Saigo's Pee Pee problem
Saigo is now 4 months and a week and he is still not 100% potty trained.
I started trying to crate train him but he would throw crazy spazzes in the crate (even all night) until we let him out. He ended up soiling inside the crate anyways (even when we gave him free access in/out of it). We tried to make the crate fun and appealing, but he wouldn't even go near it. We suspect that this has to do with his experience on the plane.
So we got rid of the crate and gave him access to a few rooms in the house where we could watch him and he had his designated pee area with pee pads. This is going well so far and this is the situation now. He is great using the pads when we're not home (no more than 4 hours at a time). He doesn't pee/poo at night and can hold it from bedtime to morning, so from 11pm-7am. (We basically empty him out for the night but he does have a pee when we wakes up)
The problem is when we are home. Sometimes he'll run into the other room to pee even though we just took him out.
When we do take him out, he'll compartmentalize his pee - I don't think he's marking his spot, but sometimes he doesn't let is all out. I live in a conservation area so my house is surrounded by forests/creeks/all kinds of animals. I take him potty on the trails and he will take 2-3 smaller pees along the way, then we go back into the house. Twice, in the middle of chewing on his bone, he just got up and peed next to his bed, while we were looking at him.
We tried the bell method but he's not even attempting to try to learn this in the least bit.
We're not sure what else we can do, and I'm a bit worried since he's already 4 months old. He averages about 1 "accident" a day. I might try a wire crate, but the problem I'm not sure if this will help because the problem isn't that he can't hold it - he doesn't know that he should. He thinks it's okay to pee in the house. And he's also not treat motivated at all.
Thanks for reading and any advice would be hugely appreciated!
:x
I started trying to crate train him but he would throw crazy spazzes in the crate (even all night) until we let him out. He ended up soiling inside the crate anyways (even when we gave him free access in/out of it). We tried to make the crate fun and appealing, but he wouldn't even go near it. We suspect that this has to do with his experience on the plane.
So we got rid of the crate and gave him access to a few rooms in the house where we could watch him and he had his designated pee area with pee pads. This is going well so far and this is the situation now. He is great using the pads when we're not home (no more than 4 hours at a time). He doesn't pee/poo at night and can hold it from bedtime to morning, so from 11pm-7am. (We basically empty him out for the night but he does have a pee when we wakes up)
The problem is when we are home. Sometimes he'll run into the other room to pee even though we just took him out.
When we do take him out, he'll compartmentalize his pee - I don't think he's marking his spot, but sometimes he doesn't let is all out. I live in a conservation area so my house is surrounded by forests/creeks/all kinds of animals. I take him potty on the trails and he will take 2-3 smaller pees along the way, then we go back into the house. Twice, in the middle of chewing on his bone, he just got up and peed next to his bed, while we were looking at him.
We tried the bell method but he's not even attempting to try to learn this in the least bit.
We're not sure what else we can do, and I'm a bit worried since he's already 4 months old. He averages about 1 "accident" a day. I might try a wire crate, but the problem I'm not sure if this will help because the problem isn't that he can't hold it - he doesn't know that he should. He thinks it's okay to pee in the house. And he's also not treat motivated at all.
Thanks for reading and any advice would be hugely appreciated!
:x
Comments
And frankly, I still don't trust him when we go into petsmart and home depot. He has a track record of marking. He even shat in Home Depot; he had to have been like, over a year old, that bastard. lol
RE: The problem is when we are home. Sometimes he'll run into the other room to pee even though we just took him out.
My guess is your house is much bigger than mine, and by the time he remembers he needs to go pee, it's a too late for him to run off to another room to do his business or for you to take him out. Meichan had separation anxiety and soiled her crate when locked in, so we didn't try to use the crate for potty training, either. Similar to Saigo, she had access to pee pads inside, but no room to roam w/out supervision. So a few things you might want to try:
1. Consider spending most of your time home in a specific room or two so he firmly establishes that part of the house as his den, and restrict the rest of the house where he has free access to. Only leave pee pads in his den, so he either will go in a specific room or ask to go outside
2. If you don't want to restrict his access, you might also want to try Dr. Sophia Yin's umbilical cord method, I'd totally would've done this with Meichan had I read this book before she was house trained
http://drsophiayin.com/perfectpuppy
Make sure you use a really good cleaning product to get the pee smell out too, especially if you have porous flooring like concrete or tile. You might want to line the rooms he has access to with a tarp, then a layer of linoleum/sheet vinyl flooring, and then pee pad. This is the product we used to get the pee smell out, works wonders compared to Nature's Miracle
http://www.antiickypoo.com/
Good luck!
I think Oskar had his last peeing in the house incident around 5 months. When they finally get it, you kind of forget how long it's been. But now Oskar is the pee police: he gets really concerned if another dog pees in the house, and he comes and "tells" us right away with a concerned look and then running back to the site of the accident.
So I wouldn't worry about your handsome boy just yet!
If you are at home, he should be watched ALL of the time. Don't allow him to sneak away to pee where you can't see. Tethering is great for this, or crate/ex pen if you can't pay full attention. When you are away he should be confined, not only for potty training but for safety reasons as well. Take him outside on a regular basis, at 4 months every 2-3 hours is a good idea. Throw a party when he pees in the right spot. If he is still having accidents, take him out more frequently.
And this is just my opinion, but ditch the puppy pads. Most dogs find them confusing, since it essentially teaches them it's okay to go in the house.
I agree with @nekopan, if you don't plan on using the pads forever, than ditch them because in my opinion they're just an unnecessary step.
Oh and Saigo is a handsome little pup!
what do you do when you can't work from home and pup has no access outside??
I kept reading about all these people who had their dogs trained by 12 weeks, etc and I was worried that he'd never be trained! It's good to know he's still on track.
It's been 3 days and he hasn't had an "accident" yet.
Instead of leashing him and taking him out for a "walk" to go pee pee, I just let him run out, pee on the lawn and come back in. No leash and he empties out.
So far this has been going well !
Thanks for replying. Our local doggy daycares do not admit pups until they are 4 months old (and have their rabies vaccination by state law). So between 2 month and 4 month, we used pee pads and I came home during lunch to clean up the mess [plus she had separation anxiety, we just didn't realize it at the time]. It was the most stressful time of our dog ownership. Once she was old enough to attend daycare, she also had fewer accidents in the house and didn't want to use the pee pads [I figured the other dogs must have taught her to go outside]
So if we get another young pup down the road, we'll go w/ the sitter route. Thanks.
He's doing really well. Pee only on pads and outdoors and no poopie accidents for 10 days now.