[Annuta]

Hi everyone,

I have a real problem with my yorkie, who will be a year old in a few days. I potty trained him to go on potty pads ever since I got him when he was three months old. There has been progress most of the time, and I got him to go on them about 95% of the time.

He is almost a year old and I'm still battling with that pesky 5%. Initially, I crate trained him and when he was about 50% consistent, I put up gates in the kitchen and that's his current living space, and has been for the past 7
months or so. Our kitchen is rather big and he has plenty of room there. He has been doing very well (95% consistency) all this time. For the past few days, however, the trend seems to have been reversed. He is having
accidents 95% of the time, and going on his pad 5% of the time. He even peed on the couch when we had him with us for our usual family time in the evening - this has *never* happened, not even when he was a baby. We are taking him to the vet tomorrow to rule out any UTIs.

If there's no infection, however, I am at a complete loss as to how to proceed at this point. Even disregarding the past few days' accidents, on his best days he is still only 95% consistent. I have no idea how I can let him have the run of the house with those kind of odds. And, at the same time, I feel extremely bad having him living in the kitchen. He is already a year old, and should not be "locked up", so to speak. This is extremely frustrating and I
would very much appreciate whatever advice you have for me at this point. He has had plenty of attention as I have been working at home ever since I got him, and am almost always here with him, save for the times I need to run errands, etc.

Anna