Driving Us Nuts

[moggy]

Sophie is 4 months old and we are still persevering with the toilet training. For some reason she only wees on the carpet inside.

We are taking her out and she does wees and poos and we praise her. She has never weed on our vinyl and tiled floors, BUT if she gets anywhere on the carpet she wees. So we have the lounge room and bedrooms baracaded during the day and in the evening she sits with us in the lounge so we can watch her. Usually she sleeps all evening on my husbands knee. She sleeps with us at night and has never had an accident in bed. She sleeps through and we take her out in the morning. No problem there.

I was prompted to write this post when my husband and I were in the study (carpeted) for about 3 minutes and when we turned to go out, here is a little puddle on the carpet. Grrrrrrrrr!

Does she have a carpet fetish?????? lol

Moggy

[Miranda]

Most dogs prefer to urinate on something absorbent, no help I know, but that's usually why they prefer carpet to tiles.

[ravensmyst00]

What are you using to clean up the messes with?

Certain cleaners (ie pine o clean, ajax spray and wipe, etc) smell like urine to a dog and they tend to go back to those areas time and time again.

Try cleaning the areas with plain white vinegar and see if that helps deter the problem

[Marshie49]

I agree with the above in regards to certain cleaners, you can also try dishwashing liquid for cleaning up the carpet as when it dries it does not leave any odour behind.

Keep up with the training as sometimes it just takes time to really set in, have you tried the training pads, they are scented so that once the dog uses it they encourage them back to use again and just gives another area that the pup can use when inside.

[Poodle wrangler]

How frustrating .

Same as Miranda- they prefer absorbent areas- most dogs will wee on grass rather than a path, for example.

My only suggestion is vigilance and perhaps take her out a bit more often as you would a younger pup?

Ignore accidents inside, otherwise she'll just hide from you to wee and poo.

She's still quite young, so persevere. Sounds like she's actually doing pretty well, overall

[percyk]

It's annoying as anything, isn't it ! lol

However, at 4 months she is still very young. Toilet training can be an ongoing thing - sometimes it takes months and even up to a year. SO take heart and dont give her the opportunity to be away from you. Even when you are taking her outside, make sure you have some control over her because she can squat right behind you as you are opening the door to let her out.

It's all very common. Make sure you see that she has gone to the toilet - dont just assume that she has even though she has been outside for a while.

The pee on absorbent surfaces because that way the scent remains 'ingrained' and thats just behaviour thats been passed down from their genes of the wild. No use leaving a scent if the rain is going to promptly wash it away!

As others have suggeste, do clean the spot well ( I use Biozet the laundry powder because it supposedly breaks down all the components of the urine - even the one that we cant detect with our comparatively pathetic noses!)

Good luck... she is a dog and she will fail many times but never in the way we fail each other, hey!