Potty trained at my house, but no where else. Any thoughts?
 

Hi All,

I have a 9 month puppy who is fully trained at my place, but we left her with a friend this past weekend when we were gone and apparently she went everywhere but on her mat or outside. I'm pretty sure I know what the problems are, but wondering if anyone else has dealt with something similar and has a solution.

I live on the 8th floor and have a big, fully enclosed balcony with a porch potty. I also have one mat I keep down in the apartment for at night or if we happen to be gone a bit longer than usual. She gets two walks outside a day and she almost always goes potty then as well. When I'm home during the day (I work from home) she scratches to go out (usually on the balcony to pee or play) and mostly uses her porch potty if I'm working. If we're gone, we're sleeping in on a weekend, or maybe if I don't hear her scratching, she uses her mat - which I would say maybe gets used once a day or every other day. I don't think she really gets the mat though - she has just been trained to go in this one spot in our house, and hits the mat about 95% of the time. She hasn't had an accident anywhere else in about 2 months and has the full run of our apartment.

However - when we've brought her to our friends places, we put a mat down and say potty so she knows, and she got regular walks (4 a day), but apparently she doesn't always go on the walks and potties wherever she feels like it (she hit the mat like twice in a 3 day weekend). When we've taken her to hotels or smaller places (e.g. one room confinement) and put a mat down, she uses it and outside with no issues when we're around. But in a house or even a bigger apartment without me there, no luck. Any thoughts on how I can maybe modify her training at home to help with other people's houses? I feel like she's never really been trained to "hold it" because we have the mat down and she plays on the balcony all the time so pretty much just goes when she needs to (plus I bring her on all my errands so she goes pretty frequently on walks and always gets praise) The weather is starting to get nice so I don't want to not let her outside on the balcony, she would get so confused. If anyone has dealt with something similar with outdoor and mat training let me know.

Thanks!

I think the trick is to train or retrain at each home they'll go to. They get trained in their own homes but for some reason (Yorkie brain) they don't make the connection that all houses are homes and not to pee or poop in them.