Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I jsut got a VERY intelligent and easily trained 5 month old lab/shep/whoknows puppy from a rescue organization. He'd been living at the vet for at least 10 days, and then at the shelter for who knows how long.

Bottom line: it looks like his clean-den instinct, the basis for housebreaking, has been squashed. The first day he was here he pooped about 2 inches from his dish, that was my first clue.

It's been 8 days, I'm with him almost 24/7, he's got a crate and an X-pen and when he's out he's either outside with me or with me on a leash in the house 90% of the time. He also lives with an older dog, my Golden, who is perfectly housebroken.

He goes outside almost all of the time, he totally understands that outside is a great place to go. But what he's not getting yet is that inside is a BAD place to go.

As far as I can tell, he hasn't soiled his actual crate, but he has peed inside the X-pen 4 times, and I've made it smaller and smaller and I can't make it smaller and still leave him room to lie down.

I know that the next step is going to have to be using the crate instead of the X during the day (currently it's used at night and when I leave the house for the very brief periods that I do, max 2.5 hours so far), but do any of you have any other ideas? I'm really flummoxed because he's amazingly smart and picks up on obedience training instantly...why he isn't getting the word about this I just don't get.

I make sure he gets TONS of opportunityt to go otuside, and he does. We must go outside....12 times a day. Rarely does he have to wait longer than 2 hours to go outside. And he does pee virtually every time. (I also have a dog door, and I've taken to letting him lead me to the back, which he's been doing, and he'll choose to go out and pee and poo there if we're near it and he's not distracted. And he gets praised for that.)

I've found long ago with my smart dogs that teaching them not to do something is almost impossible. My dogs have no idea it's not ok to go to the bathroom in the house, they instead know with 100% certainty that outside is the place they need to go. Basically, you just need to be incredibly patient with this guy. Reward LAVISHLY and often for doing the right thing in the right place and completely ignore accidents.

It may also be possible to teach this smart pup to use a piddle pad indoors until he's fully confident he's making the right choice to go outside all the time.
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Chelle and the rest of the crew including, but not limited to Kita and Taiko (the shiba inu wrestle maniacs), Adi (reserved and dignified tabby cat), and all 28 reptiles

What are you using to clean up the places the dog goes? Maybe the odor is still there to the dog. Go to the pet store and get a product that works on places in the house and kills the odor for them. Just a hint never use a Ammonia based product that does smell like urine to them. Also does the dog drink alot and pee alot, maybe needs a vet check for any problems in that area.

Cheryl