Horrible time with housetraining
 . She joins a 1yr old Golden Retreiver whom we had little difficulty housetraining.
Now Oreo, the OES is a completely different story. She is definately spirited, and I think one of the major problems is she was a 'pet store puppy', who was expected to relieve herself in her cage. Crate training has been horrible. Since we have the crate divided to allow only enough room for her to lay down in, she pees in the crate, and lays in it all night. During the day she will sometimes let us know she wants to go out by scratching the door, but sometimes she will just relieve herself wherever she is. Sometimes even on the way out the door she will squat right inside the door and pee. The standard crate-training philosophy we used with the golden is not working with the OES at all, in any way shape or form. We tried taking her out every hour. That worked sometimes, but other times she would pee outside, then come inside and pee some more. We need some fresh encouragement and new ideas. 6 weeks of this is really getting frustrating. |
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| Yikes! I'm really sorry.
Have you had her checked for vaginitis or even a UTI? Something along those lines may be adding to your problem by making her feel like she HAS to go, right here, right now. Kristine |
| that is what I was going to say. Especially if she has been from a pet store, and has been sleeping in her own urine. My two girls came to me with a urinary tract infection, and I noticed righ off the bat that house breaking was a bit "wierd". I'd call your vet and ask them to run a urine sample for infection. |
| She been to the Vet's a few times; kennel cough, standard shots, etc, but we haven't had her checked for any UTI or anything like that.
we may have to do that... |
Our boy was equally difficult. We did all the right things, nothing negative, all positive. We crate trained, gave him the right amount of space and he'd just pee on himself and sleep in it. He didn't care at all. We take him outside on lead, encourage him to go with a trigger word, praise like crazy after he went and he'd run in and pee on the floor. He never had a single signal that he gave us so we wound up training him to ring bells to go out. I feel your pain completely. It took him until he was 6 months old to be totally reliable. 
One suggestion I would have is to watch water intake, especially in the evenings. Take the water up a couple of hours before bedtime-- that may mean having a separate water bowl for your golden somewhere if she's a "water" dog and you don't want to take down her intake. I hope it gets better. I know it makes you absolutely miserable when it feels like all you do is clean pee. |
| It seems there are times we take two steps forward and 3 steps back.
Because I can't bear to keep her in her crate, laying in urine, and the required bath every morning, we have taken to letting her sleep in the basement. It came about because we needed to leave her home for a few hours during the day last week, and didn't want her confined the whole time, so I created a 'safe' area in the basement with a blanket, water, food and some room to move. Well, she decided that one spot on the cement floor is the potty. That's good, because she only went there - the bad news is that concrete doesn't absorb much, so the puddle just spreads out and seeps under everything. Then for some reason (probably because it was gross in the potty spot), she figured out that if she climbed the wooden stairs, and peed on them, it would soak it up, drip off onto the floor, and leave a nice potty smelling stair. So on Sat, I stripped the basement, got on my hands and knees with water/bleach and scrubbed the stairs, floor, walls, etc. Then scrubbed them again with PineSol, then sprayed Nature'sMiracle everywhere and let it dry. I blocked off the stairs so she can't get to them anymore, and have been diligent with the potty breaks. As long as I take her out between 11 and 12pm, and again at 2:30-3am, and again at 5:30 she will keep her area nice. No potty inside, but I have to get her outside every 2-3 hrs all night long. The worst part is she won't bark, scratch or give any indication she wants to go - but when I go take her outside, she immediately squats and takes care of business. Unfortunately that is always right in the middle of the driveway. She can't seem to hold it when she decides it's time to go. When I come downstairs in the middle of the night, I have approx 4 seconds to get the leash on her and out the door OR she will squat right where she is an pee. It's frustrating to go downstairs, and have the leash not right where I expect it and spend 3 seconds looking for it only to have her walk to the door and squat! The accidents upstairs have significantly reduced because we are now paranoid that if she is not playing, laying or drinking she is looking for a place to pee, so she is taken outside just about every 30-45 minutes, and she will take care of business every time. The other issue is the poo. She will poo just about every other time we take her out - there is no rhyme or reason to her cycles. With our Golden, he would only poo in the morning after eating, and in the evening after eating. the OES will go 3 times in the morning, 2 times in the afternoon and a few times at night - although she is on an eating schedule. We only give her food in the morning and evening, and secure her in her crate to eat so we know when and how much she has consumed. Will this really take 2 - 3 more months?!?! I hate to compare her to the Golden, but it only took 2 weeks of consistent effort to get him set, but we're going on 2 months with her with no end in sight! |
| DEFINITELY check for a UTI, possibly vaginitis (is she sticky at all?) - or maybe even crystals, though at her age I wouldn't think so. Your vet will know. She's still young so she can't be expected to hold it very long, but certainly more than an hour.
I have an 8 week old OES puppy right now and she is very good in the housebreaking department so far, but there's no way she'll be 100% reliable in the potty department in two weeks. Add to that in your case that as you said, your puppy is from a pet store so probably never had the opportunity to not eliminate where she lived.... I'm not sure why she poops so irregularly when she eats regularly. (Maybe it's me, but at 14 weeks I'd still be feeding her 3 times a day. The eight week old is still eating four times a day). It might be a little easier on her if you split her food into three portions so she eats less at a time. Does she typically poop after vigorous activity? Kristine |
| one of the puppy books I read suggested to take them out after every activity. So after a meal? Go out. After a nap? Go out. After playtime? Go out. It did seem like we were taking them out almost hourly.
and then when they'd go outside, we'd praise them like crazy. It worked pretty well; Tonks has, since within a few weeks of the "hourly" routine, always asked to go out. Luna was a bit more problematic, as she would just wait for Tonks to ask. So we are trying bell training now, as she is having the occassional accident when we don't pick up on her needing to go. But a nice side effect of all the praise? Luna now pees on the command of "be a good girl!" |
| I had to take my puppy out every 20-30 minutes. I would stay outside probably about a half hour, come in for 20-30 minutes and take her back out. I know how you feel! It gets better, I promise! In my opinion, only taking her out every hour is too long to wait, but every dog is different so, I don't know. At about the age of 3 months things started to get a lot better, much longer breaks before I had to take her out. I baby gate my dog in the kitchen for easier clean ups. My puppy is now 5 months and barks to go out, I have not had an accident in a few weeks. I took my dog out so much when she was younger I thought I was going to go crazy! Good luck! Just try to focus on how wonderful your dog will be in a few months and that this is just a short faze, and find out if she has a UTI.
Ella |
ella wrote: I had to take my puppy out every 20-30 minutes. I would stay outside probably about a half hour, come in for 20-30 minutes and take her back out. I know how you feel! It gets better, I promise! In my opinion, only taking her out every hour is too long to wait, but every dog is different so, I don't know. At about the age of 3 months things started to get a lot better, much longer breaks before I had to take her out. I baby gate my dog in the kitchen for easier clean ups. My puppy is now 5 months and barks to go out, I have not had an accident in a few weeks. I took my dog out so much when she was younger I thought I was going to go crazy!
Ella That sounds like my experience with my puppies - only it was December and January in upstate ny |
| I hate this dog. I am done with trying to work with her. She needs to go away. |
kaleid wrote: I hate this dog. I am done with trying to work with her. She needs to go away.
Did you have her medically checked out? Where are you located? Please contact your nearest rescue group. See http://www.oes.org/html/oes_rescue.shtml You shouldn't live with a dog you hate and she doesn't deserve to be hated for being a puppy and having an unfortunate beginning (pet store), so please give her a second chance with someone else. It sounds like you'll both be much happier. Kristine |
kaleid wrote: I hate this dog. I am done with trying to work with her. She needs to go away.
How sad |
| Hi Kalid,
I'm so sorry that you are going through this. It's a very hard thing you are going through. We'll try to help you as much as we can, but if you have decided that this OES isn't for you, would you PLEASE consider an OES rescue program? OES Rescues have a ton of experience in matching just the right person with just the right dog. This will give her the very best chance at being adopted by the right family. Again, I'm SO sorry for your troubles. EDIT: Here is the link to OES Rescues around the US and the world. |
| I'm sorry that you feel like this, potty training can be very hard.
You have to remember this is only a baby! While I know it's frustrating it can take time and you can't really compare your puppy to another dog as no two animals are the same. As Ron has said please put her into a rescue program if you really can't take it anymore. Thanks. |
| We had the same exact frustrations when we got our dog and like another poster's experience... we did everything in the book to potty train CORRECTLY. Still ...the dog could never go more than an hour for the longest time and by the time she was almost 1, she could only go two hours or else she'd pee. Once she hit 1, she finally could go 4 hours then 8 ...now up to 12 hours w/o peeing. Worst first year ever and I had many thoughts of giving up, but my commitment to owning a dog combined with the final pay off of having such a loving dog was worth every pain staking time I had to set the alarm to let her pee.
BTW, you didn't mention if you did take your dog back to the vet for a UTI? My dog had one as a pup and it helped the problem "a tad" after she was treated for it. Your OES will never be like your golden. ...ever  |
| She has been back to the vet a few times, and they haven't found any trouble.
There are times when you can tell she is trying to tell us that she needs to go out, and most of the time we recognize it and take her. She either stands up and stares at us for 5-10 seconds, or other times will walk over to the door and scratch at it. When she gives us some sort of notice and we miss is and she pees, I don't think it's her fault. But other times, just out of the blue she will squat and pee. Other times she'll squat and then turn and stare at me. Over the weekend I took her out every 30 minutes and she would take care of business every time. After this went on most of the day (probably over 6 hrs), she started peeing outside, and then coming inside and peeing within minutes. And now (this takes the cake), she has taken to peeing on the Golden's head. She climbs up, positions herself and (without squatting) let's go. on his head. She is better at #2, giving a slight bark before going, and we can usually catch that. The vet reviewed the crate-training 'process', and told us to stick with that, but it's impossible when the dog doesn't care about laying or sleeping in pee. When we take her out of the crate, she has to go RIGHT out side. There is no time to find the leash, shoes, bags or anything. If she's been in her crate and has not peed in an hour or more, we have approx 4 seconds from the time she leaves the crate until she will pee. I've had the leash on her and running to the door to find the deadbolt is engaged. The additional time it takes to unlock the door - she pees. |
| Luna and Tonks are 8 months old, and REALLY different with house breaking. Tonks got it pretty quickly; and Luna would just go out when Tonks did. It wasn't until we were pretty far into it the we realized that Luna wasn't telling us that she had to go out; she was waiting for Tonks. Which would be fine, I guess, except that Tonks can hold it for almost 8 hours and Luna really, really can't.
So now we are trying new methods to get Luna to "tell us" when she needs to go out. I'm working with the "bell method"; and so far its the same story. Tonks uses the bell to tell us she has to go out, and Luna goes when Tonks does. And in between, Luna is still having occasional accidents in the house. BUT; Tonks did pick up the idea of the bell pretty quickly. Have you tried that? |
| We have an appointment tonight to get her evaluated at a "live in" training facility. If all goes well, we send her away for a week, then have daily follow-up's with the trainer to get us properly trained. Hopefully this will pan out |
| Good Luck! I know the frustration has to be killing you. I'm glad you aren't throwing in the towel, but instead seeking some more intensive training!!! |
| She's going away tomorrow.
She'll be at the canine academy for 11 days, then we take her back once a week for 6-8 weeks for follow up classes. She will get dedicated instruction in basic behavior, walking on a leash, obeying commands, etc, and work on the house training. The trainer suggested it could be an attitude issue with the potty problems due to the other dog, and her potty on his head is in fact a sign of her displeasure with us over some sort of favoritism for him. |
| I hope the training works but please remember that you will have to continue doing what they do once she comes home, it won't be a miracle cure!
In time you will look back on this and smile |
She's gone 
wait... She's gone 
We are headed out on vacation tomorrow, up north where she could have spent 99% of the time outside, in the woods, with Baxter, exploring the great wilderness of northern NH.
I'm concerned about the academy, with the fact that they take the dogs out at 8pm, then not again until 6am.. The past 3 days she's kept her crate dry, but I had to take her out at 11, 3 and 5 the first night, then 10 and 5 the second, and 9 and 5 the third. I'm not sure she can make it 8 - 6. But we are looking forward to the time she will have with the instructor, and then the weeks of follow up classes so we know more how to instruct and direct her activities and behavior. We paid a small fortune for her as a mothers-day gift, then had a small incident that sent my Golden to the ER for mega stitches and my wife to the ER for puncture wounds. So all in all, the $$$ for the live in academy is chump change to what we have already invested. but having a wonderfully behaved and disciplined member of the family will be priceless |
kaleid wrote: She's gone
wait... She's gone We are headed out on vacation tomorrow, up north where she could have spent 99% of the time outside, in the woods, with Baxter, exploring the great wilderness of northern NH. I'm concerned about the academy, with the fact that they take the dogs out at 8pm, then not again until 6am.. The past 3 days she's kept her crate dry, but I had to take her out at 11, 3 and 5 the first night, then 10 and 5 the second, and 9 and 5 the third. I'm not sure she can make it 8 - 6. But we are looking forward to the time she will have with the instructor, and then the weeks of follow up classes so we know more how to instruct and direct her activities and behavior. We paid a small fortune for her as a mothers-day gift, then had a small incident that sent my Golden to the ER for mega stitches and my wife to the ER for puncture wounds. So all in all, the $$$ for the live in academy is chump change to what we have already invested. but having a wonderfully behaved and disciplined member of the family will be priceless I know its hard; but it will be worth it. I was having fighting issues with my two girls, and we've also spent a not-so-small fortune on training. But its all been worth it. The joy I experience walking my girls, when all other trainers had told me i'd NEVER be able to walk them side by side in heel, is worth every single dime I have spent! |
| She's half way home today. We went to the academy and had our first lesson with her today, and dropped her off at the groomers on the way home.
She has clearly learned something at the academy. Definately walking on a loose leash, listening and obeying commands (heel, sit, down, stay), and apparently has been doing very well with crate training. We have weekly follow-ups with the trainer to review and discuss her progress. She grew so much the past 11 days I'm amazed. |
| I'm so glad to hear about your progress! Light at the end of the tunnel! Yay! |
| Last night was a dry night. She held it from just after 9pm until about 5am when I took her out.
She is still set on peeing in the basement, and had one 'accident' last night in the living room - without any indication that she needed to go out. No circling, no staring at the door - and no squatting. She climbed over my wife, who was laying on the floor to play with her, and half way over her outstretched arm, she let go. 
We're going to try the 'bells' by the door and see if we can get that to work over the next few weeks. She is now 4 months and 3 days old. One other issue that I need to figure out a solution to is taking her outside.. Prior to her stint at the doggie academy, she would squat to pee once she got outside and felt like it. Or if I walked her to my desired "potty spot" for her, and held her there, she would go - but now she has been trained to walk on a loose leash, on my left side; and when I stop walking she has been trained to SIT. So I walk her down to my "potty spot", and when I get there and stop, she sits and looks up at me with a somewhat concerned and confused look like "I've got to pee, but I have to sit so I can't pee, and if I don't sit then I get a 'correction', so I'll sit, but I have to pee but I can't pee because I have to sit"... sort of look.. |
| maybe teaching a "pee command"? Mine let loose when I tell them to "Be a good girl". |
| [waving white flag]
I have placed a call into NEOESR.org. The training, while definately making a difference on her ability to walk on a loose leash, sit, stay, lay down - has had no benefit to the potty training, or her dominance issue. It is time for her to find a more appropriate home than we can offer because this is not working out. |
| I read through all of the posts and I don't think her name was ever mentioned. I think that is sad.
Puppies can be very difficult but they are, in fact babies ........ Mad Dog: Quote: You shouldn't live with a dog you hate and she doesn't deserve to be hated for being a puppy and having an unfortunate beginning (pet store), so please give her a second chance with someone else. It sounds like you'll both be much happier.
I think you are right in handing her over to rescue. Good Luck.... |
| Kaleid,
I'm so sorry you're going through all of this. 
You sound like a responsible owner; perhaps NEOESR might be interested in a "swap"? If you wouldn't mid getting a slightly older housetrained dog to love on, that is! |
| Ron,
We hadn't even considered the idea, hopefully I'll get a call back to talk over the best for Oreo. I don't know what NEOESR's schedule is, or when they may get back in touch. |
| You could follow up with an email to Grannie.Annie@neoesr.org |
| Just had a great conversation with Jennifer at NEOESR. Talked her through the history, the issues and all.
We are going to take her over tonight. Hopefully Oreo will find a more qualified and capable family to live with |
| Sorry to hear about your problems with oreo,wish I found this tread sooner.I've had similar problem with my oes when I got her out to do her business I not only praised her I gave her a really good treat that she goes crazy for ,after that no more accidents.
Good luck with oreo |
| Is that our member Jennifer_t? |
steveoes wrote: Sorry to hear about your problems with oreo,wish I found this tread sooner.I've had similar problem with my oes when I got her out to do her business I not only praised her I gave her a really good treat that she goes crazy for ,after that no more accidents.
Good luck with oreo Some dogs just take longer than others, too. In this case, we're dealing with a 4 month old puppy-- an infant. Not too many people can claim a lot of housebroken reliability out of an OES of that age, no matter what the background! |
| I have a 6 month old newfie with some similar issues- its an age related issue and the dog should have no problem finding a home that realizes that. |
Ron wrote: Is that our member Jennifer_t?
I believe so. We met Cassie and Baxter today |
| How very sad for this little mite, first shipped off to a training establishment, then being rehomed
She is a BABY for godsake  Im sorry but maybe she is better off with a family who will not give up on her
Debs |
| Any news on this girl? |
ButtersStotch wrote: Any news on this girl?
I haven't heard anything, but found a link that I think closes this chapter. http://www.neoesr.org/Oriele-808.htm I think that's her. |
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