Please Help Me With My Puppy!

[teacher]

Hi everyone,

I have an 8 month maltese darling boy. He has been desexed a few months ago.

He mainly stays outside (as it is summer here) with his kennel on our big decking area. He is home alone for the mornings and I come home at lunchtime. The plan was that he was going to be an inside dog. At night he gets put into the garage in a large pen we made him with his bed and a few toys.

My problem is that he toilets inside. Mainly poopee. An example is:

I got home yesterday lunchtime. Went outside and told him to pee (he did immediately) then told him to poo (he did this immediately).

A couple of hours later I took him for a walk and he once again poo and pee'd.

As it is summer our doors to the outside need to be wide open - it's so hot at the moment. Because of this he can wander inside and outsdie as he wants, although I tend to tell him to go outside. However, I cannot watch him 100% of the time. There are times that he will come inside and just lay down in the shade somewhere - under the table - and be happy. But he then sneaks to the bathroom/bedroom/toilet and does a poo and sometimes a wee.

This was a problem when he was little and so has spent ALOT of his life outside on the decking, only coming in sometimes when watched. However, the past few months he has been quite good and we have not had any accidents.

Now this week he has done it three days in a row

I am frustrated and SICK TO DEATH of this.

I totally feel that he KNOWS what he is dong.... he had already pood twice yesterday afternoon and STILL did it inside.

He is very intelligent. If he knows I want him outside but sneaks inside he will zoom to his "blanket" inside because he knows I'm happy with him on the blanket. (but doesn't stay there when told to!)

I just want to know

- can I fix this?

- will he every become a reliable inside dog? - everyone else I know have dogs just chilling-out in the house no problems

- what have we done wrong? Even now I will get someone to toilet him before he comes inside, but when yo do this and he STILL poos inside it becomes annoying.

I don't have a crate - but I do have a airline type of carrier plastic container. But I can't imagine putting him in there while he's inside - it looks like torture. I like those big wire ones that are open, but I don't have one of those.

Please help.

[Odin-Genie]

He is not doing it deliberately. Probably he can still smell his poo/pee which makes him think it's ok to go at the same spot, particularly when it's very hot outside. My dog was the same as a puppy, he hated going out when it was hot or it rained. He is perfectly toilet trained now.

What you should do is get some Urine Off spray, or any other pet specific sprays that take off the smell. Normal household cleaners won't work. I had tried vinegar as well, but that didn't work either. Spray it generously in the area he has had accidents at. then encourage him to go outside, and when he does his stuff outside, say "good boy" and give him a treat. It takes patience, and lots of cleaning. But it works in the end. I can now have my dogs sleep on the bedroom carpet without worrying about any accidents.

[Nekhbet]

He is very intelligent. If he knows I want him outside but sneaks inside he will zoom to his "blanket" inside because he knows I'm happy with him on the blanket. (but doesn't stay there when told to!)

He is intelligent but he is also a confused little pup. If he wants to spend time inside with you he should, he's a toy breed made to live around people! Sounds like you're getting frustrated and he is not understanding exactly what is required from him. Dogs do not understand english you have teach them what you expect when you say a word. If you say 'Bed' then put him in his bed with a treat for the afternoon and praise him for staying there. This dog needs more encouragement when he is doing the right thing then being told off for doing the wrong.

Sounds like you have not been 100% consistent with the toilet training and he doesnt see inside the house as you would - 'inside' as a home/den and outside as toilet. Also do you free feed or feed at set meal times? You can usually predict when a dog needs to go if you know when its eaten so maybe decrease the meal sizes or how many he gets per day.

Also clean his regular spots. There are products like Urine Off, Biozet laundry detergent which eats away the actual smell. The scent lingers in tile grout, carpet/underlay, between floorboards etc so he is attracted to them again. Remove the smell and block off his access, retrain him and PRAISE when he does something right!

But he then sneaks to the bathroom/bedroom/toilet and does a poo and sometimes a wee.

Shut the doors or buy some child gates so he cannot get to places you cannot see him. He sneaks about because he has been chastised but does not fully understand why - he may think its simply for needing to go to the toilet so he sneaks away. When you correct a dog you immediately have to provide the alternative expected behavior for it. So if you see him sniffing around 'come on, outside!!!' take him out and encourage him to go sniff for toilet outside. He probably also thinks that once outside he wont be allowed back in where he wants to be so is hesitant to go out. Dont rouse a dog for wanting to be inside with you.

I don't have a crate - but I do have a airline type of carrier plastic container. But I can't imagine putting him in there while he's inside - it looks like torture.

Dont put human perceptions on the dog. You would be suprised if you put this in your bedroom with blanket and a chew toy he would happily be in there to sleep at night. Start with small increments, even give him some of his food in there. My dogs bolt at an open crate they love them!

[Erny]

At night he gets put into the garage in a large pen we made him with his bed and a few toys.

Did he toilet in the pen?

[LeeJane]

I am not super experience with toilet training but pretty successful with my 12 wks old puppy so far.

You just have to make sure you take the dog out every hour or so to make sure he does it outside the house? Then he will get the idea that he can only do it outside.

[teacher]

Thank you all for your replies. I will try to answer some questions to make things clearer:

- If I take him outside to toilet he often times doesn't want to go and will just sit down. I try again later or take him for a walk so he will do it.

- consistency: well, he is outside all morning then I am home from lunchtime onwards. I know he toilets outside (I collect it all!) so I presumed he knew that outside on the grass was the right place to toilet.

...

when I am home in the afternoon I toilet him outside and then let him inside. I don't unerstand how a little 8mth old maltese can poo when he just poo'd twice an hour ago!!!!! (I guess that's where I got the idea that he does it on purpose.

- when he makes a mistake it is cleaned and I spray well (good area around the spot) with an odour remover (Oderex). No household cleaners used.

- when I toilet him outside a always say "GOOD BOY!!!! POOS, GOODBOY" - is this enough encouragement or does he need a treat too?

- we have 5 children at home and he is LOVED TO BITS by them all. They walk him, toilet him, play with him. He gets so much love and attention from 4pm onwards and weekends its great

but

when he comes inside I ask the children to just leave him to wander around and not hype him up. I want him to not pee in excitement or become rough and rowdy inside. This seems to work well. When outside they run with him and play catch etc.

- He has NEVER EVER pood or weed in his night pen. He goes in there around 9pm and gets up at 7.30ish.

Feeding:

well it started routinely with breakfast, and dinner but it seems that he stopped eating breakfast. I should have taken it away from him until next meal, but seeing it was 7pm at night I felt like all day with no food was mean, so he now just has food in his bowl to graze on all day.

It is now 1.30pm and he still hasn't eaten his breakfast (always has PLENTY of water).

I am finding this hard, it is our first ever pet.

All my family are farmers - who have dogs that live outside.

their idea of training a farm dog is NOT to pander to it. If it poos rub it's nose in it, give it a wack.

I HVE NOT done this and won't do it but I'm just getting a little frustrated. I don't know another person who has an 8mth old puppy having accidents inside. All look at me and say "oh no, mine stopped that at 3mths etc."

Presently I am letting him inside, but only on his "inside bed" which is a rug and he is tied on 2m lead so he can't wander the house.

When he is outside I have gates up

but, I do want to move-on and let him become an inside dog...I'm just stuck for knowing HOW to do this as I thought I was doing everything right.

Huh, please feel free to teach me!!!

Thanks alot for listening

[tramissa]

I think the biggest problem is that he's never BEEN toilet trained. It doesn't sound like you have done the training to date - just expect pup to know, even though he's pretty much been an outside dog all his life so far.

Of course he poos on the grass when he's out there all morning. There's nowhere else for him to go. But as far as he knows (because he has not been taught otherwise), inside is the same as outside - it's just another place he spends time.

You really need to go back to basics and pretend he's an 8 week old puppy again. Every hour, on the hour, outside to go toilet. Wait 5 - 10 mins. No playing, no interaction. Just stand and say 'go toilet' or whatever command you want to use. If he does nothing, bring him back in.

He should NOT be unsupervised in the house. You need to stay on top of it and watch him every minute so you can react when he starts sniffing etc. I found a really good way to train my adult (who had been kenneled) was to put him on a leash and attach the leash to me. This way, he was always close to me. It also had added benefits to his other behaviours

Otherwise, you can use a crate (your airline crate is fine - dogs don't see them as a 'cage' or cruel. It is their 'den' and they love it - but it should be a place where the kids or anyone else can't disturb him. There are many threads about crate training on here - suggest you search and read them if you decide to go this way, don't just chuck him in there :rolleyes:. Crates are invaluable - not just for toilet training, but lots of other things as well, especially for an indoors dog.

Don't yell at him, and most importantly, never reprimand if you do not catch him in the act. He will have no idea why he is getting in trouble. It sounds like he thinks he's getting in trouble for going to the toilet at all, which is why he 'sneaks' away.

It's a pain trying to toilet train an adult, but it can be done with persistance and patience.

Edited February 11, 2009 by tramissa

[teacher]

OK I hear what you're saying but this is where I get confused _

when he came to us as a puppy we DID toilet train him, well, by that I mean we did what we were told would work - now I question if we did it long enough or right. Here is what we did:

Upon waking in the morning we would take him right out on the grass and stand there rain, hail or shine and say "do poos" and we would stand there with him on a lead until he did it. When he did it we praised him. We did this maybe 2hrly - after every sleep, feed, wake etc. In fact it felt like we did nothing else for the first few months! But we have never gotten to the point where I feel like I can trust him inside. (But right after Xmas he seemed to be fine inside - no toileting inside at all. Now in the past week it has started again.)

If he did not do it we would go inside and try again in 30 minutes. We were consistent!

But we found that even when he did a poo outside he would again poo inside when we weren't watching.

I now think we should have watched closer - it's just a REALLY BUSY household with lots going on...but now I see that I am going to tie him to me!!!!! and watch him!

Also I guess I presumed that he would be going all morning when he needed to while he was home alone outside. But now I'm finding it interesting that when I come home, I go outside to hang the washing on the line and I say to him "go poos" and he runs straight away and does poos and wees. I wonder if he holds on waiting for me to tell him to do it???

HaVE we missed something in the toilet training??

We certainly stopped standing outside with him telling him to poo becasue we figured he was going poos when he needed to as it was there on the lawn to prove it!

Am I missing the boat???

[LeeJane]

AGAIN, i am not the best dog trainer but I know you SHOULDN'T leave food for him whole day, if he doesn't eat it, take away after 10-15 minutes and only feed him when his next meal is due.

As for pooing/peeing outside, I suppose he had no choice in the morning because he was left outside so he could only do it outside? I take my puppy out to the garden every hour or so and she usually does it outside, 1 week later, she learned to sit at the door to signal us to let her out. Though I admit accidents did happen when we totally neglected her and did not realise she needed to go out, that's our fault

You should praise him when he does it outside but do not get too excited (as I was told by the trainer), because if you do, the dog will think you are freaky; what's so excited about poo/pee? When my girl does it, I would just say good girl, I dont offer her treat coz i am afraid she will pee/poo inside just to get treat.

Again, I am just speaking from personal experience..

Good luck!

[Sandra777]

Definitely don't leave food down all day - this makes toilet training really really hard. Feed morning and night and he'll poop morning and night, feed all day and he'll poop all day. He's 8 months old, with most toy dogs this is virtually full grown (physically speaking), if you believe in feeding once a day he's nearly ready to be fed once a day, not eating until 7pm won't exactly kill him. He's not a "baby" any more! You could try changing his diet to something which will leave less residue so he doesn't need to poop so much - raw feeding does this but there are low-residue dry foods too. Not sure they're recommended for young dogs but you can research that yourself

Good luck, very frustrating to have a dog you think you did everything right with!

Edited February 11, 2009 by Sandra777

[Nekhbet]

I think the free feeding has made you come unstuck cut him down to two meals a day, if he doesnt eat breakfast then reoffer it for dinner. Small meals too. He wont need to poop as often.

Dont listen to other people when it comes to how fast toilet training should happen. It makes you feed REALLY bad but hey everyone is learning here. I know plenty of people still plugging on or retraining older dogs so you're not the only one on the planet with this problem. Get the kids involved too with him, if they're old enough to talk get them to play with him, take him outside etc and help keep an eye on him. They last thing you need is a heap of kids and a dog tied to your waist!

Also do you think he understands he is allowed to freely walk in and out? Do you ever put him outside when you are upset with him? Maybe he sees going outside as a bit of a punishment at times and is reluctant to just take himself out. That and another common problem is the dog has given signals before about needing to poo, his signals have been ignored and he just can't hang on any more but he knows he gets in trouble for doing it out where you can see it. I know its frustrating BUT at the same time it wont be forever.

I would start with leaving the door open and letting him only have the room near the back door unless he's on a leash. that way he will start to get the idea in/out and I go poo outside.

[PuddleDuck]

I always find an "umbilical" lead - where you put the dog on the lead and attach the lead to your belt when he is inside, is a great way to toilet train - if he is right next to you then you are much more likely to see the signs before he goes to the toilet and can rush him outside. And he wont be able to "sneak away" from you.

Also - what are you feeding him? Some diets actually make a dog poop more than others. It might a good idea to look at his diet and see if a change makes a difference?

[teacher]

OK, he is on the Hills science food for puppies (small bites).

I have switched back to the routine feed at breakfast (if not eaten in 15minutes take it away) and about 6pm at night. (same deal, 15 minutes then take it away).

I notice he is now eating his food right away! Yay.

I see that what everyone is saying about him not being trained - when I get home at lunch time I tell him to toilet and he does. Now he's been outside all morning but obviously is holding on and doesn't go until I tell him to.

So, can you paint me a picture of how this progresses.

- right now we are taking him out to toilet regularly. The doors are always open so he can wander in and out, so he never shows us that he wants to go out. Obviously if he sniffs around I get him outside quick. (i know the signs!)

how long do we continue this for....do you just stop it one day and test him? Do we have to wait until he starts whining at a door to go out for toileting>>?

[LeeJane]

OK, he is on the Hills science food for puppies (small bites).

I have switched back to the routine feed at breakfast (if not eaten in 15minutes take it away) and about 6pm at night. (same deal, 15 minutes then take it away).

I notice he is now eating his food right away! Yay.

I see that what everyone is saying about him not being trained - when I get home at lunch time I tell him to toilet and he does. Now he's been outside all morning but obviously is holding on and doesn't go until I tell him to.

So, can you paint me a picture of how this progresses.

- right now we are taking him out to toilet regularly. The doors are always open so he can wander in and out, so he never shows us that he wants to go out. Obviously if he sniffs around I get him outside quick. (i know the signs!)

how long do we continue this for....do you just stop it one day and test him? Do we have to wait until he starts whining at a door to go out for toileting>>?

My puppy now will sit at the door when she wants to pee/poo, but I still take her out every hour or so. I guess I will keep doing it till I am confident that she will ask to go out everytime she has the urge?

I would like to know when to stop too

[Nekhbet]

you stop when the pup definately has the idea. You wean yourself off slowly though so you both understand what is going on. DOnt just stop dead, the pup may regress to accidents.

it takes as long as it takes, and until you feel the pup REALLY understands toilet training.

[BigBen]

OK, he is on the Hills science food for puppies (small bites).

I have switched back to the routine feed at breakfast (if not eaten in 15minutes take it away) and about 6pm at night. (same deal, 15 minutes then take it away).

I notice he is now eating his food right away! Yay.

I see that what everyone is saying about him not being trained - when I get home at lunch time I tell him to toilet and he does. Now he's been outside all morning but obviously is holding on and doesn't go until I tell him to.

So, can you paint me a picture of how this progresses.

- right now we are taking him out to toilet regularly. The doors are always open so he can wander in and out, so he never shows us that he wants to go out. Obviously if he sniffs around I get him outside quick. (i know the signs!)

how long do we continue this for....do you just stop it one day and test him? Do we have to wait until he starts whining at a door to go out for toileting>>?

Well done for changing his feeding regime... Now close the door! Ben was not reliable until it was time to close the doors and put the aircon on... and I think the fact that he could walk in and out as he pleased made inside and outside seem the same to him. I was very frustrated...

[Christina]

You have enough advice on the toilet training but

I would not leave any dog in an airline crate overnight. Too small, cruel IMO.

Spend $20 at Bunnings on a wire compost crate. Its 4 metal panels you join together with plastic garden ties and you have a nice puppy pen for him every night.