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NAUGHT NAUGHT NAUGHTY Bertie!!!

alibunnylady

Well-known member
Oh he's soooo naughty! Well, not usually, he's usually VERY good. However, a couple of days ago, one of my jackets was on the floor, we had been walkies and got back, was about to take him outside as I knew he would need to pee cos he didn't do it on the walk. Before I had a chance, he had decided to "dig" on my jacket and peed on it. I ignored it, cleaned it up and put the jacket in the washing machine.

I washed said jacket, took it out of the machine and put it on my bed while sorting out the airer to put it on. Bertie, well, he discovered said jacket, did the diggy thing again and peed on the bed not the jacket this time. So, as I didn't actually catch him in time, I ignored him and cleaned it up.

Today, we went for walkies and again, he didn't pee while we were out. Got back and we were both quite wet cos of the rain. He jumped on the sofa all excited to have his coat taken off and a rub a dub dub. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him standing in a "strange" position but didn't really take any notice. Oh my word, HE PEED ON THE SOFA this time!! Once again, an item of my clothing was around so maybe there is a connection.

Anyway, I "scolded" him (for want of a better word), cleaned it up and proceeded to give him the ignore treatment. He was waiting for his dinner cos I feed him on return from the second walk but I didn't this time cos I thought he might see it as a reward for his peeing on the sofa.

I waited half an hour and then fed him and the cat as normal.

Now, I am hoping I can prevent this happening again by taking him to my patio BEFORE bringing him indoors if he hasn't peed on his walks, however, I feel I need to prepare myself for the fact he might just start going through a phase of doing this, especially if I don't handle the situation correctly.

So, if anyone can offer me some advice on a) how to prevent it (other than keeping all my clothing well away from him) and b) how to deal with it if and when he does it again both if I catch him at it and if I find it just afterwards.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. He's coming up for five months now and is showing signs that he may start to cock his leg fairly soon so I guess this is all tied in together.

Anyway, any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Bless him, the little pee pot! lol!

Alison
 
1) First, don't scold -- unless you actually catch him right midstream in which case just say a sharp AH! or no! and pick him up, take him out, let him finish, then praise. Scolding after the fact or depriving of food is meaningless to him as it will not be associated to any activity. Once he has gone he just thinks you are for some reason angry and punishing him but he won't know for what.

2) It's easy to have some initial success and believe the dog is far more housetrained than it is! We have all been there. :) But he is too young and unreliable to be allowed as much free rein as you are giving him -- eg he simply should not be able to get up on beds, sofas, etc of his own free will and have the time to go. Pups also love to pee on soft things (so do kittens!). It may be he is peeing in what he sees as his territory, but I think you just have a puppy that is only started on his way to being housetrained and has found nice soft places that are good to pee -- and he has not learned that all these rooms are not OK for that (basically you need to train one room at a time as he has no idea of the concept of your 'house' being off limits for wees/poops. You need to housetrain him gradually to the whole house). Most of us find 6 months the earliest point at which the dog is mostly reliable *under watch* and even then can not be given full run of the house. It will be 12 months before you usually can feel quite confident they will be reliable.

3) you need to wash things with biological powder or enzymatic cleaner or her will try to pee on the same palces again

4) Go back to the most strict and basic approach with housetraining -- either he is on your lap, on a lead in the house, within arm's reach with you watching him like a hawk, or in a crate/X-pen. If he starts to regress like this any further than he has you will start to face real challenges so now is the time to get him back on track. :)

As always I recommend Shirlee Kalstone's book on housetraining a dog in seven days, which you can get from Amazon.co.uk.
 
It sounds to me he is discovering his manliness. And I agree with what Karlin said. For some reason I find a lot of the time entire males need to be rehouse trained at the age of 5 or 6 months. So its back to square one i am affraid. Bad Bertie Bot. :D
 
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