Lesson 6: House Training Challenges

You and your pup may face challenges along your house-training journey. During these times, your pup's normal potty training may backslide. Your puppy may be particularly prone to having accidents under the following circumstances, so pay extra attention if any of these happen.

1. Disruption on Your Pup's Routine
2. Health Issues--Diarrhea and Urinary Tract Infections
3. Submissive Urination
4. Heavy Exercise
5. Hot Weather
6. Swimming
7. Swimming or Playing in Salt Water
8. She's in Season
9. He's Started Marking Indoors

Let's go into detail on each of these:

1. Disruption of Your Puppy's Routine Even small changes in your pup's routine at home may also disrupt its potty training. Disruptions are the time to focus on house-training basics. These are not the time to try to extend the time between trips outside or time out of the ex-pen. Quite the opposite, it is time to take your pup out more often since its mind is not on the potty training with all the great new friends that came to visit!

Disruptions include:

• Visitors coming to see your new puppy
• Your puppy has a playdate with other dogs
• Having friends over for dinner
• A tradesman coming to repair something in the house
• Taking your puppy to a friend's or your parents' home for the weekend

These normal everyday events present potty-training challenges to you and your pup. You get distracted and forget to watch your puppy. The puppy gets excited and is not thinking about asking to go outside until it is too late.

When these things happen:

• be even more observant than normal
• keep your pup under control either on a leash or in a crate or ex-pen
• carry cleaning supplies with you
• Assign someone else to be in charge of the puppy if you will be busy doing other things

2. Health Issues--Diarrhea and Urinary Tract Infections Sick puppies are nearly impossible to potty train. If your puppy develops diarrhea or a urinary tract infection, as many puppies do, know that it will backslide in its training. Be ready to take many steps backwards and treat the puppy as if it's 8 weeks old until it feels better.

Diarrhea is obvious but urinary tract infections (UTIs) are not as easy to spot. If your puppy is peeing more frequently than usual, crying while urinating, or straining but not able to pee, it likely has a UTI. If you are not sure, write down when it goes. Your memory may not be accurate enough to be able to distinguish the difference between its normal routine and its increased need to pee.

If your pup has diarrhea for more than a day or has any of the signs of a UTI, get it to the vet ASAP. To help with potty training while your pup is recovering, add a potty pan to its "room" until it is feeling better. Be patient, your puppy will be feeling better soon and back on the potty-training track!

3. Submissive Urination. Submissive urination occurs when puppies urinate while greeting a person or dog. This often happens to gentle or frightened puppies but many puppies will go through a brief period of submissive peeing during puppyhood. Some submissive urinators will pee when jumping up to greet, others will pee with their belly low to the ground, and some will go belly up and will pee on themselves. Submissive urination is NOT a potty training issue! It is a problem of confidence. These puppies are attempting to placate older or more powerful people and dogs in very appropriate dog terms. Your approach to this challenging predicament will determine whether or not your puppy outgrows this challenge. We can assure you that you want your puppy to outgrow it!

So, what do you do if your puppy pees during a greeting? First, DO NOT SCOLD YOUR PUPPY! Correcting puppies for submissive peeing will only make the problem worse. Yelling at a submissive puppy only further weakens their confidence, making them try harder to submit and thus pee more. Instead, if you see your pup pee when greeting anyone, calmly and quietly clean up the mess. For the next few weeks, ask guests to not approach or, in particular, lean over the puppy to say hello. Better that they sit on the floor and let the pup approach them. If that doesn't work, make sure all initial greetings take place outside. If there is one person in particular that triggers submissive peeing in your puppy, have that person ignore the pup completely. Instead, let the puppy decide when and how to approach on its own. If it chooses to stay away from the person, that’s okay.

4. Heavy Exercise. If your puppy has had a lot of exercise and drinks an excessive amount water in a short period of time it will need to urinate much sooner than usual. You should be careful not to let your puppy consume too much water at one time, but if it does, be sure to get it out within 20-30 minutes. Set a timer if you think you might forget! If your pup asks to go out sooner, take it out.

5. Hot Weather. In very hot weather, your pup may also drink a lot of water. You may need to take your pup out far more often during these periods.

6. Swimming If your puppy enjoys swimming, it likely will spend lots of time in the water given the opportunity. When dogs swim they swallow water. If they have something in their mouth while swimming they will swallow even more water. If your puppy spends any amount of time in the pool, lake, or ocean it will need to go out much sooner than usual. In fact, your puppy may even need to be taken out twice if it has been swimming for an extended period of time. When putting your puppy up after swimming, be sure to take it out in 20-30 minutes. If your puppy swam for an extended period of time take it out again another 30 minutes later. Again, be sure to set a timer if you think you might forget.

7. Swimming in Salt Water If you take your puppy to swim in the ocean, it will be swallowing saltwater. Depending on the amount of water your puppy swallows it may have diarrhea from the saltwater. If your puppy is asking to go out at a time you think it does not need to, trust your puppy and give it a chance to potty. Not all dogs will be affected by saltwater, but until you know how your puppy will react you want to be aware of the possibility. Just a reminder, another reason that puppies need to potty frequently is because of a urinary tract infection. If none of the above apply and you see that your puppy is pottying more than normal, take your puppy to the vet to be checked. Next, we will teach you how to expand your puppy's "room" while maintaining potty training success!
8. She's in Heat. When your female puppy is in season, you may find that she is not able to hold her urine well. Rarely, girls will "leak" urine during this period. Many people put panties on their girls during their heat cycles. Those panties will also help with keeping the house clean if she does "leak." Be sure you do not punish her if this happens!! She cannot help herself and punishing her will only cause her anxiety and will make the problem worse.

9. He's Urine Marking Indoors. Some teenage males, especially those living with other intact dogs, may start marking or urinating, often on vertical objects or areas of high scent, such as the beds of other dogs. Do not let this become a habit! The instant you find your boy has marked indoors, do two things.

• Put a belly band on him so that he cannot mark any longer in the house. These wraps will often stop a dog from marking while he is wearing it, giving you time to retrain him on his inside manners. Keep the belly band on him when you cannot supervise him closely until you know that he has changed his ways. Remember, the smell of urine draws dogs back over and over to the same place so once your boy has started marking, you must thoroughly clean the house with enzymatic cleaner using a black light to ensure you have erased all scent of his marking.
  
• Then set him so he urinates when you can catch him. To do this, soak a paper towel in another dog’s urine – intact females usually work best. Let the paper towel dry completely. Then take a piece of Saran wrap or other plastic wrap and put it on one side of the dried paper towel. Use a straight or safety pin and pin the towel to the vertical side, plastic wrap in, of a couch, chair, or another object in the room where your boy has marked.
  
  Arm yourself with whatever you are going to use for corrections. We use armfuls of empty soda cans with a few pennies in them (Ian Dunbar’s idea). Turn your dog loose in the room and appear disinterested or use a camera to monitor him.
  
  It’s highly likely that your young dog will mark the bitch urine. You want to catch him just BEFORE or WHILE HE IS MARKING and go verbally nuts. Make him think he lives with a crazy person. Drop cans, yell at the walls, jump up and down, flail your arms. Make a real impression on him. However, do NOT hit, strike, shout at him, or even get in his face. You want him to think the roof fell in rather than you got angry. You may need to do this a few times in your house or elsewhere before he understands that no matter how enticing it may be, he should never urinate inside.