my dog maggie

Question
my dog maggie is 4yrs old ,we are the her second family,we've had her for 1yr.she has a nasty habit of peeing and pooping when we are at work,we have removed all carpeting from our home,we then put area rugs down and i will be blessed if she started using those as her bathroom area,so we took those away and now she will pee on the lino,we are at the end of our rope,please help


Answer

Hi Carlene,

When you are not home, or just not able to supervise Maggie, she needs to be contained in some way, so she can't have accidents on your rugs or other places. Maggie shouldn't ever have the unsupervised run of your house.

If Maggie is crate trained, a dog crate is the perfect way of containing her. If she's not crate trained, you can contain her to part of a room by using a child gate or two, or by using an indoor dog pen. The containment area doesn't need to be large, in fact the smaller the better, as it will restrict Maggie from having accidents in the area. If Maggie isn't house trained, lay a thick layer of newspaper down over the entire containment area, so clean-ups will be easier.
It's very helpful to keep Maggie's leash on her while you're home. Attach the leash to your belt loop, so she's never out of your sight, and if she starts looking like she needs to relieve herself you can quickly take her outside.

Before putting Maggie in her crate or containment area, take her outside for a walk, so she can relieve herself outside. When she goes to the bathroom during the walk, praise or treat her the moment she's finished. You want her to know that it's a very good thing to go to the bathroom outside! Be sure to have Maggie on a feeding and walking schedule, if you don't already. This will help prevent accidents in your home, since what goes in at a certain time, comes out at a certain time too!

If you discover an "accident" that you didn't catch her in the act of doing, clean it up without a fuss! Punishment today won't stop the behavior from being repeated tomorrow. Usually, consistent supervision or confinement and regularly scheduled bathroom walks (don't forget the rewards!) will eventually teach your dog what is expected of her. If you catch her in the act, firmly tell her "NO!" but resist the urge to shout. Instead, reward her lavishly when she goes where she's supposed to.

Clean the areas in your home where Maggie has soiled with an enzymatic odor neutralizer, such as Nature's Miracle or Simple Solution. These products are good at removing the odors that might be attracting Maggie back to areas where she's gone to the bathroom inside your house. Without this step, your dog may be attracted back to a previously soiled area like a heat-seeking missile to a source of heat!

Read more about house training an adult dog, here:

http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/retrain-dog.pdf

Best of luck!

Patti