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House training - Yorkie

19 10:02:56

Question
My Yorkie is 18mo old. I've been struggling since day 1 to house train her.  I've followed most of the instructions on all the websites/books I could find. She is outside most of the day, so that helps, but when I get home from about 5 o'clock in the afternoon she is inside with me.  I try to take her out every hour, but still I find puddles in my house - even though the doors are open.  In winter it is even worse if we have to close the doors. When she sees me cleaning up and I scold her I can see she knows that she has done something wrong - but she will just do it again.  At night it is easy - she goes out before bedtime and again in the morning.  So my problem is from 5 - 10pm and weekends when she is in the house with me. Is there anything else I can try?

Answer
I'm not clear on something - "So my problem is from 5 - 10pm and weekends when she is in the house with me."  So does this mean the dog is outside all the rest of the time?  If that is so, then this is counter-productive.  The dog has no reason to understand that it needs to keep the inside of the house clean.  Dogs have a natural inclination to keep their "den" clean, but if the dog spends the majority of its time outside, it will not think of the house as its den.

The object of housebreaking is to teach the dog that the entire inside of the house is the dog's "den."

Also, contrary to what many people think, dogs do not understand they did something wrong by making a mess in the house.  To a dog, elimination is a "non event."  What she is reacting to is your body language and tone of voice.  She does know you are upset with her, but she doesn't know why.

http://www.marinhumanesociety.org/Behavior/Handouts/Housetraining.pdf  
http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/retrain-dog.pdf