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Housetraining accident or not?

vshenoy

Well-known member
Hi All,

Just wanted to ask you what you think of this situation. Perhaps I am looking for reassurance.

We've started bell training with Meenah (now 7 months old) and she is doing really well. She goes to the door when she needs to go out and she has begun ringing the bell on her own. When she forgets to ring the bell I remind her.

This morning when I took her out for her first outing, she pooped a lot. But it was all normal. About 15 or 20 minutes after coming back inside, she ran to the door and started banging on the bell (so hard she actually knocked it off the nail) and even scratching at the door! She has never scratched at the door before. She seemed to REALLY want to go out. I leashed her and she just about dragged me to the potty spot. She did her usual sniffing and pacing but with more vigor and then had very soft, pudding like poop, just short of diahrrea. I was so impressed that even though she had to poop so bad, she had the presence of mind to run to the door and hit the bell!!

We came inside and she had her breakfast. About 10 or 15 minutes later, she was in the living room with my older kids and they started screaming. She pooped on the living room carpet!! This time, she did not run to the door and ring the bell. There was not much poop at all and it was watery diahrrea. She seemed like she knew she did something wrong. She assumed a very submissive posture, tail between the legs, head hanging down, whole body crouched down. I took her outside but she didn't poop or pee.

I am pretty sure the loose stools/diahrrea is because I let her have a little bit of potato salad I was making last night - too rich with the mayo, mustard, and scallions. Stupid stupid stupid on my part! She is fine now and I don't think there is anythign seriously wrong with her. But of course if it persists throughout the day I will call the vet!!

I also realize that I should NOT have let her out of my sight as she had that loose movement this morning, albeit she held it, signalled me by ringing the bell, and waited until we were outside at the potty spot.

My question to you is... should I be worried that this is a step back in housetraining or should I consider this incident to be not a housetraining mistake at all? She didn't run to the door like she had done earlier but perhaps since it was diahrrea-like, she just had to go and couldn't control it!

Thanks for any input and opinions you can give me!
 
Oh, poor little thing!! Scallions are in the onion family and onions are very toxic to dogs. If she is still poorly I would definately go in to your vet right away. Please keep us posted!
 
It's expecting an awful lot of a pup with an upset tummy to remember their house training, especially to go to the door and ring the bell.

I think she did amazingly well to ask to go out the first time for the soft poo, the 2nd time she might not have had any warning and probably didn't even have time to move to the kitchen.

If you search for Diarrhoea you will find lots of posts on how to manage this - I definitely think the potato salad might have been the cause - maybe next time give her a dog treat if you want to give her something - or a small piece of raw carrot, apple etc.

I hope she is feeling better now - and do contact the vet if this persists, puppies very quickly become dehydrated and can become very ill.
 
It sounds like an accident ruby is 6 months fully house trained i gave her a doggie treat it upset her tummy she had an accident in the house, when my children have had a tummy bug they have had accidents and havent made it to the toilet, our doggies are the same as children.
 
Update

Thanks for your input, everyone!

To give you an update - Meenah still has some loose stools. Her first stool of the day is more on the soft side but formed. She'll then squat again and it will be like pudding. And then she'll squat a third time and it'll be pretty wet and dribbling out but not much of it. She is otherwise herself. Same energy and playfulness. Runs around fine. I cut out the treats all weekend and gave her just her food at her normal feeding times. She's been eating fine. I called her breeder this morning for advice. She told me to give Meenah plain boiled rice with a little bit of boiled chicken for two days and to also give her 1/2 tsp of Pepto Bismol twice a day. And she told me not to give people food unless its something like carrots or apples, and to never ever never never give onions. What a freaking idiot I am. :bang:
 
If this continues more than 48 hours you do need to see a vet. (y)

Given how young your puppy still is, I would not ever allow her out of sight anyway -- it is setting her up to have accidents and she *will* have them, still. She needs to be where you can watch her until she is much older than she is now. I'd echo the rest of what Nicki said as well -- she is doing really well on housetraining but she is still a puppy, still being housetrained, and needs expectations to be level with her ability. :)

Harder to do depending on age, but I'd try to ask the kids not to scream when something happens like this too -- that's a terrifying noise for most dogs and for a young dog, can start a permanent fear of children and also scare her into doing her business inside when she knows no one is watching to 'avoid' the screaming. That's why it continues to be the best idea to keep her under close watch, confined to a room that you can supervise, and never give access to carpetted areas unless she is at arm's reach under *adult* supervision. They go fast in carpets and you will not notice it til she has set down a permanent scent marker that will keep drawing her back to go inside. This is the classic situation in which owners find a month or two later that their dog is going inside but up til them was 'perfectly housetrained' :lol:. Usually the dog simply was given too much freedom too early eg before 12 months of age!) and has long been going inside, unwatched. Housetraining is a long and gradual process and there are always accidents along the way.

There is a list of dangerous foods in the Library section. :) pepto bismol needs to be given with care, it can cause stomach bleeding as there's salicylic acid (aspirin) in some types.
 
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