pad training my chi

Question
I'm trying to pad train my chi. When I first got him he took to the pad for 5 months he did so well but then he stop using it and I constantly had to clean up his mess. Now we have moved and the first night at our new place he went to the pad every time but, the next day he skipped a few times and now we are on day 3 and he has been awful about peeing on the carpet all day long. He is almost 8 months old and I need to know what to say or do when I catch him peeing on the carpet. When he used the pad I made a big deal about it and gave him treats. When he gets up from his nap or anytime I think he would be getting ready to pee I take him to the pad and try to get him to go on it but, most of time now he just gets off the pad and won't use it, then about 2 or 3 minutes later he pees on the carpet. Please, Please help! Also I know some say to get him fixed but, I don't want to do that just yet.

Answer
Hi Nancy!

As much as you don't want to hear it, he is at the age where he can begin "marking" and once that starts and you wait too long to neuter, there's no guarantee that you can reverse it.

In any case, the first thing I noticed here is that you moved and he did well the first night and then he started to gradually not use the pad.  I think it's wise to consider the fact that he's still a really young dog and you moved and he's most likely disoriented at the new house.  How do you even know that there wasn't a dog there before that marked the carpet and that's why he's feeling so comfortable about peeing on it?  I really think that when you move you need to start all over with confining a dog to one room and training all over again.  Don't let him have the run of the house.  Put him in a gated area or a play pen with a pee pad, his bedding, his toys and his food and go through the positive reinforcement just like you did before.

It's not unusual at all for a dog to digress in potty training at about the eight month mark or for them to digress several times before they're one year old or more.  We start getting comfortable and think that they've got things down perfectly and maybe it still isn't "set in stone" for them yet.  Every time they digress, you have to start over.

Let me know what you think and if you decide to give this a try.

Jo Ann