House training an adult rescue dog.

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Elliegazzellie

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I have a rescue dog that will be 4 this year. When he arrived he was not housetrained and we had real difficulty trying to train him. He is now fine if we are at home to let him out very regularly. However, he will wee if we are not in (even if he has only been left for 15 mins). He sleeps in a crate at night now as he would wee about 3 times through the night. Since he has had the crate he is fine over night, and loves sleeping in there. He had got better and went for months without weeing, however recently he has started doing it again! Nothing has changed in routine so not quite sure why he has suddenly started doing it again. When he wee's on the floor I clean it up with a special cleaner that breaks all the enzymes down.
Has anyone got any ideas on how I can stop him from peeing everywhere!!!??
 
If he is weeing when you leave after such a short period of time, I would say it's more an anxiety/stress based thing and not and "unclean, Im not housetrained thing" can he not be placed in his crate when u are out, it maybe the larger space you are leaving him is a bit daunting and he is pacing and possibly looking for you, in general when they do this it is common for them to urinate and deficate. You could try a DAP diffuser to help with the stess, but it may be he feels most secure when in his safe place "crate".
 
I took on a 4 year old a year ago who had exactly the same issues as your dog. I got some info from the rspca on the internet on how to house train rehomed older dogs. It worked a treat & she was clean within 2-3 weeks after 6 months of trying to break the habit. For the first week I had to treat her like a puppy & wake her up & let her out throughout the night & confine her to a small space at night (she sleeps in her bed on my bedroom floor so she was just confined to my room) then after a while she learned that she had to wake me up to go out then after a while if she wanted to go out I'd tell her to go back to bed & then it all fell in to place. I also had to makesure she had a routine that was followed with her feeding, walking, toilet times. If she was left at all during the day again she had to be confined to one place.
 
Thanks guys- I will try and get a DAP and see if it helps. I will also try and confine him to a smaller space when we are out. He has access to use his crate during the day, however he choses not to. During the day he usually likes to sleep in the living room. He tends to go in a similar place most times, even though I try and clean it thoroughly. Usually the corner of the sofa which is a bit disgusting! :(
 
I took on a 3yrs rescue dog and she had lived in kennels doing it when she pleased. Initially the better quality food seemed to make her go more often but I found for the first couple of weeks I had to keep her to a strict toileting regime with lots of praise when she went outside.

After she had settled in and got more confidence she has naturally been clean and now goes when she is let out.
 
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