Unusual behavior
by Kathy
ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
I have a one year old female maltese who I thought was housetrained until a few days ago. She has started using both our kitchen and living room rug to do potty (both urine and bm's).We take her outside faithfully every 2-3 hours (is this often enough?) and yet she will come inside and do it in the house.I know she knows that she is doing wrong because each time she does it she'll run to her crate and think we won't notice. I am at the end of my rope and my patience is running thin with her. Shouldn't she be housetrained by now? It is very disturbing to step in her little surprises that are left around the house. I don't want to crate her or separate her from the rest of the family by leaving her in the kitchen but I can't have her messing the carpet so frequently. Don't get me wrong I love her but it's her behavior that is really annoying. Today we left for about 1 hour only to come home to her bm's all over the house and she also had urinated on the carpet in three different areas. It's hard not to get annoyed when you come home and find this.
She was in her crate sleeping when we left and so we left the kitchen open (we live in Hawaii and I didn't want her to be too hot and the air conditioner is in the living room) so she'd be more comfortable but if this is going to happen I guess I'll have to lock her up in the kitchen. My carpet needs cleaned professionally from all her little accidents. What am I doing wrong, please help me? I really want a trained animal that everyone can enjoy but at the moment it seems like I'm cleaning up after her at least 3-4 times daily. HELPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!
DISCUSSION:
I guess you'll have to start all over like she is a brand new puppy, which means keeping her in the crate, taking her out and when she does her business, prais her. Let her loose in the house with a watchful eye, take her out after a couple of hrs. if she doesn't go potty keep her in the crate until she does. By all means do not let her run the house when your not there. Hope this helps. Good luck!
Dottie
Oh Geez i used to hate stepping in those late nite cold surprises! You didn't mention if you have a regular feeding schedule. I can recall being told to walk my pups before meals (mainly breakfast) & immediately after. Give it a try it might work ! (i hope :)
Aviva
Our 3 year old male maltese was doing the same thing up till about 6 months ago. He would just come in from going potty to just go again on the carpet or kitchen floor. He hasnt done this in a about 6 months. He stopped about the same time we got him a playmate.He also does the same thing when left out when we are not home.He goes potty all over the place, so we NEVER leave him out. He gets a baby gate put up so he has the hallway. He NEVER ever goes in the hallway. But leave him for 5 minutes alone in the house and he goes all over. Theres alot of reasons I keep them confined. Safety being number 1. Dont want them to get into any wires, chords,plants, I can go on and on. And I think they feel secure being in a safe place. Hope this helps!
Mike
Kathy, if she was housebroken before and started this recently, I'd suspect a urinary tract infection first. If that's not the case, then I'd think carefully about anything that is different with the family or with her. Sometimes there's a clue you may be overlooking. Good luck.
annehudson
It sounds like you will need to start over by either crating or keeping your baby confined to a small area. Lucy took a while to train, but now she has the run of the downstairs. Our kitchen and family rooms are tiled so we were never to concerned when we were trying to housebreak her and probably could have done it quicker if we had kept her confined to smaller areas. We had taken her baby gate down and tested out her upstairs behavior. Well we didn't have much luck. Until recently, she would squat upstairs rather than leave us to run downstairs to do her thing. So when we let her up the stairs with us now, we have to keep her in sight at all times. It has been quite a while since we've had an upstairs booh booh. But everytime I get too confident we find a little surprise. So I won't let her run loose for a while yet.
DeeDee
Thank you all so much for your helpful advice. Snowball is on a regular feeding schedule and there is nothing unusual going on in the family. In fact, she is totally treated like one of the family. Are Maltese harder than most breeds to house train and why is this so? Yesterday we took her outside at about 10pm for about l5 minutes to allow her to do her business. I set up her bed with a fresh blanket and came back to find that she had pooped on the living room carpet. It's frustrating especially when you know that you just had her outside and had given her plenty of time to go. I'm sure it will get better with time but right now it's awful having to confine her to the kitchen. When we decided to get her we wanted to have her with us all the time but she just can't be trusted yet. I guess I just assumed that after a year she would be housebroken and I find it unusual that she's not. I'll just keep being consistent with everything and hopefully the cycle will pass. Thanks again for your help.
Kathy
Kathy, Sounds like it's outside or nothing. Maybe you should give her the choice of paper inside. That will give a "right" choice when she gets the urge inside the house. When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
Isabel
My little 9-month old Chico looked like he would never become housetrained. He would pee on the newspaper most of the time, but then he'd have accidents. And, then, out of the blue, the accidents stopped. Since then, he's only had 2-3 accidents (ON MY BED!!!!), but that hasn't happened for a while either. My advice is to make sure you've got a verbal command to go along with the action. If I stay at my girlfriend's house, and he's in a new surrounding, if I put a paper down and show him where it is and repeat "Chico pee!" a few times, he usually gets the hint. Good luck!
Dean and Chico
Kathy, use a leash when you take him out and perhaps you should start over in the crate, but for longer intervals in between going potty. Most dogs have a schedule for bm's and if kept on regular feeding schedule, will eliminate approximately the same time every day. I suggest going back to the crate and being extremely consistent with scheduling. Playtime outside the crate should be supervised carefully and for usually no more than 20-30 minutes at her age. If you follow a strict schedule, you should be able to housetrain in a couple of weeks. The crate method works if done properly. Yes, she should be housebroken by now...before now. Maltese are very intelligent and clean dogs. Their problem is *us*! We're inconsistent and give in too much.
annehudson
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