Dog Community

Only house-broken in my house?

Posted : 10/9/2006 1:48:02 PM

Well, I've been putting my two cents in to everyone else's threads, now it's my turn to ask for help! My puppy, Scout, just turned 8 months old. She was crate-trained when we got her and has NEVER had an accident in her crate, and house-breaking went pretty smoothly... accidents became more and more rare after the first month, and now she stays home for 8-hour days in her ex-pen in the kitchen and holds it all day. She now knows how to tell us when she needs to go out (she sits by the back door, whimpers if we don't notice right away), so on the rare occassions when she does have an accident it's because she drank a lot of water, and we just weren't paying attention.

However, we left her at my boyfriend mother's house this weekend, and it was as if she'd never had any house-training at all!! I guess she just kept going in the house all weekend. Do you think she is just confused and doesn't understand yet that if she can't go inside in her own house, she can't go inside anywhere? If so, how do I teach her this? Or do you think it was something more like seperation anxiety due to being alone in a strange house?

Deb

Posted : 10/9/2006 2:00:47 PM

Dogs don't generalize very well.
More experience with going to other people's houses, and more setting her up to succeed in this situation will help her to generalize. Just take a few steps back when at someone else's house and keep going.

loriann

Posted : 10/9/2006 9:32:20 PM

I had the same problem with my dog at my parents house. The problem I have is that she is litter trained at home, but goes outside at my parents house. You have to start from scratch when you introduce her to a new enviornment, because she likely doesn't understand whats expected of her. Watch her constantly, take her out often, and when she does it right, praise her to death!
(don't get frustrated, my dog took F O R E V E R to catch on, although she was probably more confused because the expectations were completly different between houses.)

angelamarie

Posted : 10/10/2006 8:38:46 PM

Misty is now approaching 2 years old and in the past few months I've noticed she is housetrained in every building she goes in. I used to have to pay really close attention to the clock when she was in someone else's home with me, and make sure I got her out to the yard in time, so to avoid accidents in homes/buildings other than home. I think that by being so neurotic about it, I finally taught her not to go in any building. It helps if you know for sure your dogs pee/poop schedule, which I do. My husband cracks up when he takes her out for me, because before he goes out I'll tell him something like, "She's going to poop but not pee" or "She's going to poop and pee" or "she just needs a pee." And, I'm right 99 percent of the time. Talk about neurotic, but it works!!

Alisia Jezierny

Posted : 10/11/2006 8:22:05 AM

Thanks guys! I'm glad to know that it's not just my dog... We always watch her closely and take her out frequently when we are WITH her at someone's house, but when we leave her to be dog-sat, we don't have control over the situation. Maybe we need to take a few more trips with her over there before we have his parent's dog-sit again. They have a dog themselves, but she's no longer a puppy, and they've probably forgotten how diligent you have to be with a young dog!

sweetbon

Posted : 10/12/2006 1:47:19 PM

I'm thinking that maybe in a new place the dog doesn't know where the door is, and doesn't know how to tell the people she needs to go. A lot of dogs go and sit by the door to let their owners know its time.