Toilet training

[Lucy West]

This time last year, I got a four year old female black and tan (Toffee) who has been an absolute joy and delight.   Overall, she’s settled in remarkably well (especially considering she spent her first four years in a kennel with only two humans and 50 other dogs!).

The one major problem has been in housetraining her.  Despite no previous training, she seemed to have an instinct at first for knowing that she shouldn’t go in the house.  My strategy was to give her so many opportunities to go outside that she wouldn’t need to go inside.  I walk her three times a day for about five miles in total, so she gets a lot of exercise and chances to do her business (it’s also become a wonderful pastime for me   .

We can go through weeks of no accidents and then hit a bad patch when she’ll pee or poo several nights in succession (it’s usually nights, but sometimes during the day if she’s left alone for awhile).  It’s like she loses the plot and has no idea that she’s supposed to wait.   :x  I've heard that girls like to go on soft surfaces and she does.  So I fold up our rugs downstairs when I leave the house.  She still occasionally pees or poos on the wood floor.  I’ve made a huge effort to clean up the stains very carefully to attempt to remove the odour since I know that can lead to repeats.

We’ve now resorted to locking her into a small bedroom at night with a babygate.  She doesn’t seem to mind too much as our bedroom is next door.  We’ve also had to cover the carpet in there with a tarpaulin to protect against her occasional accidents.

One of the problems is that I very rarely catch her in the act and my understanding (from books and others’ advice) is that there’s no point in scolding her after the fact.  So I have no opportunity to catch the bad behaviour and chastise her.  I’ve also never been able to train her to ask to go outside as I understand people do with puppies.

I’m quite worried, not only for the sake of our own furnishings, but because it’s likely to limit where we can take her on holidays, or leave her while we’re away.  Any advice would be very welcome!                    

[Jane S]

All you can do Lucy is go right back to basics & treat Toffee exactly as if she was a young puppy - which means going outside with her frequently, staying with her until she "performs" (using a key phrase like "hurry up" or "be quick"), then lots of praise when she does the job. As a former kennel dog, she may never be completely reliable - she has in the past been used to going when she needed to wherever she happened to be, a hard habit to break, although if if as you say, she was ok for a while & is now relapsing, maybe you need to look for reasons why. Perhaps she was being disturbed at night or the room was too cold? Maybe you need to adjust her feeding schedule (eg feeding her last meal earlier than you do now) or perhaps change her food to one that produces less wastage (the premium dog foods tend to produce less than the cheaper supermarket brands). As far as going away on holiday, perhaps you could invest in a crate & gradually acclimatise Toffee to sleeping in it - she would then have her own little "home from home" when you are away & you would not have to worry about over night "accidents"

Jane