Scooter's_Mom

As mentioned in my introduction, we adopted Scooter, a poodle/doxie mix back in December from a nearby Humane Society. At the time of his adoption, Scooter was approximately 4 years old, had just been neutered and was also healing from having to have most of his small teeth extracted. He captured my heart the moment I saw him and even after being informed of his "special needs", and getting to spend time with him, I knew he belonged in our family. My vet did do an exam shortly after bringing him home. Doc mentioned that he felt like Scooter had been abused prior to our adopting him. That being said, I'm beginning to wonder if all the medical issues all at once combined with the possibility of prior abuse are the reason for Scooter being so darned stubborn with housebreaking.

I've never had one that had to be housebroken. My older dog "trained" himself (we just had to watch for his signal) and my golden retriever just always went outside, too. Scooter, from day one in our home, has always been taken outside first thing in the morning, even before my 1st cup of coffee! He will immediately pee, always. Sometimes, multiple times since he and Max are insistent on having a "peeing contest". Most of the time, he will poop at least once in the morning and again, generally just before bedtime. He also gets time outside when either of us first arrive from work and up to several times before bed. My concern is that he will still pee after coming back in. And, if we don't get him outside at just the right time, he'll also poop in the house. I hestitate to actual fuss at him. Once we caught him just as he started to haunch his rear and I promptly took him out. We had an 8 hour stand off on which of us was going to last the longest--him without pooping or me standing out there all night in the bitter cold until he did. Scooter won that battle, but he also spent the night in his kennel as I couldn't trust that he wouldn't go inside.

He sleeps in our bed, doesn't generally potty in our room, although he has maybe twice. I'm currently at the point of keeping him tethered to me at all times so that I can catch him before he has the opportunity to even try to potty in the house.

I don't mind the taking him out. I chose that responsibility when I chose to bring him home. He is my special little boy and I want to do right by him. I just can't seem to figure out what to do/how to do to make him understand that it is totally unacceptable to potty in our home. I sometimes wonder if it's because of the cat we did have. She got to where she would refuse to use her litter box and literally ruined my new carpet down stairs. No matter what I've used to clean the carpet, I can still smell the cat urine so I know Scooter can, too.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm frustrated and really want to do what is right for this boy. He's such a joy to have in our lives.

WestCoastSpoo

I am not an expert at all, but when our adult Yorkie started having potty training issues (after being potty trained before) we 1st had him checked by the vet to make sure there weren't any physical reasons (infections,etc) for him not being able to hold it and then we just started from scratch with the house training. He was either in his crate, tethered to me or outside to go potty. He wasn't allowed free roam of the house anymore and only got access to an additional room once he hadn't had any accidents at all in the 1st room (we started letting him into the kitchen/family room just because we have a big great room type set up and we blocked off the hallways to the other parts of the house). Preventing accidents is KEY because it's really hard to break the habit once they've started going in the house.

Huxley, our spoo puppy now was very easy to house train, but he's still not allowed free range of the house even though he's only had 2 accidents in his life and both were before he was 12 weeks old. He also sleeps in his crate at night (after a long snuggle on our bed). I don't think he would hold it all night if he wasn't in his crate.

Good luck! I know it can be frustrating, but hang in there And how lucky your special little guy is to have found you!

__________________

Pudel-Fan

Bless you for taking on Scooter with his special needs. I admit I have been lucky to have 2 spoos who were easy to house train as pups, but I read all the "how to's" and planned my day around their potty training.

What it sounds like to me is that Scooter was NEVER house trained in the first place. We have all heard stories of dogs and cats rescued from houses filled with feces and the people lived in the house, iicck! But there are people who don't house train their dogs and especially small dogs. If that is true then it's going to be a lot of work to retrain him since he has no urge to keep his den (the house) clean.

Since you are committed to helping Scooter, I would suggest getting a book on the latest research on house training a puppy and apply that to Scooter. Crated if you don't have eyes on, tethered (as you already are doing), a very set schedule for outside potty, with lots of praise for going there (it might help to take him to the same spot each time and as he starts to releave himself, start repeating "do your business" (can be any phrase you are comfortable with again refer to house training book) stop the chant as soon as he stops going. The goal is to teach him to go on command and will be a big help to you in the future. Both my spoos will relieve themselves on command and it really comes in handy at seminars and trials.

I have also read on forums that people use belly bands for males to discourage them from going in the house but I have no experience with that so just throwing it out there. Good luck and when you suceed with this you are going to feel so good about yourself and what you are able to accomplish in life.

Scooter's_Mom

Thanks, Pudel-Fan. I'm beginning to think he wasn't housetrained either. Never having had to train one, it is a learning experience for me as well. He has definite patterns to his eliminations, but he will also sometimes "go" between those times. He won't mess his crate nor our bed so those two are safe areas. I'm thinking that if my working with him during our time at home with him doesn't start some progress soon, I'm going to take him with me to work so that I can continue to take him out for regular potty breaks. Good thing that I have such a great boss that'll allow for that.

We're probably going to be heading on over to the next big town this weekend so I should be able to stop by Barnes and Noble and see what I can find in the way of some help books there. Thanks for the suggestion.

Now, if I could just locate all my pictures and start getting a couple posted.....