# He won't stop MARKING MY HOUSE!!!



## DebofAmber

My 6 year old fixed male pug did this too when I brought my female Spoo puppy into the house.

I have ended up treating them both like puppies: confining them to the kitchen, crate at night, praise for doing their business outside. 

It seems to be working - at least he is far better behaved when I let him out with me into the rest of the house now. I'm not sure if it was jealousy or wanting the world to know that the puppy is HIS - but it doesn't really matter. I cannot allow him to pee in the house.


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## MaddieB

Ugh nooooo! I do ALL OF THAT! We never crated Bennett as a puppy because I had never crated a dog in my life...and it might have been why we had so much trouble potty training him. For the life of me I could not get over how a 2lb thing could pee SO MUCH as a puppy lol. Then we got Ivan when Bennett was 9 months and I said NOPE, I am not going through that again, so we got Ivan a large crate and started crating Bennett and it helped tremendously! But...he still marks. 

I have baby gates that I still use to confine them throughout the day to the part of the house that just has tile. They get crated at night (unless they sleep with us), crated when we leave, treats for going potty and getting in their crates...but he STILL marks the dang house! Which is bad because my husband is a Marine and we live in base housing...I'm going to have to pay for all of this carpet -_- I don't know what else to do.


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## mom24doggies

I feel your pain....in my family we have 7 dogs. All are neutered/spayed except the cocker and guess who marks? Yep, the cocker. Occasionally the spoo will pee on a bed, I'm not sure if he's marking or just being lazy about letting us know he needs to go out lol. Anyways, the only thing I can suggest is constant, and I mean constant, supervision. Just like a puppy. Close all the room doors, gate off kitchen areas, allow Bennett to be out only when you can have your eyes on him. If you can't watch him, crate him. Leash him to you if you want him to be with you but you can't watch him close enough. This is what we have been doing with our cocker and he's gradually getting better. Marking only happens a couple times a week now versus daily like before. Keep at it, Bennett will learn.


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## N2Mischief

If he is able to mark without you seeing it, he has too much freedom. He needs to be tethered to you when not in his crate, at ALL times. You cannot leave him even for 2 seconds. Don't run to answer the phone, or run to the fridge, unless he is tethered to you. It is a pain, but if you are vigilant and he is simply not given the opportunity to mark you can fix it. Also TONS of praise when he does it right. BTW, is he neutered?


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## MaddieB

No he's not neutered lol. We;re not neutering him yet because we might breed him sometime "soon". Same with baby Ivan...I'm in for it later lol. But I DO watch him just about every second. He's attached at my hip because he's a huge mama's boy. Follows me everywhere. I honestly do NOT know how he does it without me ever seeing it!!! Because I keep all the doors closed, have upstairs gated off. He's a dang Houdini of peeing! I guess I'll just have to keep him by me even more than I already do. Luckily my husband is deploying to Afghanistan sooo those two furballs are all I'm gonna have which means I can give them all the attention they could need. Hopefully this gets solved soon! It's not every day I find markings but for some reason lately he's been going CRAZY over our trashcan -_- anyone know if there's certain cleaning products that will deter him from going on certain spots? I use diluted bleach in hopes that that keeps him away, not sure if it's really working though lol.


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## Joelly

This is tough. Marking you will be their next move.

My Dad had this problem many years ago and here is what he did to alter the dogs' marking at home tendency:
1. Crate them when they are at home. No roaming free for whatsoever reason. They eat and drink inside the crate.
2. Create a schedule for them to pee outside only. Give them half an hour outside to relieve themselves then back in the crate.
3. Walk them as usual. 

Do this religiously for a month. This include no sleep with you in bed, no cuddle with you in the sofa and no play session in the house.

Dad did those and it helped his dogs to not mark at home any longer. Hope this will work for you too. 

Good luck!

P.S. Use Zero odor to eliminate urine odor. BUT you must do deep cleansing of your house. Even change the carpet and all that. Otherwise, the smell do linger far beyond cleaning it. Dogs' sense are stronger than ours. Sorry this happens to you. Hope it gets resolve.


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## DebofAmber

I agree with Joelly. I had to throw away all of my old incontinent dog's blankets after he died because no matter how many times I washed them my puppy still smelt pee and peed on them.

I rent a carpet cleaner from Home Depot every season and wash every carpet in the house thoroughly and the walls below waist height as well.

Dogs are a lot of work. You should see my lower kitchen cabinets right now from all the puppy mud splashes, licks and face wiping. It is a good thing I am not one of those compulsively clean people! I'd never be able to stop cleaning.


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## lily cd re

The longer this goes on the less likely you are to solve the problem. Neutering both of these dogs could help although maybe less so for the older one. Keeping them intact because you "might" breed them doesn't make sense. In addition to the problems with your dogs ruining your home you are putting them at extra risk of ending up in fights, being more difficult to control (read as they will always be more interested in a bitch in heat than you and will run away from home to find her) and they are more prone to health problems like prostate trouble later in life. I am sorry to sound heavy handed, but I have an intact male dog and although he doesn't mark in the house or even usually lift his leg in our yard he is more of a challenge to walk in the neighborhood and to show because he is intact. We do have plans to breed him with a responsible breeder, otherwise I would have had him neutered ages ago.

Either you have dogs that you are showing and committed to breeding with someone who has a good breeding program, or you don't. Make up your mind as to which it is and do as Joelly and Nu2Mischief suggest to make sure there are no more opportunities for inappropriate elimination. You do have to plan to remove all traces of urine smell and that cannot be accomplished by regular washing. Replace your carpets and any furniture that may have embedded odors.


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## Shamrockmommy

Bennet is not trying to piss you off, he's just doing what male dogs (intact) do. 
If you are going to breed him, do you have CERF/OFA lined up? At the very least do that, and I know there are PRA problems in poodles as well.
Is he of correct type/temperament? I did the dog show/breeding game, and I lasted about 4 years before I burned out. Having intact dogs in the house is no joke! Lots of work, constant vigilance, with the boys especially. It's so much work breeding and whelping a littler, not to mention the worry of screening new puppy homes (are they going to care for them as well as I do??) pretty much led me to believe that conformation/breeding was NOT for me. I don't have to worry nearly as much just acquiring a puppy vs. having done all the work/worry breeding and whelping, if that makes sense. 

So now, your options are to have the carpets cleaned/replaced. Put Bennet on a tether to you in your house and when you can't keep both eyes on him, he goes in a crate. 
Belly bands are useful too. 
This is what I'm doing at my house. I have zero intentions of breeding Jack. I am wanting him to grow/develop properly before I have him neutered (wish I could fast forward and get it over with). But I know you read my thread about that already. 
I have a tendency to panic over marking in the house before I can get my senses back around LOL. 

Anyway, tether, belly band, crate, TONS of praise for him peeing outside.


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## msminnamouse

It can be tough to break this habit. I don't have much to add to what others have already said. 

Get rid of all the current traces with enzymatic cleaners so there's no special property to re-mark.

If he's doing this when you're not around, he doesn't deserve free range of your house if he's going to wreck it. You need to be there to interrupt and take him outside right away. I'd install a marking post outside if you can so you can bring him to it. This will let him know that marking is just fine outside. But it doesn't happen in the house. 

It's not so much about draining him as it is showing him where's appropriate and where's not. Dogs reserve a special store of urine for marking.

Good luck!


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