6 mo. still peeing inside, help!

[gordonshumway]

Hey all, you were all so helpful with my last question, I'm hoping you can help us out again

Tug is about 6mo old male English/French cross and is really a sweet dog, with one exception. He still isn't housebroken, and it's driving my wife and I nuts. I'm not an expert (by any means, ha ha) but it seems to be separation anxiety related. He will be fine most of the time, but if my wife and I leave the room he is in (mostly it's when we change floors in the house - upstairs/downstairs) we will come back to find a puddle. He's notorious during kids bathtime routine, where in the evenings we go upstairs to give our kids a bath, brush teeth, get ready for bed, etc. Every. single. time. we come downstairs to him having peed. So during bath time we crate him and that works pretty well. The problem is he also pees at less predictable times as well. Say if you just have to run to the basement to get something, maybe 1 in 5 he'll pee. Or if I take the trash out, boom, pee. I can't crate him every time we leave the room, that just isn't realistic or sustainable, but at the same time we can't keep this up either. Any suggestions? Oh, we also take him out A LOT. Like every 20 minutes sometimes. At bath time, we'll take him out to go potty, then give the kids a bath and he'll still pee only 20 minutes after having already peed. So it's not like he just can't hold it any more. The other thing is, it seems once he's peed once in teh house, for the rest of the night he'll pee again and again, to the point where if he's peed once in the house we have to crate him for the evening becuase if we don't he;ll pee all over. It's super frustrating!!

Thanks!

 

[Amanda P]

It might be worth a visit to the vet if you haven't already. Sometimes a urine infection can cause them to pee wherever. Diabetes can also cause a lot of peeing. X

 

[musicdeb]

Does he drink a lot of water, more than usual? Is he eating, going to bathroom and playing normal?

When you take him out to go potty, is he on leash? Have you trained him to go potty when you say go potty? Dogs can take 20 minutes or so to go potty and most dogs need to go potty at least twice.

Do you have other animals in the house?

I agree, a vet check may be in order.

 

[DennasMom]

Are you doing all the usual potty-training tricks?

i.e.
- Does he have a "Potty" command?
- Do you have Potty Parties outside after a successful and complete potty (i.e. not just 'marking', but a complete bladder-emptying potty)?
Note - potty parties have the beneficial side-effect of getting the puppy to run and bounce a bit and therefore may naturally help them decide to 'finish' their eliminations after a few minutes...
- Have you ever caught him in the house, so you can say "NO" as a confirmation on where NOT to go?
- Do you clean up with a good enzymatic cleaner, so there are no scents left in the house (nature's miracle or simple solution are two that we use)?

This seems more behavioral if all the above have been done and a UTI is ruled out...

When you leave the room, invite him to go with you. At 6 months, I'm not sure why he's not following you anyway... I couldn't leave a room, let alone a floor, by myself when Denna was that age. Still can't leave a floor most of the time without my doggie shadow... and she's almost 2 years old.
If you're just leaving for a minute - i.e. to take out the garbage, you could try giving him a command... like "sit & wait"... so he has something "to do" while you're gone besides worry.

Does he do stairs ok? or is he peeing in frustration that it's uncomfortable to follow where you go?
Hmmm.... hopefully you can get to the bottom of this one, soon!

 

[gordonshumway]

Does he drink a lot of water, more than usual? Is he eating, going to bathroom and playing normal?

Everything seems normal.

When you take him out to go potty, is he on leash? Have you trained him to go potty when you say go potty?

- Does he have a "Potty" command?
- Do you have Potty Parties outside after a successful and complete potty (i.e. not just 'marking', but a complete bladder-emptying potty)?

Sort of, kind of. When we were first house training him we would take him out, stand with him and when we went potty we'd say 'good potty' and make a big deal of it. He'd get all excited and we'd praise him. Now we just open the door and let him go wander the yard and let him back in after a few minutes.

- Have you ever caught him in the house, so you can say "NO" as a confirmation on where NOT to go?

More often than not he goes when we're not around but maybe 1 in 5 times he'll go in front of us. Sometimes he looks me right in the eye and just pees!

When you leave the room, invite him to go with you. At 6 months, I'm not sure why he's not following you anyway... I couldn't leave a room, let alone a floor, by myself when Denna was that age. Still can't leave a floor most of the time without my doggie shadow... and she's almost 2 years old.
If you're just leaving for a minute - i.e. to take out the garbage, you could try giving him a command... like "sit & wait"... so he has something "to do" while you're gone besides worry.

Does he do stairs ok? or is he peeing in frustration that it's uncomfortable to follow where you go?

My wife and I can start doing this, seems simple enough, not sure why I didn't think of it before! If he's next to me all the time he probably won't pee. But wont that encourage whatever separation anxiety (assuming it's that) that's causing him to pee in the first place?

He's good with stairs, but we've been trying to keep him off of them because I've read it's not good for the joints - that was actually the topic of my first thread here.

THanks!

 

[musicdeb]

Mastiffs generally need to be near their families. It's instinctual to them because they are a guardian breed.

Yes, a puppy's maneuvering of the stairs should be controlled, i.e. on leash until at least 12 months of age. Are the stairs carpeted? If not, it is especially important to control the pup on the stairs to prevent injury.

I would like to reiterate when telling the pup "no" when he's caught in the act should be a firm, stern "no" not yelling. The old way of correcting a pup to stop peeing in the house of hitting with a newspaper or rubbing their noise in it, is just that, the old, wrong way of correcting the pup.