Re-house training a dog
 

My friend has a dog that's more or less house trained. When it's unable to go outside due to weather or other reasons, it knows to do it's business on a specific mat in the house. However, when it's left alone it tends to go to the washroom basically where ever it wants. As a result, it's hard to teach the dog "no" when it's being shown after the fact. It's not that big of a deal to clean up after it, but I'd like to be able to have it properly trained... and I'm not quite sure what steps to go through in order to do this.

Any suggestions?

My dog was like this too during the training period. It slowly dawned on me that her accidents were because of anxiety when I left the house. The way I dealt with it:

1. When I got home and there was poo or pee, I would place her nose near the mess and get mad at her
2. When I left the house, I learned how to say goodbye the right way. No petting or anything loving, just a simple "Going to work, guard the house; I'll see you later" That's it.

Her accidents stopped so I attribute it to those 2 things.

I don't think you can say the same thing for all dogs. My buddy did that to his dog, and the dog became anti-social, we can't even pet him or touch him without him moving or shoving our hand away with its nose.

Dogs suppose to love belly scratch, but his dog didn't even like being scratched.

A dog can sense when you're mad, so shoving his nose and using aggressive force is not going to properly train a dog. Consult an online forum for proper training imo.

I never said it was universal, I said it was how I dealt with it. My dog is insanely well trained and social. Loves dogs and people, not so much cats and squirrels. She did have a very strict training period though, I was forceful but not aggressive, strict but not mean, and rewarding when she behaved.

Have you tried leaving a peeped on the kitchen floor? That way if they go, they go on the pad at least.

Step 1: Buy the poop cleaning spray at PetSmart. 7 bucks or something.
Step 2: Clean up good the places that were released upon with the spray.
Step 3: Leave the pee scent on the place you want him to release on. You can leave the poop but that's not recommended because it's gross for you and not very healthy for him (he might get sick). You can buy the amoniac bottle at PetSmart.
Step 4: Whenever he release on the correct spot, reward him. Praise is good enough, no need for treat.

Dogs are caving animals, they like to den up.
Crate training has worked well for my dogs.

Just don't use the crate as a time out or punishment, it's the dog's room, keep it positive and fun. The dog is your buddy.

Even though #1 isn't supposed to work because they can't associate the scolding/punishment with the crime properly, we did this as well. It took awhile, but my chihuahua eventually got to be 100% properly trained, and she is extremely happy around all humans.

+1 - this has been the norm for all of ours. When we go out, they go in their crates. When we come home, we wait for them to calm down, then they come out of the crates and go straight outside. Doing their business outside then gets them lots of praise.

Bumping this back up. The in-house "accidents" seemed to have stop for a little while but she's back to going to the washroom in the house. Hell, she was outside for the last two hours and not thirty seconds after coming back in, she takes a piss right in the hallway. I'm attributing this to the fact that she's comfortable going to the washroom inside and not outside, so I need some new ideas on how to break her of this. She has a crate that we use when she tries to attack my pittbull (he just glares at her and walks away when she does) and that seems to have petered off as of late. However, the breakdown in her previously house trained state is really starting to piss me off and I'd rather do this the right way before I get so fed up that I start punting her off the porch (I kid, of course, but it's just very frustrating that everything we've tried isn't taking thus far).

I say use the crate while gone like above poster, letting her outside when back. Then you can correct it when it does it inside. Stop with the use of peepads
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Peepads haven't been used since last year.

I'd say it's back to the crate too: anytime you're not directly interacting with her, or when you're out, she goes in the crate... when she comes out of the crate, it's straight outside, and ideally STAY out until she does her business... if you have to come in before she's done, then it's straight back to the crate, so her ONLY options will become pee in her bed, or pee outside.

And then of course, when she does do her thing, reward with lots of praise (and treats, if you use them for rewarding).

You don't use the crate for a time out or bad dog... you use it to train the dogs bladder to be held overnight and for longer duration like work time....took me two weeks MAX to house train my german shep/lab..

keep the dog in there overnight, when you wake up, straight out door, go down with the dog and watch it go to the bathroom, praise him and go back inside... it wont piss/shit it's crate unless its way too big for it, dog's are den animals and keep their own space clean as best they can...

You can't just let your dog out and expect them to automatically pee, especially if they're accustomed to peeing inside.

Going out, specifically to pee or poo, especially if you know they're due, should be a trained duty. Meaning, no loose leash, walking about, sniffing stuff, la-dee-dahh, take 1/2 an hour til you're ready, type behavior. I mean, it might take 1/2hr the first few times but they should be fully aware that they're out there to do a job. You should be able to put them in a "work" mentality and as soon as they're physically able, they should go.

Obviously, should and will are 2 totally different things, lol. It's going to take time. Just be patient and firm and remember, in training, someone always wins. You cleaning the bathroom floor is an indicator of who's up :troll:

Oh yeah, and close the damn bathroom door.

GL

THIS. The crate should NEVER be used as punishment. Dogs are den animals, and the crate should be their safe place, their refuge, somewhere they WANT to go.

And this too.

Treat the dog like a learning puppy. This means supervised potty times and dog is only loose when being 100% supervised. If they have an accident it's our fault. It means we didn't clearly teach what we wanted. Dogs don't care about where to go other then where they sleep so if we want them to learn a new behaviour we have to be clear and consistent.
I have had lots of puppies and rescues and within two weeks can have them understanding. It takes a little work now for less work later

Thanks, all. I'm starting by trying to break my roommate's habits of how she's dealing with the dog. :lol I've also made the dog's cage a more inviting place to be in (placed a soft blanket she can burrow herself into, and setup a food and water bowl in the back), and so far she seems to be taking it in stride. Gonna start trying the cage --> ouside --> back into cage training this weekend.

Here's my concern, however. We have no problem with letting the dog go outside on the mainlevel patio as there's a hose we can use to quickly wash everything away but letting her outside in the yard is a bigger issue. It's a large multi-acre property with no fencing anywhere near the house, and what does exist is generic farm-style wood/barbwire on the edge of the property. We also have a bald eagle and redtailed hawk family living in a couple of our trees, both of which constantly hunt the gophers living in the field. So letting her roam free is a little sketchy at best, especially since once she gets a taste of freedom, she doesn't like to come back even when called (and she's fully aware of the fact she's being called... she just ignores it and goes into submission mode once we finally catch her). I suppose I'll make sure her owner actually goes out and buys a proper leash for her now. lol

See ICE BOY's post: going out for a potty should be a "trained duty". Don't just let her out to do her thing, because she'll just play around until time to come in, and if she does pee, she won't make the connection.

She comes out of the crate, on the leash, outside, and someone ELSE gets to be the boss until she does what she's expected to do (ie. relieve herself). After that, you can drop the leash or whatever, and then it's HER time.

Oooookay, so... I need your guys' help again. The house training seems to be slowly working. I keep her on a short leash while we go outside and don't really let her do anything until she takes a crap. At which point I'll give her a treat, make those annoying "good dog" sounds for a few minutes then she's free to run around for a bit. Inside we keep her inside her kennel unless there's someone around constantly keeping an eye on her. So far just one inside incident in the last three days. While she's outside, I'm also retraining some of her basic commands (stay, heel, come, etc), which I know she already knows, but seems to ignore them whenever she's off a leash.

However...

I don't know if I didn't spot this before and it's been happening for a while, or if it's a direct result, but she's starting to get quite aggressive. I had her on my chest, petting her, and the cat walked by... and she snarled and tried to attack her. I still had one of my fingers stuck in her body harness at the time so she didn't get very far, but either way. Then later tonight while one of my roommate's kids was petting her, gently I must add, she actually lunged at her, snarling, and bit her nose.

WTF might be happening here? The cat and pittbull are free to roam the house while she's in the kennel and she can probably hear the attention they're getting. I don't know if there's something to do with jealousy or what happening here but this is definitely something I don't want going on.

Help?