outside to toilet. Though this theory is blown out of the water by the fact if the door is open he will usually go out. This isn't totally reliable though and he has been known to stand next to an open door and wet on the floor quite casually. The only place he never wets is in the car, but he can't live in the car however tempting that option seems at times :D

Maybe it would be helpful if I run through his usual daily routine,

Let out of the crate at between 5.30-6am then back in for an hour before having breakfast and staying out until 8.30 when he comes in the car to school and then onto work with me.

In the car until about 10am when he gets a leg stretch and chance to toilet. Back in the car until 1pm when I go home for lunch.

Out in the garden over my lunchbreak {2 hours ish} then depending on my work schedule he either comes back in the car for the afternoon or stays at home in his cage until my son comes home and lets him out at roughly 4.30.

Once I'm home he goes for a walk and then has his tea and is in and out on a regular basis for the evening before a final let out at about 11.30-midnight when he is watched to make sure he wee's and poo's before being shut up for the night.

Despite having very regular chances to go out and relieve himself he has a wet or dirty bed probably 3 or 4 times a week. We have found that unless we take his water away after 9pm he will not be dry at all. He will also very often wet/dirty the crate in the daytimes, sometimes only 20 mins after being out. He gives NO warning or signal that he wants to go out and will stand next to you and wet then bounce off to play.

I am stumped that if he is fully capable of holding himself when in the car he won't do so overnight.

He has to go in the cage as if left loose he will not hold himself at all and will also just ransack the room.

Any ideas? His breeder suggested separation anxiety but that doesn't appear to be the case. When left in the cage our other 3 dogs are in the room with him and their bed is directly next to Peter's cage, the radio is left on and they have chews to keep them amused. Peter is happy to go into the cage and I wouldn't have thought he finds it stressful.

We are really tearing our hair out with him over this. He is tricky enough in other ways without having this as well.

All thoughts gratefully recieved :)
 
take him out on a lead to toilet, go for a real walk rather than just putting him out. I may be wrong but he does not sound like he gets a lot of input and direction but is put from this place to that place to please himself (or be bored alone), as pups my dogs go on the lead at the very least 6 times per day so I know they have toiletted. you are not house training him you are trying to get him to train himself and it does not always work that way.

he really sounds like he needs more input it may help with his other problems too, he is a high energy intelligent breed that needs a job and mental and physical input/stimulation
 
Are you sure he actually understands where he is supposed to go ? What do you do if he wee's right in front of you ?
 
Ithink he needs more input from you, more walks, toilet in the garden on lead so you can see when he goes, I would remove his water at night as well. If he is weeing in front of you I would say ahah put him on the lead and take him out into the garden. When he wees or poos on the lead I always praise and say good wee wee or good poo poo and give him a treat, he then associates the word with the action and what happens as a consequence.

I am currently fostering a 3yr un-house trained dog that has lived nearly all his life in kennels plus he has only just been neutered and with 3 of my own dogs in residence he felt the need to mark. He is so nervous that if he went to wee and I said ahah he would run terrified to his crate. He is now virtually house trained, no more weeing in the house, the odd poo but I have to be aware when one is brewing and give him the opportunity to do it outside. Iam setting him up for success and he is well rewarded, he even stops in mid poo waiting for his treat .

I would also make sure the crate he sleeps in is well covered and perhaps a black out blind as the light might be waking him up, check also he isnt cold.
 
All the above and get him checked out for a UTI at the vets.
I would leave him with just enough to cover the bottom of the bowl at night and maybe rethink his feeding regime.
I would not allow him to mooch about the house unsupervised.

You also need to praise him and use a keyword when he is doing what you want. My dog is three and I still tell him to 'pee pee' when I take him out of the house or car on a lead, sounds ridiculous but there you go :p
The first thing we do when we leave the house or car is go for a pee - then we go for the walk or do some work or whatever. It becomes a habit.

If you catch him at it I wouldn't be too hard on him also as this can encourage them to do it when you are not around - this does not translate as 'oh, she wants me to go outside' it means 'oh...she doesn't like that, I'd better not do it where she can see me!'
 
Does he only have one walk a day? The rest of the time he just amuses himself? I would try to regularly walk him, as has been suggested.
We had a border terrier who was awful to housetrain but we got there eventually, some dogs just can't be turfed out and left to get on with it.
 
I would film him, It would be interesting to see in what fashion he does it, i.e does get a little anxious then pass or just stand up and pass and lie back down.
To the question....No I have never not been able to toilet train and dog and by lord have I had some worthy competitors!! lol, the thing is if I can't crack it (I cant rehome) as no one wants a dirty dog :( the worst was a staffy (unusual) lord did I have to come up with some new ideas for her (but we got there)
I have a puppy in boarding now and her owners warned me she will wee all over and apologised in advance, she has weed once since being here a week, she is very easy for me, but her routine is a strict one here.

Chews and dog company mean nothing to an anxious dog, so if this was the case that would not do, if you needed firther advice Im happy to chuck some in but would need to ask a few more questions.
 
Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having problems. This sounds just like us with our dog about 3 years ago. Ours was a rescue who had been in kennels and was not worried at all about wetting her bedding and would even poo in the crate. We had a similar routine to you as I took mine to work too. The idea about checking they are warm at night was a good one as we noticed when ours was more restless she was more likely to have an accident. We got there in the end just by repeating over and over the going out, saying the toilet word, loads of praise when she did it and then as soon as she wet on the floor, straight outside again to try and go outside. It was a long haul and required a replacement carpet in one room of the house:-/ but she got there eventually. She would wet all over all of the time, I constantly walked around with a stain and odor covering spray and a marigold.

I kind of had a theory maybe her muscles were not quite matured to hold for very long ( a bit like with some children wetting for ages before they are dry). I'm not an expert though, so it was just alot of persistance, millions of toilet trips and then it sort of happened one day that she was dry. It was a nightmare but did finally resolve. Good luck with it all, ours has an iron bladder now strangely, after such a bad start.


Jamana said:
Following on from Bosworth's thread about her whippet wetting it's bed, I thought I would ask for help myself. {not FOR myself you understand :eek: }
Click to expand...
 
As above I would be taking him for more walks and rewarding the times he gets it right. Also at 6mo he is quite young and may not be able to hold the wee in if he also drinks during the night.

The worst dog I had, I had to resort to keeping her on a leash in the house and tying the other end to my belt so I could supervise her 100% of the time. So she was either in the garden/on walks, or in her crate, or right next to me. I had to do this for 2 weeks to eliminate all accidents inside and then things got better!

Forgot to say I also had to take out all the carpets and change to wooden floors.
 
Our youngest Spinine was a nightmare to house train, she was well over two before she was really clean in the house. We tried just about everything, she just seemed to do it in her own time. Not much help really. We have had several dogs, mainly collies, none was anything like her to get clean, even our older spin who we got at nearly a year and had lived outside was clean in no time at all.
 
Thank you for of your replies. I have been checking but haven't been near the computer long enough to respond.

There is certainly much food for thought in your help and perhaps we are being a bit hard on Peter, it's just that we have never had an issue with crate training before and I must have done 10 pups this way. The only difference with Peter to the others is that we are in a different house now and whereas before we could go out of the back gate and around our field we now have to walk down the road to get to a walk. I am trying to remember if we used to take the puppies out round the field far more than we take Peter. We certainly used the same method of 'outside' and religiously putting out and watching after meals, when they wake, when they are disturbed etc.

Peter is babyish for 6 months, it is only in the last 3 weeks or so that he has started having a wee when out on a walk and has only very recently started pooping. Normally he will rush out onto the lawn when we get back and his lead is off.

I fully take the point about him possibly needing more walking. He does have 'mini-walks' before I take him to work and whilst I am there, but these consist of 15-20 mins round the edge of a small wood or along a grassy lane. Not what I would consider a 'walk' which to me is at least 1.5hr with the majority off lead. I can incorporate an extra walk by walking him home at lunchtime but only if my Husband is around to drive the car home. I could walk him to work as well but I have nowhere to put him once there unfortunately.

Another of Peter's idiosyncrasies is that if when we are out walking we cross our tracks or retrace our steps he will sniff where we have been and start off like a greyhound from the traps all the way round where we have just been. He will go for about 800yds at full speed before turning to see if we are coming and running back to us. He then has a fuss and sets off once more. Invisible Retrieving we call it. Calling, shouting whistling have no effect at all and we have stopped shouting after him as I feel it just teaches him to run off whilst being called. At any other time {ie, not retracing steps or doing a circular walk} he is very good at recall. A hard thing about him is that he doesn't appear to be motivated by either treats or toys. Normally cheese is a great training aid, or a tennis ball for Labs, but Peter, though he likes cheese or whatever, doesn't seem to get the link between performing a behaviour and getting a treat. When training recall he just didn't associate coming back to us with getting food.

I really really like this dog, he is a smashing person but he has me stumped. Cayla feel free to ask any questions you like.

Oh BTW he doesn't mooch around the house unsupervised, he is either outside,in the crate or with us.

Once more thank you for all suggestions.
 
My OH was new to crate training with our first pup together so I confidently proclaimed that dogs don't foul where they sleep, guess what happened next? Pup proceeded to poo exclusively in the crate for the next three months! Dogs - there's always one that hasn't read the rule book isn't there?!

What else have you tried re treats? Liver, sausage or chicken tend to work quite well, especially on an empty stomach. You can also try the recall game as well as rewarding him any time he is near you not just at the end of a recall command.
 
Redesign his bed so that the roof is a few inches below head height when he is in peeing position. He won't be able to sit upright but it shouldn't make him too uncomfortable -- except when trying to pee.

A dog likes to lift it's head when defecating or urinating. An old kennel man's trick for hunt kennels. 20 couple of hounds all pissing on the bed every day can waste a lot of straw! The false ceiling above the bed usually stops it.
 
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