Gail Fisher, All Dogs Gym & Inn - The perfect place for pets and their people

We’ve had our new dog—an adult mixed breed, probably around five years old—for three months. He adjusted beautifully and I thought he was housetrained. He’d happily go out into the yard with Cannon, hang out for awhile, and then come back in.

Then one day I was hit with the unmistakable odor of urine in one room. Sure enough, he had been urinating on the carpet in that room. Not just marking a few drops here and there. This dog (you’ll forgive me) pees a bucket. So while the task of carpet shampooing was left to his other “parent,” my job was housetraining. Fortunately, it’s a good time of year to be faced with this issue. I’m so glad we didn’t adopt him in February!

I hadn’t planned on writing about this until this week, when one of our Training Academy students asked about housetraining for one of his clients with an adult dog. I know we’re not alone with this issue, so here are the ten “rules” to housetraining an adult dog.

1) The first step is to make sure he’s healthy. No matter how hard you try, you cannot housetrain a dog that has a physical problem. Cure the problem, then tackle housetraining.

2) Next is management and supervision. If you can’t watch your dog, confine him in a crate. If necessary, keep him on leash and hold the leash whenever he's is out of his crate. It’s not forever; just during housetraining. If your dog relieves himself in a crate, you'll likely need the help of a professional trainer.

3) Watch for signals that mean he has to go out such as sniffing, circling and the like. When you see this behavior ask , "Want to go out?" and take him to his bathroom spot.

4) Each time you take him out, go directly to a bathroom location close to your door. You can change this spot later, but during housetraining get there as directly as possible.

5) Be patient. When you take him to his spot, stand still and wait. If nothing happens, take him inside and crate him. Wait ten minutes then take him out again. Repeat this until he relieves himself. If he’s not used to going on leash, it may take a while before he relieves himself. But once you've had your first success, each successive time will get faster.

6) Stay with your dog. You have to be there to know if he's gone. Otherwise, you may think he has and five minutes later he has an accident inside. This was where I went wrong in the beginning. I assumed he had gone. He hadn’t.

 

If this program doesn’t work, seek professional help from a trainer or behaviorist. Hey…I’ve got a lot of recent experience!