At my wits end but I love her!

[Trixie160713]

I am new to this forum so hello to you all. My name is Mel and I'm from not so sunny England.

I have a very beautiful four year old Yorkie called Trixie. Trixie has been part of my family since she was eight weeks old.

My problem is that she insists on using my home as a toilet and has done for almost all her life. Think we had about a four month spell when she was a puppy where she cracked it but it didn't last.

Trixie has a doggie door so has unlimited access to the garden and she uses this doggie door happily so I know she isn't afraid of it. She ruined my living room carpet so I invested in wooden flooring but this is now lifting where she has weed. She will wee in my kitchen (on laminate flooring), my living room (on wooden flooring), and in the rest of the house which is carpeted. She is also happy to wee on my leather couch and upholstered dining room chairs!

I have tried everything I can think of to stop this behaviour. I have smacked her after taking her to where she weed, I have tried crate training but she is happy to wee and dirty in her bed, I put her out through the day and before bed and praise her when she goes outside. I have cleaned the areas she wees in with vinegar as I was told this will deter her but all it does is stink up my house.

She is destroying my home and friends and family think my only solution is to get rid of her but she is a beautiful girl and so loving. She is a big part of my family and rehoming is not something I want to do but I don't know whT else to try and the older she gets the harder it becomes.

Please can anyone help?

[Silver Lace]

I understand your being at your wits end over this,I do. They can be so hard to train ,I don't have a solution for you and I just wish I had the answer that would make it all better. My last Yorkie was not trained for about a year and that seemed to happen only because I got a baby poodle. I would tell tia that I was getting a sister for her and she would have to help me house train her. Silly as it may sound she did just that. She no longer went in the house after her baby sister came to live with us. Could she have understood what I said to her? This little boy I have now was no trouble really He was indoor potty trained and has his own private potty box he uses all the time.perhaps you could Google for some helpful information if you don,t find answers here. I hope you find the help you need as I see how much you love her and do not want to give up on her. Oh, by the way there are products for sale to remove the urine odor and will not leave the vinegar smell you spoke or. Off hand I cannot think of any as I have not used any in years. Try your pet store or look online. Best wishes.

[Britster]

First of all, smacking does nothing but make her fear you. She's not learning. Dogs don't learn that way.

Second, when she was a pup, did you just expect her to let her self out the doggy door or did you physically take her outside yourself? The doggy door may just be... another extension of your house, if that makes sense. It sounds to me like she doesn't understand the boundary of where to pee/where not to pee. It's just all free game for her.

You're going to have to start from step one like she is a baby if you want her to be successful since it does get harder the longer they have been "allowed" to do this.

In the mean time, you can use a doggy diaper to save your rugs and furniture. Tether her to you with a leash at all times when you are home. Take her outside every 30 minutes. Then as she proves she is getting better, take her out every hour. Keep increasing the amount of time over a period of a month. LOTS of praise and lots of treats RIGHT when she goes outside. Do not wait -- treat her immediately when she goes in the right spot, otherwise she won't know WHY you are rewarding her. With her being tethered to you (you can buy the kind that attach around your waist or belt), you can keep an eye at all times. If she is about to squat, you firmly but kindly say no and bring her outside to where she is supposed to go.

Where do you keep her when you leave the house?

[Trixie160713]

For once something actually makes sense!

I didn't just expect her to use the doggy door she was taken outside and praised as a puppy but the idea that she sees it as 'just another part of the house' does make some sense to me.

I do work full time and when I am not home she is confined to the kitchen as I have heard that giving them too much free range to roam is too much for them to handle? Don't know how true that is.

What I don't understand though is I read that a dog will not soil in their own bed but she does. Surely if she sees each area as just another place to toilet then fine but why use her bed as a toilet also?

I came down this morning to about three puddles of wee and two lots of poo! Not what you want to see first thing in the morning in your kitchen area. She is fed once a day in the morning so surely she should be able to hold it at night and has ample opportunity to soil throughout the day!

Your support is greatly appreciated.

[JoshuatreeJeep]

Hi I have found that if I keep the water dish on the floor while mine eats, then take her outside very shortly after, walk with her on a leash in the area you want her to potty in. When she goes be exceedingly happy even if you have to look like an idiot outsie��
treat her like a toddler and offer water often throughout the day and take her out on the leash a very short time after.
With the poo problem, do the same thing. Offer food as often as you and your vet feel she should eat and make a schedule that works for you . The key is to take her out to the area not long after she eats and don't stand still. If you walk around she will and that is when there little bodies start to work in that area. Just like when they are babies. If you pick them up as soon as a baby wakes up and carry them outside they lurk that's where they need to go.
Human language and doggy Communication sometimes feels foreign but if you play close attention to her when you start doing this she will tell you when she wants to go out she might come up and look you on the face she might stand by the door she might look at you funny you'll start to realize her signs when you start really watching her, you will learn what her potty faces Is eventually and if you've never been told anything like this then you had no way of knowing that your dog is not going to just go out the doggie door to go potty . Don't stress �� Just give it a try...

[gemy]

Limiting your gal to one area is good, but unless you have trained her to the wee pads it means kitchen cleaning when you get home. Better an expen with wee pad in it, until she learns how to hold her pee or poo.

I agree with britster, back to puppy 101 training.

About her bed, for some unknown reason some dogs soil their crates. Then the smell sticks around n in crate. I would get removable and washable covers for her bed and soak soiled covers in an enzymatic cleaner. Also a very regular schedule for pee pooing etc.

Now I am assuming that you have had her vet checked for urinary incontinence and if not she should be. If she has been spayed there is a condition aptly named spay incontinence where the dog has a limited control over their bladder.

[Yorkiex]

I can't chime in on any potty training tricks as my dogs were super easy to potty train but I do have a recommendation on a product for your soiled carpets and cushions. I babysit my husband's ex boss' dogs and we own a very expensive rug that her dog decided to mark territory on. Of course, that then made my dogs mark OVER her territory with their own urine and it was a disaster. The rug looked and smelled horrible. I bought this and SOAKED and scrubbed for like 10 minutes and let it sit for an hour and then wiped up the excess liquid. It took a full 2 days to dry up but that area looks brand new and best of all, there isn't even a HINT of the smell of urine on the carpet. I will warn you though, the smell of the product is very strong and lingers for about a week after but then disappears. Good Luck!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Clyde_Dexter]

I was in a similar situation as you. While I would never want to give up my dogs my parents were at their wits end. They wanted the dogs gone, and I do not blame them. My dogs were destroying their home with pee and poo. I have two male yorkie mixes. One is four and the other is eight. My dogs were potty trained at one point in their life. I hired a dog sitter while I went on a two week vacation. I came home to dogs that thought it was okay to pee and poo in the house. I thought they were just upset that I had left and the behavior would adjust itself. I didn't take the steps to correct their behavior and it jus progressively got worse.That was two years ago. Just last week I finally decided that I had enough of allowing my dogs to ruin our home. It was unnecessary and unpleasant. It did require A LOT of work on my part. Here are the steps I took to stop my dogs from going potty in the house:

Get rid of whatever you can get rid of that she has peed on in the house, and deep clean whatever you cannot. Then set up boundaries for her. If she has specific spots in the house she likes to go section those spots in the house off so she no longer has access to them. The first thing I did with my dogs was set up boundaries. I bought a bunch of baby gates/play yards and sectioned off every area of the house I didn’t want my dogs to go potty in or that they had a habit of going potty in.

The next thing I did was set up a schedule. A small dog has a small bladder, small dogs should go out to potty every four hours or so, about 6 times a day regularly. However, a dog that has a habit of going in the house needs to be taken out more at the start. When I first started I took my dogs outside upwards of 10 times a day. Now that they have learned to hold their bladder I only take them out every 3/4 hours.

I made a schedule for my dogs. The FIRST thing I do when I wake up in the morning is take my dogs on a short poo/pee walk. I take my dogs out to the designated pee spot outside right before I leave. If I am going to be gone more than 4 hours I have hired someone to come and take them out. I take them out FIRST thing when I get home. I then take them out on another poo/pee walk during the evening. Then I take the dogs out to go pee again right before bed. You MUST have a consistent schedule. If she is going to start to learn that you expect her to go outside you are going to have to start taking her out regularly.

Designate a specific pee spot for her outside. Take her out there yourself several times a day. Reward her greatly when she goes pee there. Once she starts doing this regularly add in the command “go potty”. My dogs now understand when I say “go potty” to go to a specific bush and go pee.

I had to adjust my schedule by 30 minutes to take my dogs on a “poo walk”. This is a 15 min walk in the morning and a 15 min walk in the evening to encourage my dogs to go poo outside. If your dog will willingly go poo outside when you take her to the garden GREAT! My dogs would not. This was the only way I could get them to start going poo outside and STOP going poo in my house.

If you do not have the time to take your dog out so many times a day or have the option to hire someone to take her outside then you are going to have to train her to go on a pee pad or dog litter box. You’ll have to keep this pad in the same spot and take her there daily and try and encourage her to potty there.

I also started feeding my dogs on a schedule so I can control the likelihood of when they will need to go poo. If they have constant access to food it is harder to control when they will need to go poo.

Every since I did these things it has been FIVE successful days of my dogs not going inside. And I am not kidding. There was constant pee and poo in my house. ALL THE TIME. It was frustrating. It does require a lot of time and patience on your part. Some dogs are harder to potty train then others. For example, one of my dogs will hold his bladder willingly now. The other will not. The only that will not hold his bladder for more than two hours has to wear a diaper when I am not home so if he has an accident it doesn’t get on the floor. You might need to do the same with your girl until she learns to hold it. So far my dog will not potty in the diaper.

This is an incredibly long post. I hope you either found it useful in some way or perhaps were given hope that it is not impossible to potty train an adult dog that has been going inside most of its life. My dogs have been going potty inside for almost two years now. It only took five days on my part to break the cycle. The only thing is you cannot become lazy once you start to achieve success. You have to set aside the time to work with your dog if keeping them in your home potty free is important enough to you. This whole situation taught me that I was being a lazy dog owner. Once I stepped up to the plate my dogs followed.

Also keep up with the specific sleeping spot. Keep her in a specific spot while you are not home. Do not give her access to roam around unsupervised. EVEN when you are home. It's like potty training a puppy. You would not allow a puppy to roam the house unsupervised because they are likely to go when you are not looking. You have to assume three things A) She cannot hold her bladder very long B) she doesn't know where you are expecting her to go so she WILL Go where ever.

Thanks for reading!

[laurajmm]

I have hardwood & laminate floors & braided area rugs. I have used Natures Miracle for many years. Works great. Comes in spray bottles. Petsmart has a whole line of Natures Miracle . It is a little bit expensive. I get it when Petsmart has it for buy 1 & get 2nd for 1/2 off. I use the stain & odor remover & the hardwood cleaner.
I worked full time & I let my husband talk me into using puppy papers. I retired 2 years ago due to illness. . I decided then that my dogs would start going outside. 8 yr. old Shih Tzu & 6 year old Toy Poodle- I had to put them on a very strict schedule. They have an accident at times- but are doing pretty good. My 2 little Morkies 10months & 14 months have done very well with training- but they have their little accidents to. Good luck. Try the natures miracle- I love it.