Behavior/house training problems

Question
My 1.5 year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling retriever has extreme house-training problems.

This has been an on-going problem since we got her. We have tried absolutely all house breaking advice with no results and I am at my wit's end.

She pees in her crate during the night (usually around 5am) at least once a week - often more. She has accidents while she is free in the house on a regular basis - though not regularly enought for it to be a pattern. Once or twice a week she will pee or poop in the house, at varying times during the day. She never asks to go out before having these accidents, and she does not cry in her crate before having the accidents in there.  Her accidents seem too irregular for this to be a bladder infection or other health problem, because she can sometimes go weeks without having an accident. Her crate is not too big or too small - she has enough room to lay down and turn around. She is on a strict feeding/watering schedule and is only fed and watered once a day at 6:30 pm. She does not get a lot of water - just enough. She is obedience trained and obeys basic commands and has a general respect for us, though by nature her personality is a bit stubborn. She is not overly affectionate with us. More cat-like than dog-like in that way.

She is never left alone in her crate for long periods of time..this is not a matter of her not being able to hold it because she is alone too long.

We do all the right things. We take her out on a regular schedule, praise her when she goes, take her out at the first sign she may have to go (standing near the door - which may or may not mean she has to go). We scold her when she goes in the house. We always catch her because she barely bothers to hide it. She'll just go on the floor sitting right next to us.

What do I do? I am at my wit's end. This is really impacting her quality of life because we can never just let her free in the house for fear she may pee or poop. I can't sleep worrying about whether or not she will pee in the night and leave a huge disgusting mess in the morning. I am at the point where the only thing that I can think of is putting her in doggy diapers. Paper training doesn't work - she actually moves the papers out of the way and pees on the floor rather than pee on them.

Please help.

Answer
Hey, Skyler,

I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with your dog.
Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?
How much hard, vigorous playful exercise is she getting every day? And I mean the kind of exercise that uses up a lot of her predatory energy.

I ask because one of the problems that develops in certain breeds (like the toller), who have a finely-tuned prey drive, is that they have trouble figuring out what to do with all their energy. They're bred to work for hours and hours, and if they're not getting that kind of daily stimulation and satisfaction of their prey drive, behavioral problems often develop as a result. These dogs are bred to work for a living, so to them being a house pet is a bit like being a Maserati, and having an owner who only drives you for a 15 minute commute every day. Your engine has to get revved up, you have to run all out once in a while or you won't function properly.

If you're already giving her that kind of daily exercise (and for some tollers that might mean 2 hours of fetch at least once, but preferably twice, a day), then something else must be going on.

How does exercise relate to housebreaking issues?

Stress. When a dog isn't getting enough hard, vigorous playful exercise, the kind that involves chasing things and biting them, stress builds up in their system. One way of reducing stress is through urinating and defecating whenever and wherever possible. It feels good to poop and pee, so the dog uses it as a substitute for a real form of stress reduction.

The behavior can also be one way a dog has of communicating with her owners that something's wrong, emotionally. I'm sensing is that your dog doesn't feel the kind of emotional connection with you that most dogs have with their owners. This is partly a breed thing. In my experience duck tolling retrievers aren't very demonstrative. But it can also be fixed by relating to her differently.

Here's what I'd do:

Stop all negative interactions with her. No more scolding her for making "mistakes." They may not be mistakes; they might be an attempt to communicate something important. Besides, as you've already noticed, scolding her doesn't seem to have any effect on the behavior. (It usually doesn't; in fact it often makes things worse.)

Hand feed her all her meals, using the pushing exercise, where you hold the food in one hand and put the other one against her chest. As she eats you pull the food hand away ever-so slightly so she has to push her chest into your other hand to eat. This makes her work for her food, and kind of imitates the feeling some dogs need to have of "working for a living." Here's a fuller explanation of the exercise, and why it's important: http://tinyurl.com/3balu6

Play fetch and tug-of-war as much as possible. This has to be done outdoors. Always let her win at tug, and praise her enthusiastically for winning.

If she's been obedience trained, and the training involved forcing her into position (dominance), or was too food oriented ("positive" training), it will probably be helpful to re-train her as part of a hunting game. All obedience commands (except the sit) are analogues to behaviors exhibited by wild wolves when they hunt. And remember, the more stimulation and satisfaction she gets for what she's been bred to do, the less stressed she'll be in general, and the less she'll need to eliminate in the house as a result.

I know this all might seem totally unrelated to housebreaking issues, but I recently got an e-mail from a woman who's been a successful dog trainer for over 30 years. Her last dog, a Jack Russell terrier, was a bona fide star in her home city, appearing in TV commercials, winning obedience trials, etc. Her new JRT, however, could not be housebroken. I gave this veteran trainer many of the same exercises I'm giving you, and within three days there was a significant improvement--no more accidents in the house.

I'm not saying that things are going to happen with your dog that quickly, or that I can guarantee that they'll even happen at all--I spent several hours on the phone with this trainer, and didn't just type out a reply over the internet. Plus her dog was only 8 mos. old, so the behavior hadn't become quite as habitual as in your case. But what I'm saying is that while you may not see a connection between an underutilized prey drive and a housebreaking issue, it's quite possible that there's a direct correlation.

However, if you're already giving her tons of exercise involving fetch and tug-of-war, let me know.

LCK