seanboy said:
...a couple nights ago I let Tripp outside, he walked into the garage and pee'd all over the floor, no big deal, it's cement it was easy to clean up. Right after that I took him back in the house and no more than 30 seconds later he pee'd on the front room floor. I was so mad, he had just gone outside, it wasn't like it had been hours since he had been out.....
Is it OK for him to pee in the garage? I would think not. For me, reading this, i'm confused, so i can understand Tripp being confused. Even though the floor is cement, it's still indoors, so although it's easier to clean up than the living room carpet, i think it must be confusing for him to be allowed to walk into the garage at a time when he is expected to go do his business. The garage is the wrong place for him to be because it is inside. He doesn't know the difference between inside and outside for going to the bathroom purposes right now. He needs to be clearly shown. Fortunately, he does distinguish between is crate and the rest of the world, so that is the starting place for training him.
From what you say, it sounds like he was on his way to being housetrained before and didn't pee or poo in the wrong places, and then, for some unknown reason he changed, possibly related to the onset of puberty (is he neutered?)(did this start soon after neutering?)--Zack started peeing in the house two or three times after puberty started, including after neutering. The occasions weren't that close together but otherwise somewhat similar to what you describe--i was nearby when he did it, he seemed to have no clue that it wasn't OK, despite previously having the pattern down.
anyway, because Tripp was doing fine before, you naturally are not in the habit of being tightly controlling of him, but his new behavior shows that he needs tight control in order to relearn the correct behavior. Whatever good habits he had before, he has lost them now. That's why the Shirlee Kalstone book might be good (you can get it for less than $8 including shipping on Amazon)--I've bought that book twice. Each time, by the time it arrived in the mail the problem was resolving itself so i haven't read the book. :lol:
it's very hopeful that he doesn't soil in his crate. You can keep him in his crate all the time when he is not outside. When he comes back inside, whether he peed/pooed or not, he goes back into the crate--since you have said he is likely to go in the house regardless of whether he just went outside or not, and regardless of whether or not he's being watched and supervised.
So just put him back in the crate, for a while. It's a beginning of not giving him any opportunities to fail. He has shown you that he needs you to not give him any freedom right now. He needs you to not let him go in the garage or anywhere in the house, except his crate or outside. When you put him outside, i think you should carry him, don't let him walk through the house or garage. He is needing very clear messages about this in order that he can learn. It's just temporary.
After establishing this new inside/outside pattern of success, you could give him a slightly larger space to be confined in when he's not outside, such as putting an xpen around his crate and see if he will keep that clean too. A little at a time, you could allow him to be in the room with you, but i wouldn't rush into that until he seems back on track about inside/outside. I'm no expert on this, but did recently have a problem with my daughter's dog who's staying with me where, after about three weeks of doing fine going outside and not inside, due to human error of giving her a confusing message, she started going inside the house. So then i started confining her in the kitchen when i wasn't here or when i was sleeping during the night, and when i would get her out, i would carry her to the outside because first i tried letting her walk through the house to the outside, but she peed right on the floor while i was reaching for her. Now, after a couple of weeks or more of carrying her outside each time, there have been no more pees in the house, and just in the past day i've allowed her to run to the outside on her own.
they have little walnut sized brains and sometimes teaching them human ways can be challenging. They want to please, but can't always understand what it is they need to do, there is a language barrier of sorts. or a culture gap.
