Deeni, I am going to give you my thoughts as someone who works with Yorkie Rescue. I can fully understand your frustration with the potty training as I have many of my dogs that never were trained and it has been difficult for me (had to tear out all my carpet and replace with tile) but we slowly are making progress. This does not concern me as much as the aggression he is starting to show to you with the biting and this is a serious issue. I have 3 yorkie's that were turned over to me from the Humane Society as they cannot adopt out a dog that they knew were biters. In each of these cases they have bitten children and if I did not take them then they would be put down. Yes, even the Humane Society puts animals down that are not adoptable due to biting and lawsuits. Of course since some of these dogs were older I have many scars from them fear biting or thinking they are the masters.
I understand why many of the YT members are saying give it time but the issue is bigger than just the potty training if I read your note correctly. I am sure that your little guy is bored, scared if you are reaching your frustration point with him (they can feel this) and being left alone for long hours in the day.
You have to make the decision on what is right for the dog and if you see that this is not going to change in the near future then the kindest thing you can do is either turn him over to Yorkie Rescue or find an experienced Yorkie owner.
I know one member said not to turn him over to Rescue but I would disagree as long as it was a Yorkie Rescue. I can tell you that Yorkie Rescue is experienced Yorkie people and going through our adoption process is worse than adopting a human child (or so I have been told). The reason they are so tough is so that these little guys don't get passed from home to home and that they end up in their forever home. Sometimes we make mistakes and they have come back but in the 2 cases the people lied to us and were not honest about what they said they were going to do. Here are some of our rules: Must live in Arizona (this way we can always check on the dogs and if they have to be returned it is an easy thing to do), must have a home visit, no other large dogs (Yorkie's feel that they are 200lbs) and will go after another dog, no children under 14, and must be at least 30 years of age but no more than 70 years of age. I know that many people do not like our rules but remember these little kids have already gone through at least 1 home or more and we are just trying to save one dog at a time. Right now I have a female that is only 8 months old and I am her 4th and last home. She has many issues from being passed around.
Please feel free to email me if you think I can help!
Cindy |