Housetraining Adult Dog

mosi · 10-04-2011 11:35pm #1

My second dog that I got in February is not house trained. She's about 8 months to a year. She gets lots of walks and trips out to the garden, yet is in the habit of leaving little presents in the house.
Usually she will go on a mat - usually either the back of front doormat but also the bathroom mat. She will do both pees and poos. She never comes looking to be let out and has sometimes done it shortly after being out for a while. She will sometimes let me know by getting my attention after the event. She manages to do it when nobody is looking, so I am wondering what is the best way to let her know that she should not do this inside. Should I show it to her when I find it, and tell her no, then put her out?
My other dog is very good this way and he always makes it obvious if he wants to go out.
Maybe, should I aim to keep an eye on her the whole time, so as to stop her? The dogs have the run of the house so she can often sneak off to do something without being noticed. She never does it in the bedroom, though, and always lets me know in the morning that she wants to go out, but that is the only time that she will let me know.

portgirl123 · 11-04-2011 8:10am

your first mistake at the moment is letting her have free run of the house. At the moment i would be confining her to one place. i also would start crate training her. plenty of info about that in other posts.
During the day as said i would have her in sight at all times and i would be treating her as if she was a puppy, then again at 8 months or so that is all she is. i would be bringing her out her half hr or so. After every sleep. every play, every meal. A pain at first but it will work.
How quick she cops on is up to you. the more you put into it the quicker she will catch on.

Whispered · 11-04-2011 9:14am

I've a year old dog who wasn't house trained when he came 2 months ago. He's been great and as soon as he realised where he was to go he goes, but if the door is not open he wouldn't ask to get out and would just go on the floor instead.

If the dog has the run of the full house, she won't associate not going on the kitchen floor with not going elsewhere. I learned this the hard way when I allowed Harley up the stairs for the first time when he was a house trained youngster and he lifted his leg on my lovely new bedroom curtains. :rolleyes:

Crate training would really help you. On top of that just treat it as you would a pup. Outside regularly, loads of praise when she goes outside and just ignore when she goes on the floor. An older dog should catch on pretty quickly, but be patient with her and stick with it.

Best of luck.

lorebringer · 11-04-2011 9:23am

House training any dog, whether it's 10 weeks or 10 years old, is the same - out every hour, give them about 5/10 minutes to go, if they don't bring them back in, if they do make a big fuss (praise, rubs, maybe even a sneaky treat!) and bring them back in. Even if the dog goes, bring them out an hour later and repeat the process. It is time consuming but the one benefit of teaching older dogs to go to the toilet in the garden is that it does click much faster with them. As she gets better at it, you can extend the time a bit more but starting out it needs to be every hour. She will also need to go out first thing in the morning, right after eating and last thing at night. The more you can get her to go outside, the more she will go outside - every accident is a set back so the aim to prevent any at all!

Crate training may work wonders for her - there is loads of info online (and on this forum) about this subject - but make sure to introduce her slowly to the concept, you don't want to scare her off!

Restriction is a must if she is not house trained - one or two rooms or always in your sight. If she looks like she is about to go (even if she has been out quite recently) - take her out yourself (don't carry her, make sure she does the motions of walking to the door and outside herself) and lots of praise when she goes outside. She needs to learn to hold on for a little bit.

Cleaning is really important when house training a dog - cleaning up the spots where she goes (carpet is a particularly popular toileting spot!). A good enzyme cleaner (either from a pet store or use biological washing powder/liquid in warm water) and a rinse of dog safe disinfectant (something like Milton) will get rid of any odors left behind so that she won't smell pee and pee in the same spot.

The key to house training is time and patience - some dogs get it very quickly while other take some time, but the more work you put into it the better. If there are other members of the household, make sure they are all on board - it will not work or be slowed down considerably if there are only one or two people trying to house train her.

Lastly, good luck! You'll need it

mosi · 11-04-2011 9:49am

Cheers, it's been so long since I've had a pup, or any dog that hasn't been already housetrained...I've gotten lucky so far, I guess! I'll take all of that on board and hopefully we'll get there soon. It's no problem putting in the time and effort - it took two weeks of coaxing her around the house on a lead before she would go for a walk. Just needed to be pointed in the right direction on this one

Toulouse · 11-04-2011 9:55am

http://petcentral.yolasite.com/printables.php

Have a read here. Toilet training for adults deals with toilet training your dog and the Doggie Den section is information on crate training.

As always consistency is the key to training so keep it up and you should be seeing results very quickly.

Housetraining Adult Dog

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