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Question: Should we go back to house training square one, continue on the current path, or restart somewhere in between?
Background: We adopted our Beagle/Dachshund mix in March. She was estimated as being around 1 year old. She seemed to have great house manners, so we assume she spent some time in a house before coming into the shelter as a "stray," but we started the house training process as if she were a new puppy. She was crated at night and when we were gone. She had some accidents in the crate, but not many, and she soon moved into our bedroom at night and has NEVER had an accident at night since her first week in the crate (I think due to some initial nervousness). We gradually increased her freedom from the crate to an exercise pen attached to the crate, and gradually added panels to the pen to give her more space. (If you read one of my previous posts, you'll know she had some issues with the pen. Thanks to your help, we think it was because that's where she was when she returned from being spayed and was in her cone collar, but that issue was solved after returning to the crate for a week after the cone came off, and then setting her up with the exercise pen attached with the crate where she could come and go through the crate's two doors. As well as some positive conditioning to the pen....FYI - She learned to love the pen quickly when she discovered that it rains cheese in the pen.) Over a 4-6 week period, she had maybe three accidents in the pen outside of the brief period of issues associated with the pen/cone collar anxiety. At this point we decided to take the pen away and just allow her free access to our giant kitchen with her open door crate/bed. This has gone REALLY well for about a month. I think she maybe had one or two accidents early on in giving her free reign of the kitchen, but was, what we thought, to be pretty well housebroken. All of a sudden she's started going to the bathroom at odd times of the day, despite not changing her feeding schedule, or any other aspects of her routine, and she's peed and pooped in the kitchen at least 4 times over the past week. - Keep in mind this dog only poops once every other day (raw is wonderful!), and has typically only peed once, sometimes twice per day (no, she doesn't have any health/medical issues - it concerned me early on when she was in her foster period and I contacted the shelter and after that have talked to my vet about her bathroom habits several times - she's been cleared as healthy - she just doesn't pee much despite having 24/7 access to water that she drinks plenty of). So to me, for a dog that was only peeing once or twice per day, four times in the house in one week seems like a lot! I cringe at the thought of going back to square one, but will do whatever I have to, I just don't understand why things were going so well and what changed?
Also of note, she never really got very good at asking to go out. Since she doesn't go that often it just always seemed like we take her out more than she ever needs to go. For example I take her out every morning before I leave for work, and she almost NEVER goes at that time. I still give her the opportunity just because I hate the thought of leaving her for 8 hours without the chance to go. She usually pees when I get home from work, but isn't bursting. She waits patiently for me to put my stuff down. Goes out, runs around and plays and then eventually pees after a few minutes. Sometimes she poops after work, and if not she'll go before bed, if she pees twice during the day she pees again before bed, but rarely in the morning. She sticks to this schedule even when we're home all day. When we first got her I took her out almost every hour and then slowly backed off when I realized she just wasn't going.
It's been hard to really reinforce asking/going outside since she goes outside a lot and doesn't go. When she has been having the accidents it's been in the evenings if we leave for a few hours. She's been holding it during work hours, goes when we get home, and then either poops on the floor if we go to dinner or pees again on the floor.
As I said, health concerns have been ruled out by the vet several times, including recently.
Thoughts?
Background: We adopted our Beagle/Dachshund mix in March. She was estimated as being around 1 year old. She seemed to have great house manners, so we assume she spent some time in a house before coming into the shelter as a "stray," but we started the house training process as if she were a new puppy. She was crated at night and when we were gone. She had some accidents in the crate, but not many, and she soon moved into our bedroom at night and has NEVER had an accident at night since her first week in the crate (I think due to some initial nervousness). We gradually increased her freedom from the crate to an exercise pen attached to the crate, and gradually added panels to the pen to give her more space. (If you read one of my previous posts, you'll know she had some issues with the pen. Thanks to your help, we think it was because that's where she was when she returned from being spayed and was in her cone collar, but that issue was solved after returning to the crate for a week after the cone came off, and then setting her up with the exercise pen attached with the crate where she could come and go through the crate's two doors. As well as some positive conditioning to the pen....FYI - She learned to love the pen quickly when she discovered that it rains cheese in the pen.) Over a 4-6 week period, she had maybe three accidents in the pen outside of the brief period of issues associated with the pen/cone collar anxiety. At this point we decided to take the pen away and just allow her free access to our giant kitchen with her open door crate/bed. This has gone REALLY well for about a month. I think she maybe had one or two accidents early on in giving her free reign of the kitchen, but was, what we thought, to be pretty well housebroken. All of a sudden she's started going to the bathroom at odd times of the day, despite not changing her feeding schedule, or any other aspects of her routine, and she's peed and pooped in the kitchen at least 4 times over the past week. - Keep in mind this dog only poops once every other day (raw is wonderful!), and has typically only peed once, sometimes twice per day (no, she doesn't have any health/medical issues - it concerned me early on when she was in her foster period and I contacted the shelter and after that have talked to my vet about her bathroom habits several times - she's been cleared as healthy - she just doesn't pee much despite having 24/7 access to water that she drinks plenty of). So to me, for a dog that was only peeing once or twice per day, four times in the house in one week seems like a lot! I cringe at the thought of going back to square one, but will do whatever I have to, I just don't understand why things were going so well and what changed?
Also of note, she never really got very good at asking to go out. Since she doesn't go that often it just always seemed like we take her out more than she ever needs to go. For example I take her out every morning before I leave for work, and she almost NEVER goes at that time. I still give her the opportunity just because I hate the thought of leaving her for 8 hours without the chance to go. She usually pees when I get home from work, but isn't bursting. She waits patiently for me to put my stuff down. Goes out, runs around and plays and then eventually pees after a few minutes. Sometimes she poops after work, and if not she'll go before bed, if she pees twice during the day she pees again before bed, but rarely in the morning. She sticks to this schedule even when we're home all day. When we first got her I took her out almost every hour and then slowly backed off when I realized she just wasn't going.
It's been hard to really reinforce asking/going outside since she goes outside a lot and doesn't go. When she has been having the accidents it's been in the evenings if we leave for a few hours. She's been holding it during work hours, goes when we get home, and then either poops on the floor if we go to dinner or pees again on the floor.
As I said, health concerns have been ruled out by the vet several times, including recently.
Thoughts?
