help housetraining

hi
i have a 5 year old and recently she has started to do her buisness in the house it started before her spay op and she did it after the op which i can let off as she couldnt go for a walk but as she was doing it before
i dont know what to do i let her in the garden and she does nothing i take her out for walks and nothing
we have only had her over a month she didnt used to do it in the house i cant understand as late at night i try to get her to do it outside sometimes she does and still i get up at 6.30 and shes done it
any advice please
thanks
claire

What is her background? Has she seen the vet since this started? A housetrained dog that is having problems is doing it for a reason. This is going to be one of three things:

1) a medical issue. This is what you MUST eliminate as a possibility first. Make a vet appointment and have her properly checked for urinary or kidney infections (which will make a dog incontinent) or other possible issues. Some spayed females get spay incontinence and there are ways of treating this as well.

2) an anxiety issue. If you have only had her a month, she has gone through a total change of home, ownership, environment, probably food, lifestyle and the rest. You may be giving her more attention or less than she was used to. Often new owners give a bit too much attention to new dogs and that can cause a lot of nervousness and anxiety for the dog which the owner may not notice or know how to see (signals can be very subtle). This is very typically expressed in toilet problems -- it is reassuring to the dog to mark its new territory with a scent (eg its urine). I run irish Cavalier Rescue and I always tell new homes to treat any new adult dog as a puppy and have those expectations regarding housetraining. MOST rescue adults will have accidents. So approach taking her out as you would a puppy. Praise and reward with treats the moment she finishes going -- carry some treats with you when you go outside.

3) She wasn't fully housetrained to start with, or doesn't at this time recognise your house as a place where she should not go. Dogs don't get housetrained then automatically think "all houses are where I should not go". They tend to learn a territory where they should not go. If she never got out much, and mostly stayed inside at one house, or outside at one house, she probably has little idea that housetraining extends to other homes. Hence -- back to number 2 above -- you need to treat her as a puppy when it comes to housetraining and manage her as if you are starting from scratch (but an adult needing some remedial work will learn very quickly!)

I strongly recommend you immediately order Shirlee Kalstone's book on housetraining as it gives very structured approaches to housetraining and includes guidance for remedial housetraining for adults. But have her vet checked first!! A simple urinary tract infection (UTI) can turn into a very serious kidney infection if left untreated and either way they are extremely uncomfortable to painful for a dog so she should be checked for this. Some females are prone to UTIs.

thanks for that i,ll give it a go with the treats she was a house dog spent allday long in the house on her own so i quess she finds it confusing
i asked the lady if there was any signals when she needed to go toilet and all she said was no i leave the door open so she can come and go as she pleases
how they managed that when they were out or in bed i dont know and they dont allways give you the full story do they!
thanks

Sounds like she is still adjusting. However: if she is peeing in the house I cannot stress enough that you do need to have her vet checked before trying other approaches. I would say that in 90% of cases of adult dogs weeing inside, the problem is a UTI. If she has a UTI and is left to suffer with it, it will get worse and will cost far more to treat, even up to needing a stay at the vet at very great cost. If a simple UTI she just needs some antibiotics. From your description, her behaviour sounds very much like a dog with a UTI.

Leaving the door open however is not helping with training -- she won't necessarily see any difference between outside and in and that is partly your problem I think. You need to go back to structured housetraining and be taking her out on a lead and rewarding her when she goes.

shes not just peeing in the house its the other one thats the problem(the poops)

Poops are easier to pick up though! I looked after a friends dog recently who has a dog flap in her own house. She lets itself out when she needs to go but when she was here, she was not house trained.

The sign for wanting to pee is sniffing the ground. I house trained very quickly by taking Dylan out every 20 mins and treating and praising when he weed. I even set a timer. 20 mins might have been a lot but I didn't want to give him the chance to go indoors. You also have to clean up where she has been having accidents. Dogs love to go back to the same spot. You need to use biological washing liquid or powder or an ammonia neutralising spray from a pet shop.

well shes been fed this morning and i took her out and all she did was a wee i tried her in the garden still no poos
i need to go out later and i dont want to incase she does it in the kitchen
she wasnt doing this when we got her its just started this week she had her second vacs last week could that be anything to do with it it started off as diarhea
on wed before she went to the vets i asked the rspca lady to mention it cause she stayed at the vets over night before her op thursday morning, nothing was reported back to me so i assumed all was ok
i just cant understand why shes doing it now

Are her stools still loose now? If they are, I'd go to the vet. Did they give the vaccines while she had diarrhoea? That's not good.

no not loose now and no she didnt have diarhea before vacs

Karlin said:

I strongly recommend you immediately order Shirlee Kalstone's book on housetraining as it gives very structured approaches to housetraining and includes guidance for remedial housetraining for adults.

Click to expand...

I think this is the way to go and also limit what she can have access to. Once she is house trained in one room, you can train in the next. Will she go in a crate? Crate training is really the answer so when you can't watch her she can go in there. She shouldn't pee or poop in a crate.

Not all dogs need to go right after a meal. You need to be managing her so that she is under 100% supervision or safely confined when this isn't possible. Also, taking her out and walking her will help rather than just going to the garden. Also bring along high value treats to reward her. the Kalstone book will explain all this in detail.

The reason she is going is because she is not housetrained to your house. She isn;t making a connection that you want her to go outside. She will also be pretty stressed out and confused as she has both changed her whole environment and been through a spay and vaccinations etc. This is stressful for a dog, and stress tends to cause housetraining problems. The only way to solve them is to take the time to train her, in a positive, rewards based way; never punishing. The book will help.

Vaccinations often will cause mild diarrhea for a few days. This will not be causing longer term housetraining problems.

If she isn't already eating two meals a day on a strict schedule, you might want to try feeding her at exactly same times each day, both morning and evening, and walk her both before and after (if she didn't poop before) her meals. Walk slow and let her sniff around, let her know it's ok to stop to go potty. Make sure she gets gentle praise and a treat immediately every time when she poops outside.

Also, if she has been told off for pooping inside, she may have misunderstood and she may think it's wrong to poop at all. This may cause her to try to hold it, and then it will come out at the wrong times and places. Be very patient and get her on a schedule. Learn what works for her, and then adjust yourself to her needs.