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Old 01-13-2014, 11:47 AM   #1
lgs0522
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Maryland
Posts: 4
Default Carpet Peeing Please Help!

Please please whomever can help us we're quite desperate! How do I train my 2 year old male Yorkie to know that the carpet is NOT a viable place to pee. He knows very well to go outside and to do it quickly, but we can't seem to train him to instead NOT pee on the carpet. Or anything fuzzy really. For example, today after months of crate training we attempted to keep him in a small bathroom for 4 hours with nothing but a pee pad and his blanket that he loves to curl himself up in. After 2 hours he peed on his blanket...He's the most adorable, intelligent, wimpy, and stubborn 2 year old male Yorkie on the planet who is both stealing my heart and is driving me insane!

My boyfriend and I have been trying to housebreak him for a little over a 8 months now with minimal progress. We first tried training him to use pee pads, which he took no interest in (and I'd truthfully prefer him not to use pee pads anyhow) and moved to outside training, which has worked! He knows to go outside! He has no clue NOT to go inside though, he sees absolutely no value added.

For about 7 of the 8 months of training we've been crate training him. Pees/poops before crate, 4-5 hours in create in the morning, let him out at lunch, pee in the front yard, go for a walk, play a little before heading back to work, and then 4 hours back in the cage until we get home, let him out again. He doesn't much like this crate, whether crated or not he'd whine whenever left alone. Fortunately hasn't been peeing in the crate, which is as small as acceptable for his size (4.5 lbs). Despite the crate training, we'll still find once every other day a pee mark somewhere or that he's snuck away to poop on the bathroom rug. And of course we can't catch him in the act.

He knows to go outside, and he's quite the little marker. For a while we took him on walks so we could try to praise him and give him treats right after he'd pee (which is a lot) so he could see how great outside training is, I mean treats galore right? During one walk he'd pee (or at least think he was peeing) around 6 or 7 times, rationing his first 2 or 3 pees to be able to mark various things along the walk, and then shooting blanks for the rest of it. This only kind of worked as he doesn't seem to much care about our praise and 95% of the time wouldn't accept treats - any treats. We've tried numerous types and sizes of actual dog treats, and we've tried stuff like cheese, goldfish, tuna, ground hamburger, scrambled eggs, you name the types of scraps dogs usually go gaga over, we've literally tried carrying all of these things on walks to provide him incentives, and he just does not care. Even with successful walks we keep finding that he'll sneak a small pee or poop somewhere in the bedroom (we rent an average sized room in a house, and for the most part he'll stay in the room or go outside, but no other wandering).

Over the past month he's figured out on his own that if we go outside, if he pee/poops quickly he can go back inside back inside quickly. It's been cold with the winter, so we assume that he's finally figured out on his own that he gets to minimize the cold by quickly going, which has been great. Still doesn't care for a treat after this, though he's fine to take a treat 15 minutes later when we get upstairs for something else like practicing "sit" or "laydown".

He's stubborn to the point that he won't do anything unless he figures out on his own why it's beneficial. For example, teaching him laydown only worked when he laid down on his own and took a treat. The 15 minutes prior to that where my boyfriend was physically (though gently and enthusiastically) laying him down and giving him a treat was completely useless.

Anyone thoughts?

Thank you thank you thank you!
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