My Puppy pees in the house right after I bring him inside.

TesznarJ

We have a 10 week old Eskimo/Sheltie male who has been doing great with potty training. We have had him for 2 weeks and at first he would go just about anywhere if the urge struck. He is being crate trained and has all but completely stopped going in his cage unless its been too long. There were a few days where he did great with letting us know he had to go out and we would let him out he would handle his business and come back inside. The last few days he has stopped telling us he needs to go so we're paying more attention and taking him out every 30 mins or so. But, we take him out and as soon as we bring him back inside and praise him for going he walks into the house and pees again. Usually in the same approximate area.

We also have a 1 y/o pointer/boxer female who is house broken and hasn't changed her habits. She holds it until she can go out. They get along great, play together and nap together but sleep in separate cages.

My question is, why the sudden regression in his potty habits and is there anything we can do to go back in the right direction.

Tess

You've probably moved too fast with thinking he is further in his house training than he is, so you probably slacked a bit with your vigilance. Would that make sense?

10 weeks is still VERY young and few puppies at this age have much awareness they need to pee, much less the ability to tell their owners.

Go back to being very vigilant. You must go out WITH him and reward him IMMEDIATELY with a treat when he pees (within 1 to 2 seconds). If you wait to praise him until you are inside, you have not taught him a thing.

If he does not pee when you take him out, then don't set him loose in the house. Put him back in the crate and try again in a 15 minutes.

If he pees outside, then pees 5 minutes later inside, he may have a UTI so get him checked by your vet.


Overall, puppies need several hundred repetitions of potty outside with a rewarding treat, to really gain the habit of pottying outside. It takes lots of practice for them!

Tess

Oh, one more thing, at this age you still need to take him out 2 or 3 times and hour when he is up and active, plus after he eats, after he wakes up, when he pauses from play, etc.

Basically...
- he cannot "hold it" at this age
- there are only a few seconds between when he senses he needs to pee, and he pees
- its unrealistic to expect him to tell you he needs out.

This is why you need to take him out so often, so he is PATTERNING the right behavior. House training is a habit, not a "revelation" of "oh I shouldn't pee inside" ... from the puppy's perspective.

TesznarJ

Thank you very much!! We were waiting until we brought him back in the house to reward him so we will change that immediately. Plus, he now has a vet appt to get checked for a UTI. Thanks again!

SiberianLove

My current Siberian puppy did this after about a week with us - at first he was doing great with house breaking and then he started to test his boundaries. It didn't help that we had a huge dump of snow and temperature loss and he had no interest in going outside as he was so young (the "breeder" gave us the option to take him at 5.5 weeks of age, or she'd sell him to someone else despite us already paying a non-refundable deposit). Basically the only thing that "cured" this was forcing him to go.

We broke his favourite treats into small pieces and would give him 1 when he went out the door, 1 right after he did his business, and 1 when he got back to the door. Within 3 days he figured it out and stopped having accidents - assuming we picked up on his "cues" to need to go, and took him outside accordingly.

He's a very high energy dog, and gets easily excited with a lot of people around and will often slip off into an empty room to relieve himself then join back in on the fun - so the easiest way to potty train him has been to continually take him outside and pay close attention. He will start to walk funny, and sniff the ground following scent trails. I also know that as soon as he wakes up from his Nap, he has to go and he does "#2" twice after each meal. The first one usually happens roughly 45 minutes post-eating (depending on if he's been playing or sleeping), and then again another 45 minutes later. He, of course, drinks when he eats thus needs to go pee within 10-15 minutes.

The saving grace primarily has been feeding him on a schedule rather than having food out at all times.. this way we can time roughly when he needs to go, rather than not being sure if he ate, or didn't eat. The "breeders" always had food out for them (but they stayed outside almost all the time as it's much milder where she lives), so we opted to feed him 3x per day.. 7:30AM, 12:00PM, 5:30PM. His breakfast is his largest meal of only dry food + boiled egg, lunch is small in terms of dry food but includes his Raw/Wet with the dry, and his dinner is medium sized of dry food.

Hope I've helped some Puppies can be tricky, and everyone is different. The one I have now specifically, rarely asks to go outside - it's a matter of reading his body language. Others are more vocal about it