Teaching older dogs to not pee everywhere
 

So here's the deal. I will be moving into a new place soon with my girlfriend. I have one big 10 year old male German shepherd and she has two small dog a yorkie and a chinhuahua mix both around 2-3 years of age, unneuter. We will be moving in together with all three dogs. My big dog is neuter and has been for years. He never pee or poo inside the house, whenever he does it's always my fault for leaving him too long. The little dogs other hand does not have such control. Whenever unsupervised they always leave little pee droplets everywhere.

Because my dog was neuter when he was only 3 month he never develop this nasty habit. And he seems to have self train himself to only go to washroom in the grass. I'm not sure if neutering the little dogs at this age will help with this situation. I'm thinking 1. Neutering the little dogs 2. Crate training them.

However the problem is we both work long hours and we often can't be home every couple hours to let the little dogs out. I don't know how realistic it is to ask the little dogs to hold it for 8-10 hours. On the other hand I really don't want them to have the ran of the place for 8-10 hours a days.

How should I approach this? Or will I have to live with pee around the house?

Can you train them to pee on puppy pads while you're out?

If anything, the other ones will probably learn from the older shepherd (at least from my experience).

I have had to deal with an older dog and trained it to pee on pee pads too. I was working 10 hour days at the time and the dog couldn't hold it. How I trained it to use the pads was I'd place pads outside as well when I went to take it to pee. (I would make a big square of 4 of them). Each day I moved the big cluster of them 4-6 feet closer to the door of the house, I would keep his leash so he could only be on the pads and he'd piss on them and I'd give him a treat after. When the pads got to be touching the house, I moved the pads to where I wanted him to pee and did the same thing. From then on he only pissed on the pads and outside on the grass / snow.

Hope this helps at least a bit.

Good luck

I've had them with the big shepherd at my parents place for a bit. Doesn't seem to be learning from the shepherd. The shepherd also doesn't interact with the little dogs at all. My parents are quite attach to my shepherd and thus he will be in between my place and my parents. The little dogs will always be with us.


We currently live in an apartment they already seem to be pee pad train, however they do territory mark I think that's where the problem is. The pee that we do find else where are not that much indicating that they are territory marking perhaps? And it's always on table chair legs or corner of the wall etc. Will neutering them at this point stop territory marking?

Had a chat with my girl and she is very against crate so I guess I will have to go with a playpen. She basically let the dog do whatever they want at the moment I still have a lot of convincing to do for her to not let the dogs into our bedroom with hardwood floors.

So the current plan is to put them in a pen with bed on one side and pee pad on the other while we are working.

While we are on this topic does any know where I can buy a pen for $100 and under with top and floor?

Crate is not a bad thing if you made it a happy place. My dog sees his crate as a sanctuary. He would voluntarily come in and sleep/rest. The door is always open. There is no reason to be against it.

Nevertheless, trainning the dogs is more about trainning the human around them. You can not have your girl letting them do as they please. It sends confusing message to the pack and make trainning impossible. You need to be consistent. Have a set of rules and both of you follow it.

Neutering helps with aggression in adolescent dog.. Territorial marking may or may not go away. When I trained my pup, i always made a huge deal praising him when he does his business outside. Positive reinforcement. And negative reinforcement when you caught them pee inside the house. A simple "bad dog" will do, no need for spanking.

Again, trainning is easy when there is consistency. Made that clear to your girl. To helps accelerate the process, it helps to constantly watch them to reinforce behavior.

winning argument with the girl doesn't work this way sigh... especially when my big shepherd isn't confine in anyway (well he earned it). she refuse to neuter the little dogs in the beginning. She gave way to neutering so i guess i have to give way to not "locking them in a littler jail" in my girlfriend's words.

I have a lot of work to do with consistency, I want to be persistent in not letting the little dogs trash up the new place like it did to my girlfriend's apartment. My girlfriend spoils the dog and treat them like babies so its gonna take a bit to change the mentality. Baby steps at a time.

Gonna take the first step and neuter the two little dogs soon. Does anybody know have any experienced with the Terra Nova Vet clinic in Richmond? They quote me a very very cheap price of $250 for both dogs everywhere else is giving me around $1000 for both. Seems shady but the review of the new doctor there doesn't seem all that bad.

It's not a difficult process, I can't see how one can justify such an expensive price. I live in Calgary and 150-300 per dog seems about right, at least here. I'd go with the $250 one, if he's a licensed vet I don't see why not.

lol 1000 to neuter 2 dogs. 250 seems to be reasonable. If not, I did mine at the Vancouver BCSPCA. Pretty painless process and must be around that 250 price range or cheaper.

And crating is not a permanent thing. If you are consistent, you need a few months top for them to be fully obedience. Also it is only negative if you make it out to be negative. The puppies do not see the crate as a prison, only the human associate it as one and actually get the dogs to make that association if they constantly reinforce that idea. You should not punish your dog by locking them in the crate, ever. The puppies need to learn that the crate is a place they can go inside and rest, and occasionally being told by the human to go inside and that's ok. You help make that association.