Lou C asked:
I have recently got an 11 month old dog from a rescue organisation, he has had a bad start in life and spent the last 6 months in quarantine, subsequently he has not been toilet trained. He is fine in the house when I am home and will now show me when he needs to go out for a wee. When I am out though and through the night he wets and poohs. I take his water away an hour or so before he goes to bed and I also walk him around the block before bed to get him to go. Any suggestions on how I can deal with it? Because he doesn’t do it when I am here (or all the time) we can’t even really discipline him.
I have recently got an 11 month old dog from a rescue organisation, he has had a bad start in life and spent the last 6 months in quarantine, subsequently he has not been toilet trained. He is fine in the house when I am home and will now show me when he needs to go out for a wee. When I am out though and through the night he wets and poohs. I take his water away an hour or so before he goes to bed and I also walk him around the block before bed to get him to go. Any suggestions on how I can deal with it? Because he doesn’t do it when I am here (or all the time) we can’t even really discipline him.
Let him take his stress out one a busy bone or a pedagree chew bone. My rescue dog became very happy once he had a bone to work on all day.He listened better was easier to train. Good Luck XOXO
crate training will really help for bedtime and when you are not around
First of all, you should NOT take his water away overnight, thats really dangerous.
You shouldnt be disciplining him if he goes in the house either…you’ll just confuse him. When he goes where he is supposed to, praise him constantly. Try feeding him on a differen schedule to see if that helps, sometimes a change in food also help. You could also try crate training, dogs dont foul their crates if they can help it.
When you are not home, consider crating him. Most dogs have an aversion to eliminating where they have to sleep. However, since he was in quarantine, this may not work for him.
How long before bed are you feeding him? Most dogs need to do their business about an hour after they finish eating. If there’s nothing going in, there should not be anything going out. Some dogs actually need a double poo opportunity. Feed him at least two hours before bed – put his food down, whatever he eats in 10-15 minutes is what he gets. About an hour after he finishes eating, take him out for a thirty minute walk – if that means walking around the block three times, then do that. You might find he goes poo a couple times on that walk.
Since he’s never been toilet trained you have to look at this as if he was an 8 week old puppy. His situation he wasn’t able to go out or wait for someone to let him out if he had to go, he went.
Put him on a schedule, which means every 2 hours outside whether or not he needs or tells you he has to go. When he goes outside praise and reward with a treat, say go potty or good potty and when taking outside say Let’s Go Potty! that way he understands that outside means potty.
Always make sure he potties BEFORE going on a walk, if he learns that the walk ends as soon as he’s pottied, he’ll hold it longer, so don’t do that. Also pick up his water around 7 pm at night, not an hour before bedtime, and make sure he gets outside quite a bit before bedtime.
Get up once in the night to take him outside [set your alarm clock if needed] and after a few weeks he will be able to hold it all night long.
Just be patient and DON’T punish him, eliminating must be pleasant and stress free experience for a dog with tons of praise and treats when he’s done a job well done and ignoring him when he’s pottied in the house. He’ll soon learn as long as you are 1. Patient 2. Consistent in your training [stick to one method] 3. only reward the good behavior and 4. always ignore the bad behavior.
Like you said, he had a bad start in life and never received any training, regardless if he’s 11 months old or 11 weeks old he deserves the same kind of training and consideration as a new puppy.
I’ve fostered several foster dogs and 9 times out of 10 they were never housebroken properly.
to train the dog, you have to make sure your teelling the dog what to do, not what you want him to do for you!!!! – he has to learn to do it himself, by himself, for his self!!, you have kinda given him the wrong impression, that he’s doing it to please you.
Poor little thing, he must feel absolutely lost. All you do is show him lots of love and give him lots of cuddles. Treat him for the time being like a puppy and have lots of patience and lots of newspapers down. Just mop up, disinfect and whatever you do, don’t shout at him. Once he knows you won’t be leaving him and he gets to trust you he will be your friend for life.
We had a rescue dog at 7 months, and he chewed everything in sight.
So when we went out to work (part-time only) we put everything out of his reach, just left him some chews and his own toys and he soon got used to what was ours and what was his. He died at the age of 9 years of age and we were devastated.
You have to understand that it is going to take you a little longer to potty train this puppy. Most puppies are not fully potty trained until 1-year-old. Normally I would say to crate the puppy until it can behave in your house, but this puppy has been trained to potty in the crate. You need to figure out a way to limit the space the puppy has while you are gone. You don’t mention the breed, so I don’t know if you can child gate off an area for him. I think you need to focus on having an eating and drinking bed area, and hopefully he won’t potty there. They don’t like to potty where they eat and sleep. I take my dogs out potty in the middle of the night. I would set a timer or alarm and take him out. I think this behavior will correct itself as you maintain your training. I assume you ruled out something medical like bladder infection or incontinence. I just think you are going to have to hang in there, puppies all train at their own pace, and this puppy is behind schedule. It won’t be impossible to train him, it will just take patience, and time.