Adult Dog Housebreaking

Adult Dog Housebreaking

My rescue foster (adult) dog is doing well except that he does not seem to have any comprehension of asking to go out. He just squats and pees right where he thinks about it. Any ideas on how to cure him of this habit? I have tried the scolding, etc with no change.
                --------------   a frustrated foster parent

It sounds like he has missed out on housebreaking, ie that he was never housebroken properly in the first place. This is not a rare occurrance with newly rescued dogs. So you have to do it as if he were a puppy , except that he won't need to be taken out as often and the whole process should be completed in a couple of weeks -- my worst case took one month and that was a dog with medical issues and a bit of mental impairment. The fact that he is squating to pee, rather than leg-lifting suggests that he is peeing in order to empty his urine rather than to "mark" territory in your house.

First rule out medical issues such as a urinary tract infection. Mnay different medical isues can cause a dog to need to urinate very frequently or with very little warning or to have poor "hold it" power. Phone your vet and set ua an appointment. Parisites would be another thing to rule out since he is also having diarrhea. Your vet will also ask if the dog is drinking a lot of water.

Set up either a crate or an x-pen (if need be anchor two corners of the x-pen to the wall with eye-screws and snaps and if necessary put a top on it so it turns into a super-sized crate). The crate or pen is where he will live when you are not home or not in mood to supervise. When you are home and in supervisory mood, tie him to you with an "umbilical cord" , ie leash or string to your belt. Take him outdoors at appropriate intervals (ideally every 4 hours or oftener if you are able to during the first few days) and praise him liberally for peeing or pooping in your yard. As you take the dog out of his crate or pen and head towards the door, you might want to add a cheerful phrase such as "wanna go out?" or "let's all go out to pee!" Don't give him any opportunities to have an "accident" inside the house. (and use a black light to find all prior accidents and deodorize them with Natures Miracle or similar deodorant) If you have a dog door, when you take him out take him through the dog door outbound and returning : slide yourself around the edge of the people door and pass the leash through the dog door and call and guide him through.

I can pretty much guarantee that a month of strict housebreaking procedure with confinement, umbilical, and supervised potty excursions outdoors will get him housebroken. The next step would be supervised off leash freedom indoors, watching closely to see if he is indicating a need to be taken out or if he is using your dog door if you have one. Then if you see he is reliable, you can give him more and more freedom indoors with less and less vigilant supervision. Using stretch gates to exclude him from areas with highly valued carpet that you don't want to risk subjecting to an "accident" would of course be prudent.

Please realize that a dog "telling you he needs to go out" is a process of mutual learning and training. In the first step, as you see the dog looking the slightest bit like he might need to go out, you say brightly "wanna go out?" (or any phrase you've been using) and you take him out. Next step, as you see he may need to go, you say "wanna go out?" and wait a moment to see if he heads towards the door. If he does, that is great, and you follow and immediately let him out. Next step is you don;'t follow immediately but watch what he does when he gets to the door : he might bark or whine or scratch or nudge the doorknob or he might do nothing -- most will do something, but what he does depends on his individual personality. Don't wait more than a few seconds, because you don't want him to give up and pee in front of the door. Soon as he does any behavior that could be exaggerated into a good "asking to go out", you must react with a word of praise or with "wanna go?" and you head to the door and let him out. After a few times of you reacting promtly, you can be less prompt and in effect pretend you are a bit "dumb" or inattentive. With any luck, if you don't respond, the dog will "ask" in a more emphasized form, to which you will react. From this point on from time to time you will be slow to respond but then respond as soon as he "asks" more vigoruously. Most of the time you can respond to a low level "ask", but just occasionally be inattentive to keep him tuned that sometimes he has to "ask" more vigourously. Some people will hang a bell on a cord from the doorknob and teach the dog to nose-nudge or paw at the bell to make it ring; this is a signal that would be hard to miss.

Whatever "ask" signal you and the dog develop between you, do realize that unless your dog is extremely stupid, he will also realize that he can "as" to go out for purposes other than urinating and defecating. For example, perhaps he detects a squirrel or a cat in the yard.

If it has occurred to you at this point that it would be much easier to have a dog door, yes, indeed it surely is much easier ! I have found that if there is a dog door , then many rescued dogs will housebreak themselves with very little intervention from me. I used to make a point of showing the new dog where the dog door is located and how to go through it, but very often my own dogs do this for me, simply by running out excitedly and the new dog usually follows them out and then back into the house. I really consider a dog-door to be a great blessing for dog and person, and having a dog door frequently makes a big big diference in ease of housebreaking and ability of a dog to refrain from "accidents" if no one is home for periods of greater than 4 hours. However there are situations in which one might justifiably decide not to have a dog door : for example, because one has a very young child in the house who one does not wish to have unsupervised access to the yard (to protet the child from possible danger), because one has a cat whom one wishes to keep strictly indoors (thereby protecting it from many dangers), or because there are raccoons and other critters in the neighborhood who might use the dog door to invite themselves into your home, or finally for fear of a small sized burglar using the dog door to enter your home. To adopters, I say "It's your choice and it's your carpet."

Scolding him for peeing indoors by itself won't solve the problem and may make it worse by simply teaching him that it is unwise (dangerous) to pee in your presence. Now after a month of being praised for peeing outdoors, if he should make a mistake indoors right in front of you so you can scold within 30 seconds, then that could be appropriate -- but not nearly as good as recognizing the warning signs that he is thinking about it, interrupting him with a sharp word , taking him outdoors and praising him for doing it outdoors.

• Housebreaking when no one is home