My husband and I adopted a dog from our local shelter about 2 weeks ago. He is very sweet and good-natured overall. The only real issue we've been having lately is that he pees almost every time we're away from home. We can't tell if it's because he can't hold it any longer or if he's doing it due to anxiety, anger, etc. He never does it in the same spot or even the same room...so far. If he is marking his territory so to speak, is this a normal thing? There are no other animals in our house or children. He seems to really like both of us a lot. Other than the peeing, he behaves well while we're gone and he has free reign of the house. Never chews anything or gets into anything that's on floors, counters, etc. We typically leave him alone during work days for about 5 hours and then my husband comes home to let him out around lunchtime, so he'll go another 4-5 hours after that. Sometimes there is pee and sometimes not. I've never seen him do this while we are home even after hours of not going outside and we take him out every 5-6 hours so he doesn't have an accident and he's fine. Yesterday we had to leave him for Thanksgiving plans, so we were gone for about 7.5 hours. He peed in the one bedroom which was slightly cracked open because it wasn't latched all the way. I was worried he would pee the whole time we were gone and I guess for good reason since he peed. I've read that adult dogs can hold their bladder for approx. 8 hours and don't typically go in the house if they are fully house trained. I wish we could leave him longer for those days we have to be gone a good portion of the day. I'm at a loss. When we first got him, we tried a crate that was supposedly for a dog his weight, but he JUST fit in there with no real room to move around. He refused to go in there on his own even after several attempts to give him treats and a kong w/PB in it. We always had a blanket in there and soft radio music playing nearby. He actually got out of the crate a few days into the crate training, so I guess he hated it that much or it was a result of separation anxiety maybe. We weren't sure if he just undid the door latch on his own and got out or it wasn't latched all the way on the side door (we had been using the front door to get him in). Either way, we found him at the top of the stairs with tail wagging when we got home that day. So, I hesitate to try the crate again even if we go up a size and get one where he has more room to move around. The other thing I thought about is to get the baby gates that prevent him from going on certain floors and keep him on the main floor of our townhouse (no carpet), so he can't get onto the carpeted floors to pee since we're already having a tough time removing the pee on 4 separate places in different rooms. I thought if we did the gate thing, maybe we could put a pee pad down like what is used for puppies when they are being house/potty trained. But we were concerned that if we do that while we're out of the house, will he actually use it and if he does, will he learn that it's okay to go pee in the house? This is tough! We've never owned a dog before and have no idea of the background of this one since he was a stray picked up by the shelter. He is not a puppy- he's about 4-6 years they think. We guess he just wasn't crate or house trained at all by the previous owners. Maybe he was outside mostly. Anyway, what do we do at this point? We can't have him continuing to soil our light colored carpets of our brand new home on an almost daily basis. So frustrating!! Open to any and all suggestions from experienced pet owners or dog behaviorists. Thanks!