Older german sheperd mix started relieving himself inside

Question
Hello Dawn,

A friend of mine has an older German Sheperd mix that's about six years old now.  The dog was housebroken and, aside from the occasional accident, was very reliable about doing his busines outside.  Sometimes I would watch him at my house and had no problems - until this past December.

He was at my house for a few days this past December and every time he would be left alone, he would go inside my house.  At first I thought I was doing something wrong and just cleaned it up, but it became more and more obvious that it wasn't just me forgetting to let him out.  If I took a shower, he would go.  Take a nap, he would go.  Ran to the supermarket, he would go.  On his last day at my house, I went to dinner with his owner and came back to particularly nastiness that required additional cleaning.  We cleaned up the mess as best we could, went to the store for additional cleaner, and when we came back there was more for us.

I chalked it up to stress from being at my house or stress from being away from his owner, but he had been fine in the past.  However, even when he got back to his house with his owner, the problems persisted, although to a lesser extent.  Over the last two months, the problem has gotten worse and worse to the point where he is going inside 4 or 5 days a week.  Mind you this is all at his house, so it can't be the stress of a different environment.

It seems to me that his problem is more behavioral than physical - he never goes inside if there is someone there.  I feel guilty as it seems to have started when he visited me.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Will, first off you do want to rule out physical before going to behavioral when it comes to a senior dog, which is what he is becoming.  He is too young to becoming senile, so we can rule that out.  Is he neutered?  Your friend might want to get his prostrate checked just to make sure nothing is wrong there.  After that checks out, then I would go back to housebreaking basics 101.  Start having your friend confine him to a crate everytime they leave or are unable to keep an eye on him.  That way they are making him hold it no matter what.  I would get the prostate checked first though.  Just to make sure he doesn't have anything wrong with it.  He is at the right age to start showing signs of that.  Once they start using the crate, they can start giving him short periods of time out of it when they are gone or not able to keep an eye on him after a couple of weeks of him getting back to holding it in the crate when they are gone.  They just have to go slow with everything, but again I really do stress they need to check his prostate.  Hope this helps, and good luck.

Dawn