April 21, 2011

My 6 month old Cockapoo is STILL not housebroke. When will he figure it out?

Full Question:
We have a six months old cockapoo that we got when he was 10 weeks old.

We crate trained him from the beginning. He cried for a couple of nights but then took to it just fine. When I take him out of the crate, I take him outside and he will pee on command. I take him inside and give him free time in a confined room such as a kitchen or family room or on a leash. He will then go in the house again even if it has only been 10 min since he was outside. 90% of the time he had an accident in the house I would stop him in the middle of doing it and I would say "OUTSIDE" and take him outside. At some point I suspected that he is marking because like I said he will often go again in the house just minutes after going outside. I made him one of those diapers and put it on him. He still peed. After several accidents at home, I decided I'm not going to have this dog pee in my house again so I stopped giving him any free time inside the house. After a few weeks of this confinement (about 2 weeks ago), I decided I would test him. Again, he had just gone outside a mere fifteen min before and I did not give him any water or anything, yet he peed again in the house. I'm wondering if this dog is marking the house because he will do the same thing outside. He will pee and then walk a little bit and then pee again. He sometimes pees three times in a period of 5 minutes. Someone told me that marking is usually only a few drops. I can't see how much peeing he is doing outside but in my house every time he had an accident, it is a small puddle. My concern is this dog is marking. If he is not marking, how long is it still going to take to get the house breaking into his head? He is already six months and neutered. I mean when will I be able to give him free time in my house and be able to have my kids play with him? And most importantly is how will I know this time has come. Most of my friends said their dog learned to never pee in the house within just a few weeks. I've been training this dog for over 4 months now. I feel bad for the dog because he is a hyper one and being in the crate for a long time makes him even more hyper when he is out and then the kids can't play with him because he is all over the place. Please Help.

Best Regards,
Heba
Ed
Ed Ed's Answer:
This is not an uncommon problem.

You need to just go back to what you were doing that worked - that is the dog lives in the dog crate and ALL interaction is done outside. When it comes inside it goes directly into the crate. We have 5 crates in our furnace room in the basement Only two of our dogs are allowed loose in the house (and only one of those is ever left unattended in the house).

One of our young dogs is loose in the house with us but she is always on a puppy leash. If we get up and go from one room to another we take the dog with us. She is never ever allowed to be unattended.

Exercise (taking the dog for walks) is always the best way to get a dog to pee and poop. It works for people and it s works for dogs.

I also recommend that you go to my web site and read the article I wrote on my philosophy of dog training. I think you will get some good ideas there.

I would recommend you purchase the dvd I produced titled Your Puppy 8 Weeks to 8 Months.

I have owned and trained German Shepherds for 40 years. In the past 30 years I have bred over 340 litters of working bloodline German Shepherds. I give this video to all of my puppy customers and never get questions on how to raise a pup.

Read the description of the tape on my web site. Dog training is not rocket science its simple common sense ideas on how to handle and train a dog, The DVD has 2 ½ hours of training information along with 15 puppy training articles that I have written.

You should also consider my 4 hour DVD on Basic Dog Obedience - The fact is you have way more to learn than your dog. I always recommend the handlers start studying this DVD right away even though you won't train a lot of the work until the pup is 4 to 6 months old.

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