6mo Golden Female Still Not Potty Trained

Question
We have a 1.5 year old male Golden Retriever who we had no problem potty training.  He is not fixed.  We also have a 6 month old female Golden Retriever who we have had since she was 3 months old.  They wrestle/play constantly.  I have repeatedly taken her outside every 2 hours or so during the day when I'm home (I work from home) for 3 months now and she still has accidents in the house.  I take her out about every 20 minutes after she eats for about 1.5 hours & she still has accidents.  I have tried to feed them separately then when that didn't help I tried to feed them together.  They get food & water 2x a day for 45 minutes each time.  She isn't fixed either.  We want to breed them and I understand from reading your other answers that when females are about to go into heat they pee often.  What can I do to potty train her?  She never pees in her cage and she'll be in there occassionally for 8 hours so I know she can hold it.  I've gated off a section of the kitchen for the dogs to be in to contain the mess.  She will pee when we are with her in the kitchen and she will pee when she is alone with our male dog, but we can NEVER catch her in the act which makes it difficult.  I give her treats & praise when she goes outside.  We have 1 child who plays with her often.  I have trained her to sit, stay & lay down using verbal and hand commands.  I am beside myself and have no idea what to do.  We are extremely frustrated.  I NEED HER TO STOP PEEING IN THE HOUSE.  HELP !!!

Susan
Toms River, NJ  

Answer
Susan, try keeping her leashed to you when she's out of her crate, and ONLY take her out when she starts to show signs of needing to go. When you see these signs, immediately get her to the door and outside. Praise, praise, praise her when she potties out there. If she starts 'going' before you can get her outside, make a noise to startle her, which should make her stop going, and get her out as quickly as possible. Clean up the area where she pottied in the house with an enzymatic cleaner such as Nature's Miracle.

You said you were interested in breeding the two dogs, so I have to ask, Susan, what is the reason exactly? Do you have any experience breeding dogs? Are you involved in showing them? If not, then you don't even know that they are worthy of being bred. Only the best specimens of a breed should ever be bred, to help improve upon the breed. Are you aware of all the money that's involved in doing health testing (CERF tests on the eyes, hip & elbow certification with OFA and/or PennHIP, tests on the heart, and tests for von Willebrand's disease, to name a few that are common in Golden Retrievers) and keeping the mother and puppies healthy? Ideally, you would know the test results for the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents of the dogs you are breeding, as well, because even though the parents of a puppy may not exhibit a certain disease, they still could have passed it on to them if their parents or grandparents had it. Many of these tests cannot be performed until the dog is at least 2 years of age.

If your reason for wanting to breed your dogs is to try and make a little money off the puppies, let me just say that if you do everything right, you will not make money. You might even lose money. What if your female has complications during her pregnancy or delivery? That can be hundreds (sometimes a thousand+) of dollars in vet bills right off the bat. What if she rejects them and refuses to let them nurse? Are you able to stay at home for a month to bottle feed them every few hours? Are you prepared to take puppies (or adult dogs) back if their new owners decide they don't want them or cannot keep them anymore? Are you prepared to provide a guarantee against hip dysplasia or progressive retinal atrophy, in which you either take the dog back and offer a replacement or give the new owners a refund? You *should* have homes lined up for the puppies before the breeding ever takes place, but what if one or more of those people back out once the puppies are born? How will you screen potential homes for the puppies?

If your reason for wanting to breed is so your children can witness the miracle of birth, there are videos you can buy specifically for this purpose, OR you can consider fostering a pregnant female for a rescue group. Are you willing to take them to a shelter to let them also witness the miracle of death? Because for every puppy you bring into this world, at least that many more will be euthanized because there simply are not enough homes available for the number of dogs being bred. Yes, even purebred dogs are euthanized in shelters. A search for Golden retriever rescue on Yahoo! yielded hundreds of thousands of hits.

There's a LOT to consider! I would recommend having your female spayed, if you are not prepared to deal with any of the things I have just mentioned.