Puppy pooping and peeing in my bed.

Question
Hello,
I have a 5 month old German Shepherd, I got her 3 months ago. I trained her to go on the paper in the basement when inside and she was doing well then about 2 weeks ago she pooped in my bed one morning before I went to work I cleaned it up and when I got home there was more poop and pee on my bed. Every chance she gets she will go in my bed so I started keeping my bedroom door closed at all times. She was going on the paper like normal but Now she is pooping in my 4 year old bed when home alone. Please help? The puppy also likes to play bite and I don't know how to stop it.

Answer
Dear Ebony,

Your dog is not fully housetrained.  Close all bedroom doors when you are away, and better yet, remove access to anything upholstered before you get tired of the situation and get rid of the dog.  It's not the dog's fault; it's up to you to properly housetrain.  Keep in mind that no dog is completely reliable until 6 months in my opinion, so you made it about halfway there but stopped when you believed you were done.  Lots of dogs "regress" in this way, but it's usually because the owner stopped paying attention when they thought they had completed the housetraining process.

Training a dog to potty inside means the dog will potty inside, and you always run the risk of the dog deciding on a change of venue.  When this happens, you have an adult dog -- and a large one at that, with corrrespondingly large poops -- who has no idea how to potty outside.  This is a big problem which usually ends up with the dog living in the basement, outside, or at a shelter or pound.  I'd very, very strongly suggest you train any large dog to potty outside.  You're almost there, so it's worth the trouble for one more month.  Go to http://www.dogdaysusa.com/housetraining.cfm follow the instructions exactly for the next 4 weeks, and you'll be done with it.

Good luck and thanks for writing!
Suzanne Harris, BSc, CPDT
http://www.dogdaysusa.com