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Help please with puppy's toilet habits
My 7 month old puppy is fully house trained, and has no accidents for absolutely ages. We always leave the back patio door open for him so he always goes outside himself and does his business.
However in the past few days he has gone completely full circle, and is now weeing in the house, on his bed, on the sofa etc. it's not like he's got excited and had an accident - this afternoon I caught him actually jumping up and squatting down and weeing on the sofa. When he saw me he jumped down and hid behind the chair as if he knew he'd done wrong.
Can someone please tell me why he's doing this? Has anyone else had this happen? I feel completely down as it took us ages to house train him due to health issues he had where he wasn't allowed outside. And now I just feel like he's completely regressed and I don't know why.
Thanks in advance
Edit: I've been googling
and the most common cause seems to be a UTI - but he has no symptoms such as lethargy, over licking his genitals, different colour urine, smelly urine, straining to urinate or any blood or anything. He's not going anymore than usual either.
However in the past few days he has gone completely full circle, and is now weeing in the house, on his bed, on the sofa etc. it's not like he's got excited and had an accident - this afternoon I caught him actually jumping up and squatting down and weeing on the sofa. When he saw me he jumped down and hid behind the chair as if he knew he'd done wrong.
Can someone please tell me why he's doing this? Has anyone else had this happen? I feel completely down as it took us ages to house train him due to health issues he had where he wasn't allowed outside. And now I just feel like he's completely regressed and I don't know why.
Thanks in advance
Edit: I've been googling
and the most common cause seems to be a UTI - but he has no symptoms such as lethargy, over licking his genitals, different colour urine, smelly urine, straining to urinate or any blood or anything. He's not going anymore than usual either. 0
Comments
What I would do is exclude him from your presence when he does it - but you have to be quick so he knows why you're doing it. Tell him NO firmly, then pull him out by his collar and leave him in a gated kitchen or such like. Then after a while go through what you did when house-training him. Take him outside and praise him when he does his business - then let him in again - and repeat the ostracising routine if he does it again.
Eventually he should realise that behaving badly (as he is doing) will get him excluded. Dogs hate that.
Unfortunately leaving the door open isn't training him, it maybe easier but he needs to learn how to hold it, not just go outside when he wants, and I think this maybe your issue.
Once you've got the ok from the vet you need to restart, taking him out every 20 mins and using positive reinforcement techniques to praise him. Is he crate trained? If not I'd recommend it, he won't pee where he sleeps.
He does hold it, sorry maybe I wasn't clear. I work part time and he holds it for four hours everyday until I get back when I let him straight out and he goes. I leave the patio door open for a couple of hours after that and then it gets closed early evening (when it starts getting cold!) when he tells us when he wants to go out for the rest of the day and night. He also holds it overnight. Hes been like that for months now, no accidents. I'm at a bit of a loss if I'm honest because I really don't think it could be a UTI (I know I'm not a vet, but we all know our own dogs to an extent right?) he has no symptoms whatsoever, he doesn't do it all the time - in fact, it's mainly when he wants attention, thinking about it now - he holds it for about 10 hours overnight. I just wondered if there was anything else it could be, other than a UTI. He's quite a spoilt boy (:o) therefore he likes attention. He has previously gone through phases of doing things for attention and I maybe wondered if this was one of them.
Is he neutered? (If not, why not!) it could be hormones surging, stressing him and causing him to mark and over urinate. But again only a vet can tell you this.
Thank you, this sounds completely like him. He's also started going back to biting and pulling at slippers etc like he did when he was tiny - so it does seem like hormones.
He's not neutered yet - the vet advised us to wait until puberty because apparebtly cutting off hormones before he's developed can be detrimental to him in later life. But that was a few months ago, and it definitely seems like he's hit puberty now, so we are going to ask the vet about getting him done ASAP.
Since I posted yesterday he's been going outside everytime and getting lots of praise, which he seems to be loving as he's waggling his little bum every time we give it to him.
Can you expand on this please bazaar1? Why should the pup have already been neutered? (Apologies OP for taking the thread off-topic).
I agree with first part of your post but unless the OP has considered all sides of neutering a male it's crazy to suggest he just go ahead and neuter. Many males are not best neutered and should be left intact. Some benefit from neutering but we know nothing about this dog so shouldn't be saying neuter or not.
Most dogs can, and should be, neutered around 6 months, the only expect ions are where there is a medical of behavioural reason not to (ie things not dropping, aggression), there are hundreds of unwanted puppies around the countries and pounds full of stray dogs unite red and impregnating any female they come across. There is very little reason not to have a pup neutered.
I agree there are some adult dogs that neutering is not beneficial for, but knowing your posting history I presume you are referring to aggression in particular, and yes in some (note I say SOME) cases neutering can cause further problems. However, this is a pup that fizzle has had since tiny so the chances of it showing serious aggression problems at 7 months are minimal, and neutering now is most likely going to prevent npserious hormone based aggression developing, and in fact fear aggression has been noted in studies to occur less in makes neutered at an early age.
Yes nervous aggression worsened greatly by neutering. Also I am not sure about health positives with males as one of our males went on after 6 month neutering to eventually have prostate cancer - we were told it lessened the risk but he had a particularly aggressive cancer.
May of course have nothing to do with neutering but we always wondered ....
.There are a lot of reasons not to have male dogs done before they are 1 yr old.
On the negative side, neutering male dogs
if done before 1 year of age, significantly increases the risk of osteosarcoma (bone cancer); this is a common cancer in medium/large and larger breeds with a poor prognosis
increases the risk of cardiac hemangiosarcoma by a factor of 1.6
triples the risk of hypothyroidism
increases the risk of progressive geriatric cognitive impairment
triples the risk of obesity, a common health problem in dogs with many associated health problems
quadruples the small risk (<0.6%) of prostate cancer
doubles the small risk (<1%) of urinary tract cancers
increases the risk of orthopaedic disorder
I think yours was probably a rare case, from what I understand prostate cancer is more common in entire dogs due to the hormones rushing around, hence the lesser risk of it occurring in a neutered male, sadlyt here is 100% guarenteed.
Ditto to aggression, but remember we are not talking a shelter dog of 2 or 3 who what's the fear aggression already emerging, im talking puppies here, and generally neutering at 6/7 months is the best thing for all concerned.
When I went to the vets with my little collie x age 6 mth to be spayed, she dribbled a bit and again the vet advised us to wait until after her first season.
So its not always the done and correct thing to neuter age 6 mth.
Sorry missed your previous post, wasn't ignoring it. There's lots of arguments pro and against, however fore very negative there are numerous positives to out weigh them, my salukis as done last week, at 5 1/2 months. Whilst I had an issue with the negatives I'd not of wanted to wait any longer, games started becoming sexually oriented, play with my other male (neutered) also started becoming overly boisterous, both signs that he was becoming sexually mature.
I did my research and much of the waiting until they are older is vet preference, much like some say to allow a bitch a first season, others disagree. I could find nothing concrete to day it was better to wait, but found lots of evidence to suggest early was better - such as the issues with prostate cancer, aggression, male to male interactions and socialisations becoming more hostile, particularly if the other male is entire,a nd of course the puppy issue. Although many of us wouldn't allow a entire male to mate (I'd hope) with any bitch he came across, many dogs go missing, through no fault of the owners, and evena. Few hours missing time is enough. We got a bitch in this week heavily pregnant just days away from the pound 'deadline' - she's obviously been a stray for a while and we suspect this is litter 2, she's only 18 months or so
Glad that's all it is fizzle! Expect a few weeks of extra charged male behaviour whilst hormones settle down (not all do it but some do!)
http://naturaldogtraining.com/blog/the-debate-over-neutering/
Make dogs metabolism reduces by about 25% when neutered it's not hard to compensate and no dog should turn to fat if properly cared for. As for the spark? Of the dogs that come Into the center the ones I have more of a bond and interaction with are nearly always the males that are neutered, personally I think an entire male is always distracted, sniffing and on 'female alert'
As for the link, sadly anything the features a hippy approach to dog training (and yes I am aware of him and his work) adds no great weight to my decisions, for me he's no different to those selling holistic drugs to cancer patients. Sure they may help, but in all likelihood they just make he patient feel like they are taking some control.
i would agree with this, our collie had his nuts off at 4 (we weren't going to have him done, but after a solid week of him scratching at the front door and whining/howling all night as the bitch down the road was in heat, we saw to having it done.
i regret it as he's a lovely dog, healthy as a horse, nice temperament and beautiful markings, but leaving him always on female alert just didn't seem fair to him.
his lack of papers and the number of collie pups that were already around at the time sealed the fate of his plums.)
since being done, despite gaining weight (poor dietary management on our part, allowing him to clean up for us when the bairns dropped anything, but it is finally coming off now he's on an OM diet) everything else has really been positive, he's more accepting of other dogs now and so much more "soppy" and cuddly
he used to always sleep downstairs, despite having full run of the house and being allowed, if he wanted, to sleep on the beds.
nowadays i barely have any room for myself in my kingsized bed :rolleyes:
he started paying a lot more attention as well, can't really fault him for his obedience and recall at all now, where as when he was entire it was "oh, she's called me, i'll just sniff here, here, here and run over here before i eventually make my way back over to her and immediately want to wander off again"
i could now walk him just about anywhere off lead, when the streets are quiet, i do.
What a load of bollocks. I have had dogs all my life and none have been neutered. I've never seen aggression in any of my dogs, all Alsations, and have trained and socialised them.
The biggest problem is the lack of training and socialisation. Leaving a young pup for 4 hours is asking for trouble, they get bored.
My current dog, an 8 year old Alsation that I have bred with, was toilet trained in 8 weeks and apart from a couple of accidents when he was a pup has never done anything in the house.
Even now if he has a dicky tummy he will ask out.
I'm sorry if you find this post agressive but having trained and bred Alsations for the last 40 years I feel your post was wrong.
Where exactly did I say that not neutering made dogs aggressive? I said that it can stop aggression developing, but I never said a dog that was engine is automatically aggressive. The fact that you've chosen to breed your dogs is your choice, and obviously neutering isn't the right choice for you, however I don't think we need any more puppies, especially pedigrees, but that's another thread.
It's interesting that you feel the need to apologise for your post. I didn't find it aggressive, I find it disagreeable but your entitled to your own opinion, however you cannot base your opinion ing of neutering on your own experience as by your own admission you've never neutered and therefore have nothing to compare entires with.
I used to be a huge fan of neutering every dog/cat that came along and recommended it to everyone. Since more research and experience I am less likely to be so sweeping. We all need to look at our dogs individually and make the best decisions for each of them, for some like Betty neutering at the right time will be best, but for some I now believe keeping them entire is best.
I am the opposite, I used to be 'leave it up to the owner' however having researched and worked at shelters, having seen the end result I am of the opinion of 99% of the time neutering is the right choice for puppies (adult dogs, as we know are a different kettle of fish, but if puppies were neutered responsibly, the adult issues would be less common). Sadly every owner of a none neutered dog thinks that it doesn't mean unwanted puppies, but losing a pet (even for a few hours) can happen to anyone, unless you have your dog per entry tied to you there are chances of it running off, getting lost etc. proof do that? The 5 or 6 strays our center takes in each week, as do all of our other branches. These aren't dogs that have never been homes, they are pets that are lost but not desexed (generally). These range from Heinz 57 to show quality Akitas and huskies, everyone risks losing a pet and THATS where the pups come from a lot of the time.
Too many dangers out there apart from accidental matings that can be avoided by a simple leash.
I too have been in rescue for several years and it's seeing dogs returned due to behavioural problems that most probably were brought on by neutering that has changed my mind. Rescues carry a lot of baggage and adding to it by neutering them doesn't always prove beneficial. IMO.