Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello!

I have 2 pomeranians - a boy and a girl. I will start with their story...

They are between 2 - 3 years old. We adopted them a few months ago from a home with 20 other poms, and they were pretty much allowed free reign of the home. They were not potty trained, they were not actually broken of any undesireable habits (they potty where they sleep and eat, for example, and they bark...a lot).

My girl: First, she has a heart murmur - this makes me afraid to do ANYTHING because the vet said she might start having seizures. Also, she has...excitment pee. Actually, submissive pee too. Uh, she pretty much just pees when she has any sort of emotion other than sleep! Haha. Either way, it is totally ruining my furniture and my floor and I have NO IDEA how to break her of this or if it is even possible. We have attempted to give her "calm down" pills, but they don't do anything. She is just a ball of energy and...well...that leads to peeing. It is bad when she is sitting on my lap and she is excited. Obviously, she also never caught on to the potty training we attempted when we got them. Crate training, piddle pads with that spray that makes them want to go in a spot, bells on the door handle to tell us when they want to go out, LEAVING a door open so they could go out whenever they want. Disipline, rewards, nothing seems to work.

My boy: He isn't as bad as my girl (no excitment pee), but he does tend to potty wherever he wants. SOMETIMES he uses pads, sometimes he uses say...the side of a chair, or the side of a desk. He also never caught on to training.

Our schedule: Monday through Friday I work from 8 AM to 5 PM. My boyfriends schedule is erratic. Either way, we feed them @ 7 AM and around 7 PM. When both of us are away to work, they are outside in a 6x6 pen. It is getting winter and we cannot leave them outside for much longer and I want to ensure that I can trust them in the house.

I just dont know what to DO ANYMORE. I want to keep them - we love them and they have a good home with us. They didn't have a good home before. Can anyone give us some advice?

Go to the link in my signature for the Canine Behavior Series, and read the articles that start (alphabetically) with "Housetraining." I think you'll come up with a good plan that way. One part of it at this point is going to be to limit their range for running through the whole house. They're little, and can handle being in a smaller space when you can't watch them. It can be a room or a playpen, doesn't have to be a crate.

Absolutely no more punishment of any kind for housetraining accidents--not even a harsh word--especially for the female. And have her medically checked. Urinary tract infections can be so very stubborn in female dogs. They don't necessarily cause urinary incontinence, but they can certainly make it worse.
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Kathy Diamond Davis, author, "Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others," 2nd edition, and the free Canine Behavior Series articles at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=SRC&S=1&SourceID=47

Take Kathy's advice and start a strict schedule right away. Also, confining the dogs when you can't supervise 100% of the time.

You also need to clean up the floors and such in your house with an enzyme cleaner so the dogs realize that they are no longer allowed ot potty in the hosue. Treat these dogs as if they wee 5 weeks old and just starting to learn to potty train. Never let them make a mistake again and it really will get better. Poms are smart dogs. Realize these dogs have had 2 or 3 YEARS to learn a bad habit of pottying in te hosue. It's going ot take time to unlearn this bad trait. Just be patient and very consistent. It will get better. Just let them succeed.
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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