Hi -- I am begging for advice from some of you awesome YT experts!!
My question is about my 10 month old little guy (he was neutered at 6 months). He is I guess "partly" pad trained. Ever since I got him, he is private and won't go when I am watching him, but will when I leave the room, so I haven't had a lot of opportunity to "catch him in the act" for praise, etc... What I've done is when it's time to go potty, I put him in his enclosed xpen area that has his pad in it , say "go potty" and walk away (it's about 2 feet by 6 feet area) And under the x-pen is a piece of linoleum that I bought from home depot to protect the carpet under that area. Then I would take him out after he went.
For a while he was using the pad very well... however, over time....
1.) he has started considering the whole linoleum area his big potty pad. He pees on it pretty much wherever.
2.) he has definitely started lifting his leg to pee on the xpen (like a fence). I know that is what a male instinct does ? It's my first male dog and I don't know what to do!
Should I just take the xpen out of the area? Is he going to find some other object to lift his leg onto though?? During the day when I am away at work, he is not enclosed in this xpen anymore... but has reign of that room, along with our other yorkie. So the only time that he is technically closed in the pen is in the morning I enclose it until he does his morning pee. (accidents on carpet still occur)
I should have trained him to go outside... and I've been trying to work on transitioning to that, but for some reason he won't go outside either! I don't know if it's the "private" thing or what, but I'll have him outside for an hour , then bring him in and he'll pee there
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheryl