I am a long time yorkie owner. We lost our 16 year old boy recently, and once he was trained he never had accidents and never marked but was neutered at around 7 months.
This week we rescued a 2 year old male yorkie. He was intact but has been neutered now and is recovering from surgery. We were told he was trained to go outside and did not mark. OMG, this little guy is a heathen! He will pee outside every time we take him out, but will pee indiscriminately whenever and wherever, and the same with the marking. I can keep him outside 20 minutes, he'll pee three times and come right back in the house and pee again. It's making me nuts. I even thought - maybe he has a UTI and that's why he's peeing constantly. Nope. He's perfectly healthy, and no UTI. We had him checked.
I swore I would never resort to the belly bands. That seems sort of counter productive, as he is being prevented from marking rather than learning not to do it, but after a few days of cleaning up after him, off to petsmart we went. He did fairly well with the belly bands. He only wet in the band twice (Lots easier to change the pad than scrub the carpet or furniture) and it seemed like he was figuring it out. Then he went in for neutering yesterday, came home and immediately started peeing and marking everywhere again. Grrr.... Afraid to use the band right now as he just got neutered and is probably sore. But believe me, I am counting the days till I can put it back on him.
However, I am wondering if using the belly bands is the right answer. Will we have to use them forever, or will he be able to learn using them? So far we've been rewarding him when we take the band off to go out and it's dry, but I seriously don't think he understands why he's being rewarded. Rewarding him when he goes outside doesn't make much sense either because he'll go outside three times every time we take him out.
I could really use some advice on this.
Diana |