ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
by Linda/NiNi

Hi. Have yall ever had those heavy rainy days where you don't want to take your baby out to potty and he doesn't even want to step out of the house? Well, recently it's been raining very heavily and going to continue for a while more. NiNi will always use the restroom outside and he'll hold it in until someone takes him outside. I live with 3 other people so he gets taken out by everyone every 2 to 3 hours. But on the rainy days its a different story. NiNi will need to go out but the instant someone opens the door and he sees that it is raining he'll literally back away and wait. The rain will not stop and he needs to go and eventually he ends up going on the carpet. I set out wee-wee pads for him but he doesn't uses it. How can I get him not to pee on the carpet but on the wee-wee pads? I even put a little of those good-boy housebreaking drops that stink so much. How can i get him to pee in the correct place? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

DISCUSSION:

Dear Linda/Ni Ni, I know what you mean. How old is your Maltese? My seven year old hates the rain. She comes to a dead stop as soon as she sees it!! To make a long story short...she will go on a tray/grate simply because my new puppies go on there. But she loves outside....as that's how she was trained. It seems as tho you may have to work at this with patience and endurance...maybe leave the drops on the pad...and maybe like she is a puppy all over again...put her on the pad once or twice every hour. and keep trying again and again. I wonder if a slicker raincoat would help? I travel with mine, and I have actually taken Missy out in the rain with an umbrella. This doesn't sound like much help, but I think eventually she will go if you are persistant and constant. Good luck and kisses from the m & m & m girls
-Bel and m & m girls

In Snowball's case, it's the SNOW he hates. Funny with a name like his. Bel is right, persistence is key. Patience, too.I remember back to when I first got the BUBBLEHEAD. He earned that nickname back in the paper training days. He was my first dog; I new nothing; read everything. I decided paper training would be best since I work full-time. The book said place papers all over the floor, praise him when he goes on the papers, then gradually start removing the papers. Picture my entire apartment covered in newspapers, I'm praising the heck out of him. I begin removing the papers, and low and behold, the bubblehead would go in the one small spot where there were no papers. Once we got through that ordeal and had him down to a small area with paper, I decided to keep the papers in a small bathroom. He'd always go in the bathroom on the papers. So, if I brought him anywhere, he'd assume he was to use their bathroom, would go right in, and pee on their floor, or worse, their rugs. I scolded him for not going on the papers. Finally, I get him to understand that it's not the room, it's where the newspapers are. Well, he understands alright, leading to his best act yet. Once when I was sitting on the bed reading the newspaper, then got up to get something to eat, and yup, you guessed it, he did his pee on the paper that I was reading on the bed! Thus, he has earned the name Bubblehead. I don't know if he's just so smart he knows that he's supposed to go on the papers, or just so dumb, he doesn't have a clue. Anyway, he's my Bubblehead and I love him more than anything. I wouldn't change a darn thing about him. Good luck to you. I'm sure you'll do better than I did!
-Joanne

My maltese won't go out in the rain either, but she will in the snow if it's not too deep. This is another example of when it's nice to have her litter box trained--she has an alternative. (See recent post about litter box training.)
-Debbie

Well i live in the desert now so don't have that rain problem that much, but when I had my maltese when I was growing up in Pittsburgh, my dad would shovel out a path & a clearing at her favorite spot through the snow. It was funny when the snow would be several feet deep & she would just disappear & would need to bark to let us know she was ready to come back inside!
-patty

This will sound weird I know, but one night it was really late, and my husband was out of town, my son didn't want me to take Pixie Bella outside because I was alone and it was so late,...I didn't know what I was going to do since she only goes outside...so I put some Wee Pads in the bathtub and put her in there and said, "Go Potty, go potty, Pixie go potty"...yep, you know the story...she pee'd twice in there! I guess when you gotta go..you gotta go!
-Vicki