[busybee]

I have a 7-year-old peekapoo named Charlie. He is a smart little thing and we absolutely adore him. He adjusted to our home well, picks up on the general routine of our home, and is quick to learn new tricks/skills/etc. We are just having one problem. He is potty trained to a point. He alerts us when he needs to go outside (even waking us up during the night ), doesn't have any accidents when we are at work, and generally seems to have the concept down. However, we have concrete floors and whenever we have gotten a rug, it's like everything goes out the window. All day long he just goes on the rug. As soon as we take it away, back to normal. I understand he must be associating the softness with the idea of grass but I'm unsure of what to do. We tried taking him out hourly when we get one but to no avail. All the videos/articles I have found are about puppies and I haven't been able to make any progress with him. We are moving to a carpeted home soon and I am scared I'm going to lose a fight for him to stay with us.

Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I want to try anything and everything for him.

 

[JoanneF]

I wonder, was he ever trained on puppy pads? These can cause that sort of confusion.

My only suggestion is that you actually keep him on a lead in the house with rugs so that you can prevent him from toileting on them, and when you take him out and he toilets, reward him generously and immediately. The reward has to be generous to make it worth his while to hold his toilet until he is outside, and has to be immediate to be clear that it's for toileting and not for anything else.

I'd also get a new reward, something that is only used for outside toilets. Frankfurter sausage or roast chicken maybe.

In your new house, set him up for success by preventing access to carpeted areas except when you are there to scoop him up if he shows any signs of wanting to toilet.

 

[busybee]

I wonder, was he ever trained on puppy pads? These can cause that sort of confusion.

My only suggestion is that you actually keep him on a lead in the house with rugs so that you can prevent him from toileting on them, and when you take him out and he toilets, reward him generously and immediately. The reward has to be generous to make it worth his while to hold his toilet until he is outside, and has to be immediate to be clear that it's for toileting and not for anything else.

I'd also get a new reward, something that is only used for outside toilets. Frankfurter sausage or roast chicken maybe.

In your new house, set him up for success by preventing access to carpeted areas except when you are there to scoop him up if he shows any signs of wanting to toilet.

His previous owner was an older lady with a lot of physical restrictions (had to move into a nursing home and had to let go of him). So it is definitely quite possible he was trained with pads.

Thank you so much for the suggestion. That will be our next course of action. Ill even see about getting a "practice rug" for the meantime.