2 Year Old Cockapoo Forgetting That He Is House Trained…?
September 14, 2009 by admin
Filed under Care & Training Q&As
My dog is over two years old. He has been house trained for awhile, but for a few months he has been pooping on the floor is my husband and I leave at the same time. It is deliberate, I have taken him around the block and then gone to the grocery store for twenty minutes, come back and he had pooped. There had been ample time to do it on the walk before.
We take him for a walk every day, cuddle and play with him, he is alone from about 8:00am to 5:30pm, but there are lots of toys to keep him entertained.
Recently he added peeing on the floor to his way of punishing us.
What can we do to stop him?
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First off, I don’t think that his accidents have anything to do with “punishing you.” While having accidents in the house could be a result of separation anxiety, its not like your dog is thinking “They left me again so I’m gonna pee and poop on the floor. That will show them.”
Now that that is out of the way, there are a number of different issues here that I want to address so I apologize in advance if this response becomes too lengthy.
Lets start with the alone from 8 am to 5:30pm. Although I’m sure you are capable of doing the math there, that is 9 and a half hours right there. That is a long time for a little dog to be inside without a potty break, especially if he has access to water during that time and is drinking and filling his bladder etc. A couple suggestions, do you guys have a fenced in yard where you could possibly install a doggy door for him to go in and out during the day to do his business on his own? How about it being possible to have someone come and let him out midday? If none of those are an option, you might want to look into crate training.
It is possible that it could be related to some form of separation anxiety. Your dog is 2 years old and you mention that this happens when both you and your husband are gone and that this just started happening in the past couple months. Was your dog never home alone before this and both of you guys being gone at the same time is a new thing? Assuming that it does have something to do with separation, you need to de-sensitize him to you both leaving and him being alone and independent. You can do this by getting him used to you leaving for shorter periods of time, and slowly increasing the time. Practice going through the motions of getting ready and leaving and then coming back in. Soon he will be so used to you coming and going, that it won’t be as big of a deal. Also provide him with some safe toys that he can occupy himself with while you are gone.
If your dog before this has always commonly been left alone on his own and this is a new behavior for him, you may want to check with your vet as it is possible that there could be some underlying medical issues that are causing this change in his housebreaking as well. With cases like this, you always want to rule out the chance of it being a medical problem first just in case and then focus on the behavior.
If all else fails, it will be time to go back to puppy 101 potty training and start back at square one with him.
Good luck.
Learn about crate training, or ask your vet. it isn’t mean, and unless he’s sick…he won’t poop in there!!! I bet your vet would recommend the same thing.
u should watch the person victoria stillwell she has a show called its me or the dog and most all the dogs have those problems but i cant rember what she said to do