My 3 year old Husky

Question
After 3 years of working from home my husband and now work from a corporate office.  We trained our husky to be an inside dog...until recently.  He started going potty in the house.  He has NEVER done this before.  We are thinking he's upset with us leaving him home all day alone?  How do we stop this behavior?

Answer
Unfortunately this is an all too common problem, and the trouble is, correcting it is almost impossible because you aren't there to catch the dog in the act.  Catching the dog in the act is crucial to correcting bad behaviors, and of course, now you are working away from home.

The simple answer from your dog's point of view - find a new job where you can work from home again.  If that doesn't work, find a new job where you can take your dog with you to work.

Ok, so both of those are probably not a possibility.  In that case, you have to begin training the dog from the beginning.  If you did crate training, go back to it.  If you had a laundry room that you kept the dog in as a pup when you couldn't be there - go back to that.  The idea is that the dog isn't behaving correctly, so you rebuild the behavior again from the beginning.  Expect some temper tantrums - the dog is older and probably thinking he is past that.  However, you have to eliminate the dog's opportunity to eliminate in the house.  Once you have done that, you start slowly giving the dog more freedom again, until once again you can trust him.

Generally, this rebuilding procedure works much quicker than original housebreaking, but it's important to start from the ground and work your way back up.