House training and antibiotics

lydiabehan

Hi all,

I have a 7 month old standard poodle and up until recently, she's been pretty well house trained. She's gone on antibiotics this week for a nasty ear infection and has been having accidents all week (twice or three times a day). Does anyone else have experience of this?

We had a dog before her but he was 16 so you get used to them being very well behaved and forget all about the puppy stage He used to bark when he needed to go out. I don't remember ever teaching him to do this so does it just come with age? I recognise her signals (ie. walking around in a circle looking for a spot) but if I'm not in the same room as her, she just pees where she is.

Any advice would be great! Thanks

moving_home

dogs may not be fully toilet trained until they are about a year old so you should restrict her access within the house to where you can see her to reinforce the toilet training by bringing her outside. not sure about the antibiotics making her go more. have a feeling that antibiotics might make her more thirsty, hence she is drinking more water and needs to use the toilet more

when my doggie was about 8mths old she hadn't had an accident in about 2mths then we went to my dad's one day and she peed on his floor :P

my advice would be to keep an eye on her and restrict her access in the house to where you can see her and bring her out more often. she will tell you in time so just be patient

lorebringer

If your dog is not feeling well, they are more likely to act out of character - aggression, moping around, peeing/pooing in the house are all very common signs that a dog is sick. Obviously, you already know your dog is unwell so strange behaviours are not unexpected. Treat the dog the same way you would if you were starting from the start with a puppy re toilet training (restricting areas of the house they can go into, bringing them out every hours etc.) and once your dog gets better, they should revert back to their original habits with a little encouragement.

Also, antibiotics can cause stomach upset - it is not unusual for a dog to vomit or get diarrhoea while on them (thus pooing accidents in the house), and often they end up drinking more water to compensate for lost fluids (thus peeing accidents). You need to keep her supervised at all times to make sure you catch her trying to go - just bring her outside and lots of praise when she goes outside. If she does go in the house, make sure you clean it up really well with an enzyme cleaner (either purchased in a pet store of some biological washing powder/liquid solution) and a little dog friendly disinfectant (Milton or something similar) to get rid of any smells that could encourage her to go in the same spot.

Chris_Heilong

Sometimes dogs can be toilet trained only in their own house and they dont know other peoples houses are off limits, mine where like this, No prob at home but when in my mothers house:(. I am very lucky with my Malamute, I had him fully toilet trained by 10 weeks which must be a record. My Pomeranian on the other hand took 6 months so I guess every dog is different.

lydiabehan

thank you for the replies. I think she is drinking a bit more. She had three accidents in the space of an hour yesterday but she seems ok today. Might ring the vet just to check if it's normal on the tablets she's on. I looked them up online yesterday and excessive urination seems to be a common side effect but there are more serious side effects of the drug so I want to make sure she's ok to continue on them.

Not letting her roam around the house hasn't helped either. Instead of peeing in the hall, she just pees in front of us in whatever room we're in :rolleyes:

The joy of puppies!

moving_home

lydiabehan wrote: »

Not letting her roam around the house hasn't helped either. Instead of peeing in the hall, she just pees in front of us in whatever room we're in :rolleyes:

The idea of restricting her to a couple of rooms is so that you (and whoever else lives in the house) can keep an eye on her and spot the signs of her needing to go to the toilet (the usual sniffing and walking around in circles etc) and bring her outside before she actually goes! It’s not that she won’t like to go in front of you. I would go back to basics and bring her out after eating/drinking/sleeping/playing like you need to do when toilet training initially.