Yet another post about housetraining (long post)

[Skeeter's Mom]

Hello, everyone!

First, I want to apologize for presenting another post about housebreaking your dog. I have read Mattie's article about house traning puppies and older dogs, and it's got a lot of valuable information but I've got a situation that's got me confused.

My husband and I work full-time. We leave around 7:00 am and are not able to come home until 5:30 - 6:00 pm. 2 weeks ago, we adopted a 6 month old terrier mix (looks to be part Jack Russell) from a shelter. Our other dog, a 2-year old terrier mix, absolutely adores her and they have became the best of friends. They are free to roam the back yard at will through a doggie door in our computer room that leads to the back, so both dogs can go out to potty as needed.

We have been having some difficulty housebreaking our new dog, despite following all of the conventional advice we've read... we use positive reinforcement (lavish praise and sometimes treats) when she potties outside, we use a familiar verbal cue when we take her out and she goes, if we catch her going inside we interrupt her with a loud verbal cue and immediately take her outside. We also clean up her messes with special odor-removing products. However, none of this seems to help at all in conditioning her to go outside.

We put her in the computer room at night (with free access to the doggie door, along with toys and a bed), and she doesn't soil this room at all. In the morning, we let her out and meet her outside (she meets us out back by running through her door). We make sure she potties before she eats. After she eats, we take her out to potty again. Before leaving for work, we put her in the computer room for the day so she doesn't soil the other rooms, and the food and water (and our other dog) is outside so she's never hungry or lonely at any time. In the evenings, we let her out to play and socialize with us, and we will go out with her every hour during this time as well.

However, it never fails... she will always manage to pee somewhere in the house... sometimes it's in the kitchen, sometimes it's in the living room. It's never the same spot. It's as if she simply does not "get" the connection between going outside and being praised, as odd as that sounds. It's as if she feels the compulsion to relieve herself and will do so, and if she gets praised for it, it's simply a small added bonus. Correction does not seem to deter her at all.

My main question is: how do people who work full-time manage to potty train a dog? So many articles I've read say you need to keep the dog with you at all times, but for the vast majority of us, that's simply not possible. We do the best we can... our lives have pretty much revolved around her and her elimination for the past two weeks, and so far we have not seem much progress at all. It's odd... there's no messes when we come home, but despite how often we take her out after we come home, she still potties on the floor somewhere. Tonight I've managed to catch her in the act TWICE and verbally corrected her and took her outside. Also, we've noticed that she never poops in the house... she only pees. Is this unusual?

Sorry for such a long post, but we really are at our wits' end. This is very diffcult, frustrating and confusing. Any help is appreciated.

[emmabeth]

To start with, I would stop correcting her.

If as you guess, shes not really making the connection that she ought to go outside, all this is achieving is teaching her she definitely ought NOT go anywhere near YOU. If the context (ie outside or inside) isnt that important to her yet with regard to recieving reward for it.. why would it suddenly become important wrt recieving punishment for it?

So, stop correcting her.

Since this is only happening when you are home and shes loose, I really don't see why you cannot use a combination of a leash fixing her to your belt, and closing doors/limiting access to the rest of the house so that she cannot make a mistake.

Much of potty training is habit forming and what you are currently doing, is allowing her to form the habit of sloping off somewhere out of site to wee.

Also this will mean you have to take her out and be out there with her - often dogs who have free access to indoors and outdoors unsupervised will actually blur the distinction between the two and that can cause problems.

I also wonder if some of this pottying(all of it?) is in fact scent markign which could be indicative of some level of stress/anxiety - again stopping the attempts to punish/correct her (even the distraction if you catch her in the act until she fully associates your presence and pottying outside with good things) can help to reduce this.

Are there aspects of her life/routine that she may be finding stressful? Has hse had her first season yet, she is just entering the teenage stage and with that comes another fear stage, and a heightened awareness of the status of other dogs around her. All that can add up to a need to scent mark around the house to make herself feel more secure.

[bmbutler]

Skeeter's Mom,

I TOTALLY understand where you are coming from. I have been working with Misty (also part JR) for over 2 months now. My bedroom seems to be her sneaking off place. I normally keep that door closed so she can't go in there when I am at home. She stays in her crate when I am at work although I am able to come home at lunch to take her and my other dog, Blackie, out for a walk. I have also taught Misty to ring a bell on my back door when she needs to go out. She is always 100% right when she does it although a couple of times I didn't take her immediately and I paid the price.

She averages 1 accident a week right now. Somedays I don't think we will ever reach the goal line. Last Friday, we had our first Friday without an accident! I was soooo happy! Saturday came and we had another great day until I accidently left my bedroom door open and she got on my bed. She normally likes to lay there or play with Blackie if she is there. This time she decided to pee on my bed. I was up until 3 am cleaning sheets, comforter and mattress pad.

A regular routine seems to really help which we have during the week when I am working or come home to teach piano lessons. She is out a couple of times in the morning before I leave, out again at lunch and then out when I come home from work. I normally take her out after each 30 min lesson. Usually to bed around 9:30 to 10:00 pm.

I did borrow a friend's baby gate instead of closing my bedroom door. I am in a 1 bedroom apt for 4 more mths and shutting the door made me feel claustrophobic.

I use "Complete" to clean up after the accidents. It seems to work really well because I have a real sensitive nose to that pet urine smell.

Good luck!

[Midget]

My main question is: how do people who work full-time manage to potty train a dog? So many articles I've read say you need to keep the dog with you at all times, but for the vast majority of us, that's simply not possible. We do the best we can... our lives have pretty much revolved around her and her elimination for the past two weeks, and so far we have not seem much progress at all.

I have the exact same problem. I simply cant be home every single day and all time and no tips for potty training for full time workers. I also live alone so there is noone to supervise her while im gone. I thought about asking a friend to take her on walks but i dont trust their training techniques so i prefer having pee and poop inside till she gets a bit older then a dog that pulls and worse in the long run.

I read about the crate training but i still do find it cruel cause i work 7-8 hourse a day. At first i tried tieing her to avoid potty indoors but ofcourse one day she had to go and the poor thing was sitting in her poop for who knows how many hours :/
So i leave her in my apartment and she narrowed the potty spots down to 2, thank god the 1st one is in the bathroom. As for my carpet,well i didnt make the odor remedy good, so i will clean it properly this time to try to make her go to only the bathroom at least.

Should i use a crate?should i go back to tiieng?I tried to make a room for her in the house but she jumped over it and stayed without water all day so never did that again.Should i try to make the "fortress" higher?

Big question is this: I thought about taking time off work but i only can take 1 week. She is now around 2,5 months old and still eating 3 times a day so i thought "i cant handle this effectivley". I decided to take the week off when she is a bit older and just try to put up with the indoor poop. On the other hand of course i know im "learning" my dog to go indoors and will have to correct that later which will be more hard but i really dont know what else to do:/

Skeeter's mom, obviously i cant help you but i hope my questions will get some answers that will

[emmabeth]

Honestly - you hire a dog walker, you take time off (even unpaid), you come home lunchtimes, you bribe a neighbour.... or you dont get a puppy when you work full time. It is a priviledge, for those lucky enough OR those who have made sacrifices (i have... i earn far less at home than i would going out to work... but to me thats worth it) to have puppies.

I know folk who waited until they retired to have a dog, or people who take on a rescued older dog that is already house trained.

There are ways round it, they involve waiting, not getting something you want, paying out more money to a walker or sitter...

For those of you with puppies already, the chances are you wll get there with the house training in the end. Be vigilant and try to prevent mistakes when you ARE there, hoepfully the day will come when your dog can last as long as you are out at work for. Dont have carpets, and you cant get mad if you come home and there is poop/pee on the floor. Expect house training to take months and months, and quite possibly not have a fully housetriained dog when the pup is 8 months or even a year old.

There isnt a magic solution for this - puppies need to pee and poo many times a day, if you arent there, its going to be done on your floor.

[Midget]

Honestly - you hire a dog walker, you take time off (even unpaid), you come home lunchtimes, you bribe a neighbour.... or you dont get a puppy when you work full time. It is a priviledge, for those lucky enough OR those who have made sacrifices (i have... i earn far less at home than i would going out to work... but to me thats worth it) to have puppies.

I do agree with you . Fortunantly i have 4 days off at this time of year so untill i go down to 2 or 1 she will be housetrained hopefully. I will try to find a trustfull friend to walk her but chances are pretty low.

For those of you with puppies already, the chances are you wll get there with the house training in the end. Be vigilant and try to prevent mistakes when you ARE there, hoepfully the day will come when your dog can last as long as you are out at work for. Dont have carpets, and you cant get mad if you come home and there is poop/pee on the floor. Expect house training to take months and months, and quite possibly not have a fully housetriained dog when the pup is 8 months or even a year old.

There isnt a magic solution for this - puppies need to pee and poo many times a day, if you arent there, its going to be done on your floor.

I am correcting her and walking her when i am at home. When i catch her ready to go, sniffing the floor and whining a bit i immidiantly take her out and praise her if she does go out(which is not often :/). She prefers to go inside.When we are on walks she start whining , so i take her hom, she runs to her spots and starts sniffing so then i take her out again and again and again. I think im doing it right, there is just not too much sucsess for me to feel very good about it thats why im doubting myself.

As for the carpet, well i was planning to buy a new one before i got her, thank god i didnt, i will when she is fully potty trined. Till then i dont get mad at her going on the carpet, if i was at home and had to go and no toilet was around i probably do the same at her age xD So no madness is transffered to the pup if i just walk in to find the poop already there. I just show her im not happy. Like "awww come on Ziggy, i dont like that :/"

Thanks for the support guys, im just a new puppy friend and have all the insicurity that comes with it, thats why my questions are all over the place xD

[bmbutler]

Emmabeth,

I agree with you. Taking in a puppy is a huge responsibility and if your schedule does not allow for one, wait until it does. It has been challenging with my Misty (had her for 3 mths now) but each day is better. We just threw our first weekend without an accident!

I don't believe a crate is cruel. How is tying her up not cruel??? I got a crate with plenty of room for Misty to move around and while she did not want to go in it initially, she goes in now when I tell her "let's go to Misty's house" and make it a cool and safe place. I keep her pallet clean. There have even been a couple of times where she has gone in it on her own and laid down. I take her right out when I come home and get up in the mornings to go potty.

Midget, sorry to be blunt, but what I do find cruel is letting a dog sit in its own poo for hours. How can you live in a home that is continually peed and pooped in? Unsanitary!

Sorry, but maybe you shouldn't have gotten a pet right now.

[djordan]

My question is she peeing or marking? Has any other dog ever gone potty in the house. If so there still may be an odor that she can smell. If not all you can really do is keep a closer eye on her.

a crate is safer than tying...pets love a place that is theirs. We have 5 dogs and 3 are crated when we leave, but when we are home I leave the crate doors open and they go in there by themselves to nap. It makes them feel secure. Tying up a dog can get tangled up and choke. Crates are great..

[Midget]

Midget, sorry to be blunt, but what I do find cruel is letting a dog sit in its own poo for hours. How can you live in a home that is continually peed and pooped in? Unsanitary!

Sorry, but maybe you shouldn't have gotten a pet right now.

No, see you've got it wrong, i did the tying thing once and of course i find it cruel,it was just following some people's advice.Wrong decision.
Im just trying stuff to see what suits my pup and me. And poop isnt all around im cleaning constantly and was trying to narrow her down to only the toilet.

After alot of visits here im getting better advice and better results from my pup. I am now trying to make her a spot in my home while im away. No tying, no crate.Fences.

And yes i find crates cruel as i find tying cruel. And trust me, anyone can make tying a nice and cool place as the crate can be.

I wish i had a backyard to keep her in and yes my home isnt the best for a dog. My mother suggested to leave the pup with her and my brother whom have a yard...wonderful idea!!... but that means her being tied up on a tree all day...No thank you.

Unfortuanantly, in my country, if i give her away, she will end up either as i said above tied to a tree all her life, in a kennel(really bad ones) cause the new "owners" would be bored and not patient to train her or worse, back on the street again.(although does sound better then other 2..)
edit: if i didnt take Ziggy in, her next choice was, again, to be tied on a tree in a village with another unhappy dog.
I took her in for a few days first to take her to a vet, to wait for someone to decide if they want her and last to see if i can cope.
Of course the ego part of me wanting a dog badly kicks in but ofcourse i have been wanting a dog my whole life and im 30,but never got one cause nothing was right.

Ziggy came into my life by accident,but the best accident i ever had.She is a recued from the streets pup.
Not everything in my life is right now but 90% of it is.
So i do prefer cleaning my a** off, cutting days from work(ofcourse non-paid) but happy cause i will raise a happy pup.

Thank you actually for being blunt,its the only way andit always make people think more about their decisions.
Trust me,if i see Ziggy or me is not making it, i will do my best to find her a happy home:)

Thank you again.

[Nettle]

Do you have a back yard? A kennel and run in the yard (nothing like an indoor kennel) is better than pup getting used to using the house as a bathroom, and at least the sleeping area is separate, which will stand you in good stead for potty-training in the house.

[Mattie]

Midget, can you make a section of your house puppy proof and leave her there, the bathroom is good for this, it is small enough but not to small. She will toilet in there instead of all over your house.

As she is only 2.5 months old she may not be mature enough to go all day, puppies like babies need their bodies to mature in order to hold it, until they do you can't train them, all you can do is hope to catch them before they toilet.

7 to 8 hours a day on her own is a very long time for a pup this young, she needs more interaction with people and more life experiences. Sometimes there is an old person who lives on their own who will be happy to look after her during the day for you.

[emmabeth]

Dont be even 'sad' or disappointed with her when you come home and find there is a mess.

She cant link your manner/behaviour with her action as it was too long ago (shed only link it if it was immediate, as it occurred and even then, the chances are shed learn not to potty in front of you, NOT 'not to potty in th ehouse'!!).

What can very easily happen if you come home and are all 'hey hi..... ohhhhhh oh noooo' is that teh dog associates not the action.... but you coming home with you being sad/unhappy/not so great to be around.

So that can and does cause soem dogs to worry about being left, whether they link the reaction to the mess or not. The dog that doesnt link it to the mess worries about your return. The dog that links it with the mess worries after he/she has made a mess even more (wont stop her making the mess though! when you gotta go!)....

So now, not only can she not wait long enough BUT being left is becoming a big deal full of worry about your return, the presence of mess becomes another cue to worry and be anxious. Of course the more anxious a dog is, the more likely it is to make a mess when left!

So when you come home, whether there is a mess or not, act the same, low key, happy to see you lets go outside - then you clean up the mess in a neutral/lalala lets just sort this out' way with NO sad/disappointed/angry/how could you etc etc at all...

[Midget]

Midget, can you make a section of your house puppy proof and leave her there, the bathroom is good for this, it is small enough but not to small. She will toilet in there instead of all over your house.

7 to 8 hours a day on her own is a very long time for a pup this young, she needs more interaction with people and more life experiences. Sometimes there is an old person who lives on their own who will be happy to look after her during the day for you.

Im trying to make the section at the toilet as you said. The good thing is that the first times she went potty was in the toilet(how lucky am i?)and goes there most of the times, she just has one other spot and that unfortunanlty is a spot on my carpet. I cleand it twice with the remedy thing ,after i read about it, and it does seem to work but i think i missed some spots cause inbetween the 2 cleanings she found a "hole" and went.

Today we had a double sucess on peeing outside!Hurray!!
She actually looked foward to it too!At the moment im waiting for her que to go out and poop.

One more question. I agree with the too much time alone, although i do try to fill up the gap when i am on walks, bringing her to my workplace where there are alot of people, and she finds alot of dogs on our way.She is very friendly and has had no problems with any dogs. Except 2 large ones, where she actually peed herself when she saw them, although they were really friendly. I felt bad for her but it was kinda funny..Big beautiful dogs by the way xD

Darn. I can go on and on about Ziggy until it gets anoyying.So back to the question:
I only know two friends of mine who actually have the time and will to look after her but they each have a dog themselves and i dont like their manners :/
So should i leave her anyways with the friends i have even if they may teach her bad habits? or just let her hang out with them anyways?

So when you come home, whether there is a mess or not, act the same, low key, happy to see you lets go outside - then you clean up the mess in a neutral/lalala lets just sort this out' way with NO sad/disappointed/angry/how could you etc etc at all...

Thanks for the heads up, i will stop doing it.

Can you guys imagine most people ive asked,in my country, advised me to put her face in the poop and show her where to do it? Even i knew that was stupid. Next time i hear that i swear im gonna ask if their parents did that to them when they were babies...

Thanks again guys, i'll keep an update.

@Skeeter's mom: I hope all these answers are helping you as they help me cause i just hogged your thread...

[Skeeter's Mom]

@Skeeter's mom: I hope all these answers are helping you as they help me cause i just hogged your thread...

Eh, I'm still holding out. All I've been told so far is that I'm a horrible person for adopting a dog when I work full time (like about 85% of the U.S. adult population under 65).

She was set to be killed at the pound and I wanted to save her from such an awful fate. Yes, if I could take unpaid time off of work to housetrain her, that would be fantastic, but then I wouldn't be able to pay my bills. I do what I can with what I have... my original question was in reference to what people do when they have to work. If I'm an awful person for working and saving a dog's life, that's fine. We can accept that all across the board. Now, at this point, I am researching what to do about the situation (aside from the obvious, which is getting rid of her, which is not an option).

I apologize if I sound snotty or ungrateful... that's not my intent.

[emmabeth]

It is one of those things, you arent a bad person for taking on a dog when you also have to work, yes, most people do have to work!

I am incredibly fortunate in that i have no mortgage or rent to pay, and my partner is happy to go out to work whilst i earn a small income from home.

To do this of course we dont take holidays, dont eat out, dont GO out, dont have a nicely decorated house etc etc, and in the days before my OH... i had less dogs, and even less money!

I have already outlined what you do.

You do the best you canw hilst you are home, y ou take her out frequently and you teach her that it is rewarding to go outside because you are there and will reward her whenever she poops/pees out there.

Indoors, you prevent her from having the chance to make a mess when you are there by keeping her with you and in your sight. When you are not there, you attempt to teach her to hold it by using a crate, by having a dog sitter or dog walker come by a few times a day to take her out and continue the training you are doign when you are home.

And finally, you accept that where, if you were home 24/7 it might take you six weeks to house train, because you are not, it may take you six months.

Other options are to have a doggy door, or a secure outdoor kennel (or secure outdoor back yard). None of these are without their snags though, as dogs unsupervised outdoors are at a higher risk of theft, injury, poisoning, and are more likely to do things that annoy the neighbours such as barking, aggressive behaviour at fencelines etc.

I do appreciate that it is hard when you have to go out to work - and it is great that you took in a dog who otherwise would potentially have been put down or waited in kennels a long time.

The basic bottom line is though, house training requires consistancy and vigilance, preventing mistakes and encouraging the correct habit to form. This can be quickly and easily done if you are present. If you are not, it is not quick and it is not easy.