# Potty training, hitting a wall



## Pluto (Jul 8, 2012)

We adopted our 1 yo standard about 4 months ago. At the time we knew she would need a potty trainer refresher as they had begun crate training her, but ended up leaving her outside a lot, and sort of hinted that she occasionally peed in the house.

Unfortunately a crate does not work well for our lifestyle. We both work, so the dogs are along for +/- 8 hours a day. Our house is pretty small (600 sq ft or so) and the only place for a permanent crate is in the back of the office. While we leave her in the crate during the day, I don't like again crating her at night, since she has been cooped up so much. SO also tends to be up and about later and she hangs with him or comes and sleeps next to the bed with me depending on her mood.

The problem is she pees and poops in her crate. She will also pee on rugs/mats and her bed if all of the throw rugs are in the wash. Peeing in general in the house has been minimal (mostly on the bathmat, once on some dirty clothes, and a couple of times on her crate pad and bed). If I throw her crate pad in the crate, she pees or poops on it before I let her out at lunch. If I leave it out, she will usually hold it until lunch. 

So because I hate the idea of her standing in her own feces for hours, we have left her in the backyard a few times a week. She does not love it, and she will bark nervously without her bark collar. The weather has been nasty and I decided to leave her uncrated in the house. This requires a bit of dog proofing each morning, ie hide the toilet paper, make sure there is nothing on the counter, and pick up bath matt, but has worked surprisingly well, and with the exception of a few rolls of TP there has been minimal issue.

So what should our next step be? She is happiest loose in the house with our geriatric dog. We can go rugless, but I don’t want to just ignore the fact that she will pee on rugs/her bed if she needs to go. I don’t think crate training is really a great option for her, since she seems willing to soil her bedding. We have continued to work on the “go potty” command. What are our other options?


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## Indiana (Sep 11, 2011)

Patience, persistence and consistency is usually always the key. If what you are doing (dog-proofing, lifting up mats and tp) is working, I would keep doing that until she's reliable. The "go potty" command is really useful, so I would continue to do that and praise like crazy, and give her a treat if that's not against your training regimen, every time she goes pee/poop where she should. I wouldn't leave her in the yard unattended, anything could happen out there while you're gone, and poodles are nervous alone anyway. If you don't think she should have the whole house while you're away, you could try limiting her to one area that is dog proofed (like a room). She'll learn it! She's smart and wants to please you, so if you keep at it she'll get the hang of it eventually.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Limit her access to water and food before you leave her for extended times. Take it away an hour before you leave. Make sure you get her to go before you leave her (go potty command). If she is "empty" maybe she won't be so inclined to try to get empty in the house.


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## Pluto (Jul 8, 2012)

lily cd re said:


> Limit her access to water and food before you leave her for extended times. Take it away an hour before you leave. Make sure you get her to go before you leave her (go potty command). If she is "empty" maybe she won't be so inclined to try to get empty in the house.



This makes perfect sense in theory, but I'm having a bit of trouble in practice. She already gets fed more than an hour before I leave. She seems to be abnormal in that is takes a few hours for food to move through her system. Our current schedule is usually like this:

5:00 she barks at the door to go pee (let her out in my PJs and stand at the door until she comes back- this used to be 2:30 am but we have been shifting is later TG).
6:00 SO gets up and feeds around 6:30 (he will let them in an out throughout the morning as well)
7:45 We do a potty break in the backyard, she sometimes pees and she does a few zoomies while harassing our older dog. She does need to poop this soon after eating, and usually needs to go around 9-10 which is problematic.
8:00 I leave for work
1-2 I zip back by the house to let them out for a break and then head back to work - if she has not already pottied in her crate she will pee now. 
3-4 SO gets home and lets them in and out as they choose
5-6 I get home and we go to the park or for a walk.
6-7 SO feeds dinner
the rest of the night they go in and out as they ask

FWIW she will not poop or pee on a leash or at the park. Our obedience trainer said that is probably due to her being somewhat timid and not wanting to mark other territories.

So it's really the morning poop that is the issue, and I think she needs to go around 9-10. If I make it home by 1:00 for lunch she doesn't pee. 

Should we cut the morning feeding? I could do a lunch feeding, but since she already tends towards anxiety when we leave I don't want to reinforce our comings and going as being a production.


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## MaryLynn (Sep 8, 2012)

Have you had her checked for any infections? I don't think a dog at that age should need to pee every 2 hours (like really need to).

Is your crate too big? She should be just able to stand up and turn around in it.

Sometimes when you get a dog from a bad place they can come with the bad habit of 'going' in their crate.

I fostered a boston terrier that came "crate trained" as in, the previous owner expected her to defecate in her crate. 

This was a little mind boggling for a few weeks, but a few changes really made a difference. First of all, we tossed out the old crate, it was a little too big and made out of cheap plastic-she couldn't really see out of it well, and the porousness of the plastic was likely trapping in a urine smell. 

We had her checked for urinary tract infections, there were none, so it was purely a habit. Dog's are naturally very clean, but this can be undone if they're forced to constantly sit in their own feces or come from a dirty place.

We had to remove all bedding, because even in a small crate if there was anything absorbent she would pee in it, and then kick it to the back of the crate. 

Keep all things that resemble bedding off the floor until the issue is taken care of.

I know you don't want to use the crate, but right now it's your best friend, and with consistency and patience you should be able to solve this. 

I would start by crating her then taking her out to pee every 2 hours, while using a marking word for pee and rewarding the pee. Let her have an hour or so of freedom and then put her back in the crate, repeat throughout the day. I would also crate her at night.


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## Pluto (Jul 8, 2012)

Thanks for the tips, Some answers...


MaryLynn said:


> Have you had her checked for any infections? I don't think a dog at that age should need to pee every 2 hours (like really need to). She doesn't need to pee every two hours, she just has an odd pee schedule and I'm not sure how to change it. She pees at 5 am, and then will sometimes pee again before I leave at 7:45, and then usually holds it until 1 in the afternoon.
> 
> Is your crate too big? She should be just able to stand up and turn around in it. I think the crate is boardering on two small, she is very lean, so can turn around fine, but needs to keep her head a bit ducked when sitting or standing. The crate is only about 6 inches taller then her shoulder.
> 
> ...


I think the part I am not getting is how the crate training will ultimatly work if she already sees the crate as a safe place for her to deficate and has been essentually trained to just accept that she will be locked in a crate and forced to lay in her own fecies. "I" feel terriable, every time I come home and she has been laying in her pee, or is covered in poo  She is such a great girl she still goes into her crate when asked, it just seems like an awful thing to do to her. She doen't seem to know or care that we will be home "soon" and just accepts that is the place to go.


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## LegalEagle (Nov 8, 2012)

First, a disclaimer. I'm no expert. I've housebroken exactly one dog, my 11 month old mini, Laszlo, whom we got as a pup.

That said, we ran into real trouble when we were switching from an indoor potty to going outside once he finished his shots. The main thing that did it was giving him treats like it was going out of style. Every time he peed or pooped in the right place, he got high value treats (dried chicken liver, scraps of table food) and he got double the usual if he did it on command. At first, I didn't want to treat him too much for health reasons. Eventually, I figured that, as a transitional measure, it was okay. It was better to treat like mad for a few weeks than to struggle with housebreaking for months and months. Sure enough, once I threw away my inhibitions about giving lots of treats, Laszlo got it. Now, five months (and only four accidents - all our fault!) later, I only treat every so often for going outside. Mostly, I reward Laszlo by taking him on a little walk. He prefers going around smelling other dogs' urine to a treat anyway, by this time. Also, when we were housebreaking him, we gave him a nice long walk every single time he pooped, but no walk if he just peed. He quickly learned to go outside on command, and we learned how often he needed to go.

I definitely agree that crating for a few hours at a time is a good idea because it means you know when she's going to go and you can give her a real fiesta when she does the right thing. Weekends and holidays are especially good for this. Another thing you may consider is an indoor potty area. It definitely isn't as good as having her wait, but it may be better than having her go all over the place.

Also, 5 am seems awful early. Do you normally get up at that time? We trained Laszlo to wait until the radio alarm goes off before he starts bothering us. It's super simple, though nerve wracking at first. Set the alarm for the time she usually barks. If she starts barking earlier, ignore her - only get up once the alarm goes off. Every day, make the alarm 5 or 10 minutes later. After a few days, she'll realize that nothing is going to happen until that alarm goes off, and you can sleep a bit more. Alternatively, maybe you could feed her at 5. Maybe that way, she'll be ready to defecate by the time you leave? You could fix a Kong the night before and give it to her to amuse herself while you get another hour of shut eye.


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## Pluto (Jul 8, 2012)

Quick update. We have had a good couple of days. We are fighting with some digestive issues and incontinency with our usually perfect 14 yo dog, which has made it a bit difficult, but the Girl is doing great. 

I really want to be able to crate her and trust her in the crate, so we moved the crate into the bedroom and she sleeps in it at night. She has slept through the night the last couple of evening (no early morning barking to go out). She is getting really good at going potty quickly out in the rain (usually paired with go potty, but sometimes with me standing at the backdoor peering through the glass and giving her lots of love and a treat when she comes back in). Going into her crate is also one of her "tricks" that we work on during the day but I am going to wait a while to crate her during the day, since that was when she was defecating in her crate, and reinforce the bed aspect of the crate. So for now we try to keep the counter clear, the christmas presents up high, the toilet paper stashed away, and lots of toys/chews scattered around the place to reduce the carnage when we are out.

We also went for a few short car rides yesterday. She got to come into the hardware store, but waited in the car in the grocery and didn't work herself up into a barking fit. I think that the 4 mile run might have helped her overall calmness level though.


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## MaryLynn (Sep 8, 2012)

Glad to read that everything is working out for you. I had suggested the time interval and crate time so that you could determine when you wanted her to "go" instead of having to find a way to work around her weird schedule which seems to inevitably make her go in her crate. If she is doing well outside of the crate when you're not home and not making any messes then I would continue on that path, as it seems to be working for you!

I myself have only trained one difficult dog to potty (the boston who was trained to go in her crate). Everyone else I have trained was relatively good. We did have a surface issue with our terrier, since he came outdoor and paper trained, anything resembling paper that hit the floor would find itself covered in pee/poo. He also was strictly only used to going on snow, so once that melted we found our-self having to bring paper outside, putting it on the grass and then slowing easing him out of that, too.


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