I have a 12 week old American Bulldog. I also have a 1 ½ year old female American Bulldog. We crate trained her and it worked great she is 100% house broken. The problem we are having is with him. When we got him from the breeder he looked like he was not taken very good care of. He was not in bad shape or anything but his nails were not clipped and he seemed small for his age. When we took him to the vet for the first time we had noticed there was blood in his stool. We brought this up to the vet and they did several tests on him and found him to have Parvo. We had only had him for 3 days so we knew that he had contracted it from the breeder. After investigating the breeder some we found that he had not had any other cases within the litter. The breeder agreed to pay for the treatment or replace the puppy. By this point we had already come attached to the pup so we decided to keep him and let the breeder pay for it. While treating him we had to keep him contained and separated from our other dog which we did by putting him in a cardboard box as recommended by the vet. The only problem is that we had to let him relieve himself in the box, he was not allowed to go outside. Now that he has been cured he is hard to house break. He peed and pooped in his box for 1 full week during treatment. We both work from home so we have a lot of time to be with the dogs but you know how it is trying to watch there every move. The problem now is that our female does not use a crate any more. When we put him in his crate during the day it seems like our female is teasing him or something because he will not stop barking to get out. Lately we have been watching closer and he does not poop inside any more, he goes to the door and barks to go out so I know he knows what he is supposed to do for that. But he will still go over to his or her bed and pee right on it and then he seems content to lay on it. He does this anytime we put the bed down. He will pee on it and we will wash it and as soon as we put it on the floor he will walk right over to it and pee on it again. As you can imagine this is becoming very aggravating. He also doesn’t mind peeing right in front of us on the floor, we correct him and take him right out side but that does not seem to be working.

Joe,

The crate training is good. Continue that. When you release him from the crate, make sure he could not access the bed. Do this for a couple of week, then only reintrodiced. Mostly they will be so used to not poop on the bed and your job is done. However when you start reintroducing the bed, take a beer can or any soft drinks can ready in your hands without him seing you. The minute he steps onto the bed and wanted to poop, throw the can over to make a loud clinging noise and act like nothing happens. 99% of puppy will stop what they are doing and get distracted. If he tried again, throw the second can and usually by 3-4 throws he will associate pooping on bed is scary. Initially do this for few days until 100% success but before that never let him get near the bed without you being there with your beer can. One accidental unchecked poop and you are worse off than back to square one.

The idea is to inprint in the puppy that getting onto bed is ok but not to poop on it. So the timing is important that only throw when he almost poop. Also be extra careful not to let him see you throw. Everytime he looks at you praise and perhaps food. So to him the beer can is bad guy, you are good guy. Good guy give me praise, petting and food. Bad guys come when I poop on bed. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> Got the idea?

Happy trying and remember timing.