# Puppy refuses to sleep on anything but pee?!



## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

I have no idea what's going on. I've made several posts here about similar issues, but I thought they were all fixed after some thorough bed-cleaning and item arrangement. But now she refuses to sleep anywhere except her own urine! This has been happening for several days, she has multiple urine scalds and in places her skin is so damaged that the fur is patchy and falling out. The vet found nothing mechanically wrong with her and has no idea why she would do this. Here are just two examples of her doing this:
A few days ago my sister (who's had dogs, and specifically pitbulls before) was puppy-sitting for me while my father and I went to the coast for a few hours (he thought the trip was too long and didn't want her making a mess in the car). She took my puppy out to go, then went back in to play. After the play-time, she took the puppy back out for another potty break, but she didn't go. So after five or so minutes of waiting, the puppy was taken back in and put in her crate to wait until she had to go again. Except after a few minutes, she peed in the crate and then slept directly on the puddle after walking in a circle around the crate! To be clear, her crate is the largest I could find and can easily fit her in it six or seven times over, yet of all the places which were completely free of urine she layed down in the puddle itself.
Less than an hour ago, I found her having peed on her crate liner again. I took it out to wash it, and after putting it in a soak I came back to clean the bottom of the crate (I didn't see any urine, but I wanted to be sure). Except by the time I got back, she had peed in a corner of the crate and was laying down in the middle of it. It wasn't even her usual sleeping corner - it was a different corner completely! I washed her in the sink (the bed was soaking in the bathtub) and took her back to the crate area. I didn't clean the crate yet, I brought out her other bed (the nice one, not a crate liner) and put it next to the crate door, then let her off the leash. She sniffed her bed, then went directly into her crate and layed down in the puddle again!
What is going on? I've personally seen her pee outside before letting her back in just to see her pee on her sleeping area after a minute or two. I've tried changing beds, taking beds away completely, moving the crate, using Nature's Miracle to attract her outside, doing everything short of cartwheels when she goes outside, nothing works! As far as I can tell she actually likes to sleep on her own pee, and it doesn't even matter how often I take her out, she'll just hold some of it until she comes back in. What am I supposed to do? I don't want to keep her outside, but if my father knew this was such a problem he'd chain her outside himself. Please help!


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Because she's likely been peeing in the house, possibly in her bed since you got her since you were only taking her out twice a day, she's probably gotten used to being in her own pee and so is no longer conditioned to care about it.
You need to STRONGLY up you potty training game, the longer she keeps peeing in the house the harder it's going to get to train it out of her.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

No, actually, she wasn't. When I got her she was pad-trained and used them for a long time. When the potty-training started not that long ago, she did very well and I took her out more often than just two times a day! And please be more specific than "up your potty training game" I've done all I could think to do to curb this behaviour and something that vague is not helpful.


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## TheDarkestMinds (Feb 28, 2015)

Well first off your crate sounds way too big. Honestly the smaller and more snug the crate the better. 

And 5 minutes is not long enough for any of my adult dogs to go potty. Let alone my 15 week old puppy. They tend to sniff around etc for 10 minutes or more before going potty.

So to make this short and sweet. You need to go back to training 101. Cut off water a few hours before bed time. Make sure your puppy pees before crating ALWAYS. I don't care if it takes 20 minutes of standing in the backyard. There is no reason to put the pup in the crate knowing she hasn't peed outside before hand. Sounds drastic but that's how it works.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

So how big/small should a crate be according to size?
I've never had an issue with her pottying outside, she always goes straight to the potty area and does her business with no waiting at all. Usually if she waits it just means she doesn't have to go. Even if she does wait, for whatever reason, she resonds well to the potty command so I never have to stand for any long length of time.
As for the other advice, we're already following "training 101". I don't let her drink before bed and I always take her out before crating. I also read that if your puppy won't go, you should put them back in their crate for a few minutes and repeat until they go outside, so they don't have accidents on your carpet (though I've personally never had to do this). Though of course you can't trust everything you read on the internet.


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## samshine (Mar 11, 2011)

One easy thing that often helps is to feed her in the crate. Most dogs do not want to soil where they eat. You could even go so far as to scatter kibble on the floor of the crate. Then she will start thinking of the crate as a food bowl, not a potty spot.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

MysticRealm said:


> Because she's likely been peeing in the house, possibly in her bed since you got her since you were only taking her out twice a day, she's probably gotten used to being in her own pee and so is no longer conditioned to care about it.
> You need to STRONGLY up you potty training game, the longer she keeps peeing in the house the harder it's going to get to train it out of her.


Yeah, this is most likely exactly the case.

Just because she was pad trained when you got her doesn't mean she wasn't ALSO peeing on her bed. My puppy peed once every 30 minutes until he was 4.5 months old. If you were only taking your puppy outside every 12 hours or so, and your puppy is similar to mine, then that's 23 times in that period that she was peeing inside. I have difficulty believing all of that urine made it onto a pee pad. 

So you've conditioned her to sleep in and around the smell of urine. This is what pee pads do, and why most of us do not recommend them. 

Start taking her outside every 30 minutes. In this situation, making the crate smaller isn't going to work. She's so conditioned to sleep in and around urine that it doesn't matter to her if the crate is big or small.

Other people have given you advice on how to start, but I just wanted to point out that her pee pad training does not mean she wasn't sleeping in urine for months because of your very lax potty training routine. Might I add, your very lax potty training routine that we all discussed with you a month ago and tried to warn you that it could result in issues like this arising.


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## cookieface (Jul 6, 2011)

Potty training basics:
- keep your eyes on her at all times
- if you can't watch her, place her in a crate or ex-pen (you may need to find a different style crate or other confinement solution since she's grown accustomed to going in her crate)
- stick to a _reasonable_* potty schedule; reinforce heavily every time she goes outside
- make sure she goes outside - wait her out; when she does, reinforce heavily
- never discipline (scold, hit, yell) for potty accidents; you risk making her afraid to go in front of you making potty training much more difficult
- as was mentioned, feeding her in her crate might help break the habit of eliminating there

* err on the side of going out too often rather than not often enough


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## BKaymuttleycrew (Feb 2, 2015)

You might not want to believe it, and I'm fairly certain you don't want to hear this, but -- This is not a *new* or *short-term* problem. Urine scald to the point of fur loss does not happen overnight. Your puppy, due to past house training mistakes on your part, has been conditioned to urinating in her bed and/or crate, and then sleeping in it. Since there is no way to go back & undo what has been done to create this problem, you simply need to move forward. 

I would suggest removing the crate altogether at this point & set up an area with an X-pen to contain her. Feed her in this area by scattering her food all over the floor so she views the entire place as one big food bowl. Do not give her a bed, blanket, pad or anything else that she might view as a potty place. Take her out VERY frequently. VERY, VERY frequently (every 30 minutes if possible, whether you *think* she has to go or not, as well as all the 'normal' times - first thing upon waking, before & after eating/drinking/playing, last thing before bed, etc...) If she performs outside, happy but *gentle* praise (sometimes overly enthusiastic 'potty parties' can be frightening/stressful to a pup) and a super high-value treat. If she doesn't eliminate after a few minutes, go back inside & keep her tethered to you until the next outing time.

Practice with her ON leash to learn how to lay down quietly on a pad/mat or blanket. After she has eliminated outside, take her in & walk her over to the mat & sit with her until she settles & lays down. Then do long, slow strokes to promote relaxation & quietly praise her as she lays there. If she stands up simply ignore her until she lays back down, then resume the petting/praising. (If she starts to squat & pee, immediately interrupt her with an "Oops!!! Outside!!" and rush her out to finish.) After a few minutes of successful practice relaxing on the mat, put it away & go on about your regularly scheduled day. In time, the hope being that she will learn that cushions are for laying on, NOT for peeing on. Right now, she doesn't have any idea that is possible. Eventually she *should* be able to have a bed back.


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## kdawnk (Mar 26, 2014)

Along with all the advice everyone else has been saying I'm wondering. 
Are you using a wire crate? 
If you are you could take the pan out of the crate bottom and put it under the crate. What I'm getting at here is, so that if she pees she can't possibly lay it in. It would run over the grate and onto the pan below. 
Doesnt solve the pottying issue, but I think the urine burns and hair loss is important to alleviate immediately. 
Who knows puppies are weird so she may enjoy the warm feeling of the urine so it's self reinforcing and she's been conditioned that that is the place to go. 

Everyone else has given good advice on how to combat the issue. My advice is more so to stop the urine laying immediately.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

samshine; I will try this, thank you.
Hiraeth; I took her out WAY more often than every twelve hours when I started potty-training her, and I kept the pads away from her sleeping area from the start (an entire room's length, not like a foot or something). And if you read my previous posts, you would know that my training schedule wasn't intentionally lax - she would simply not go more often than every three or four hours. The only result of taking her out every thirty minutes is making a hassle and getting her cold and wet, don't you think I tried that when she started doing this? I thought maybe she had a UTI but her behaviour is the same and the vet found nothing wrong.
cookieface; I've been doing all that except the food part, which I will try. Waiting her out is impossible, I actually took a lawn chair and a book (in the rain, so I had an umbrella, too) and sat there for over an hour waiting for her to pee a second time but she never did. Sure enough, pee as soon as she got to her crate. (To reiterate - she peed and pooped as soon as we got to the potty area; waited an hour; went back in, peed in her crate.)
BKaymuttleycrew; Actually, no, fur loss is common with even one urine scald, and it's not a lot of fur, either, though any amount of fur loss is worrisome. Though this has been happening for a little while. And I've been meaning to ask about this "conditioned" business - I never liked lettuce. Whenever I would get a burger somewhere there was always lettuce on it, and after a while I was just kind of used to it so I don't care about it anymore. But if you gave me the choice between a salad or a hamburger, I'm picking the hamburger every single time. Why would my puppy choose to pee on one corner of her barren plastic-bottom crate and then lie in the literal puddle of urine instead of the carpet outside the crate, or just a dry part of the crate? Especially if that puddle is away from her usual sleeping corner? That's not being "conditioned" in my opinion. She used to drag soiled pee pads on her bed, so I can understand peeing on the bed then (it smells like the proper place to go), maybe even laying in it once it was dry or something, but why the crate? Especially when I removed the liner to avoid this exact problem? Is she marking it or something? That's a bit young and the wrong gender, right? She doesn't go anywhere else in the house, not on blankets or cushions or carpet or anything. It's only where she sleeps. And (again) the most puzzling thing about all this (to me, at least) is the fact that she will urinate, then hold SOME of the urine just so she can sleep on it! I don't mean after half an hour, or after drinking something, or after playing, I mean within minutes of going back inside and letting her in the crate.
kdawnk; That's a very good idea, I think I'll do that right now! And if it's the actual feeling that she likes it might stop her from trying to do it in the first place!


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

Get a smaller crate. Take her out very often: sometimes you may need to take her out every 15 minutes. Your methods haven't been working & aren't working.


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

I wonder if she is laying in the pee in an attempt to cover it up and hide it from you.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

InkedMarie; Please try reading, thanks.
I already asked what size crate she should be put in relative to her size. I've also already said that no matter how often or how long I take her out, she will still urinate in her crate/bed before sleeping on it. My "methods" aren't the issue here because she does not poop in the house at all, and does not pee on anything other than her bed area. The issue is not trying to up the house-training, it's trying to fix this particular problem which can NOT be fixed by normal house-training. If it could, I would not be here.
gingerkid; I don't think so. She does look guilty once I find it, but she can't cover up the whole thing just by laying on it and I've seen her several times away from the puddles.

I suppose as an aside, I tried kdawnk's idea of moving the crate bottom under the wire, and it seems to have helped. She peed in the crate just once since I did this.


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## PatriciafromCO (Oct 7, 2012)

pee is warm, it may be comforting .. When my horse is having a tummy ache he has a habit of laying down in a pile of horse poop out in the pasture because it'w warm and soothing... It's something I pick up on instantly when I see it and go out to him to get him up and moving to relieve the tummy ache.. 

lots of good direction from others working towards a solution no need for me to muddy the water... just thought I would share my thoughts about laying in it...


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Captain_Russia said:


> InkedMarie; Please try reading, thanks.
> I already asked what size crate she should be put in relative to her size. I've also already said that no matter how often or how long I take her out, she will still urinate in her crate/bed before sleeping on it. My "methods" aren't the issue here because she does not poop in the house at all, and does not pee on anything other than her bed area. *The issue is not trying to up the house-training, it's trying to fix this particular problem which can NOT be fixed by normal house-training. If it could, I would not be here.*
> gingerkid; I don't think so. She does look guilty once I find it, but she can't cover up the whole thing just by laying on it and I've seen her several times away from the puddles.
> 
> I suppose as an aside, I tried kdawnk's idea of moving the crate bottom under the wire, and it seems to have helped. She peed in the crate just once since I did this.


How would you know? You have never tried "normal" house training.


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## cookieface (Jul 6, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> InkedMarie; Please try reading, thanks.
> I already asked what size crate she should be put in relative to her size. I've also already said that no matter how often or how long I take her out, she will still urinate in her crate/bed before sleeping on it. My "methods" aren't the issue here because she does not poop in the house at all, and does not pee on anything other than her bed area. *The issue is not trying to up the house-training, it's trying to fix this particular problem which can NOT be fixed by normal house-training. *If it could, I would not be here.
> gingerkid; I don't think so. She does look guilty once I find it, but she can't cover up the whole thing just by laying on it and I've seen her several times away from the puddles.
> 
> I suppose as an aside, I tried kdawnk's idea of moving the crate bottom under the wire, and it seems to have helped. She peed in the crate just once since I did this.


The only difference between your situation and normal house training is that your puppy has developed a habit of eliminating in her crate / on her bed, so the crate is not a useful tool for confining her. It's also not a super uncommon occurrence. The solution is to go back to basic house training using a different method of confinement when you can't supervise.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

PatriciafromCO; That's interesting, I'm beginning to think that may have been what was happening, because she stopped doing it once I moved the crate bottom.
Hiraeth; I have never tried normal house-training? How would YOU know that? Here's what I did, exactly, and you can tell me if that's not normal house-training:

She was already trained to use pads, so when I started house-training I would take her outside in between breaks on the pad. I increased the amount of potty breaks until I took her out every hour or so, then removed the pads completely. (She hadn't used the pad in over a day which was how I knew it was frequent enough.) I took her out every hour or so after that (unless I was asleep) until she started needing to go less, then I increased the time between breaks. If she had an accident I took her outside immediately, didn't punish her or anything; her accidents were where the pads used to be (all my fault, not taking her out on schedule usually), and of course after the pad-dragging incident she had a few accidents on her bed because it smelled like the place to go. After that started happening I moved some things around to block her from the area where the pads used to be, removed her bed, and got her a crate, which stopped all of her accidents except this new problem which started recently. When she went outside I praised her and gave her treats (I still praise her for it). I cut off water a few hours before bed, and of course her food is on a strict schedule, too. I take her out in the morning, after a lot of play, and right before bed, though she doesn't always have to go after play-time; she gets fed in the morning and the evening, so her potty breaks are usually right after eating. I trained her to use a potty command by telling her the command every time she would go, now she knows what the command means and will follow it if she has to go. I also take her out to the same place in the yard every time so she can smell it. So far, her ONLY house-training problems seem to have been from dragging a soiled pad to her bed or me missing a scheduled potty break. She doesn't go on anything else, and she didn't stray from the training after the accidents occurred, we picked up right where we left off after some cleaning, and she seems to know that they are "accidents" because she looked guilty if she had one.

cookieface; I'm not sure how much more clear I can make this. The method of confinement has had no effect on this behavior, she will do this whenever and where ever she wants to sleep. Carpet, plastic, crate, pen, bed, whatever! If she wants to sleep, she'll pee there first. That's why I came here, I searched for this issue but all I found was general crate-soiling (what most of you have been trying to help with but isn't exactly the situation) or incontinence problems.


I was just re-reading all of this, and I had an idea because of PatriciafromCO. I have a small heater that I don't use (it's for snake terrariums) and I was thinking of putting it under the plastic of the crate where she likes to sleep? If it's the warmth she likes it might stop her. It's pretty plausible, seeing as the crate (and my room) is in the basement so it's usually a bit cooler than the rest of the house. I'm going to try that and see if she likes it.


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

Hiraeth said:


> How would you know? You have never tried "normal" house training.


thank you!


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Captain_Russia said:


> She was already trained to use pads, so when I started house-training I would take her outside in between breaks on the pad. I increased the amount of potty breaks until I took her out every hour or so, then removed the pads completely. (She hadn't used the pad in over a day which was how I knew it was frequent enough.) I took her out every hour or so after that (unless I was asleep) until she started needing to go less, then I increased the time between breaks. If she had an accident I took her outside immediately, didn't punish her or anything; her accidents were where the pads used to be (all my fault, not taking her out on schedule usually), and of course after the pad-dragging incident she had a few accidents on her bed because it smelled like the place to go. After that started happening I moved some things around to block her from the area where the pads used to be, removed her bed, and got her a crate, which stopped all of her accidents except this new problem which started recently. When she went outside I praised her and gave her treats (I still praise her for it). I cut off water a few hours before bed, and of course her food is on a strict schedule, too. I take her out in the morning, after a lot of play, and right before bed, though she doesn't always have to go after play-time; she gets fed in the morning and the evening, so her potty breaks are usually right after eating. I trained her to use a potty command by telling her the command every time she would go, now she knows what the command means and will follow it if she has to go. I also take her out to the same place in the yard every time so she can smell it. So far, her ONLY house-training problems seem to have been from dragging a soiled pad to her bed or me missing a scheduled potty break. She doesn't go on anything else, and she didn't stray from the training after the accidents occurred, we picked up right where we left off after some cleaning, and she seems to know that they are "accidents" because she looked guilty if she had one.


You missed the parts where you were only taking her out twice a day and expecting her to be able to hold it for 15+ hours at a time.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Okay, I want to get this straight now. When that came up it was ridiculous but there were more important things to address than repeating myself over and over, but let me be clear now:

*I did not take her out only two times a day, nor did I expect her to hold it for 15+ hours at a time.*

That was something some one made up based off of assumptions of my schedule. There was ONE TIME where she was taken out only twice in one day - there was a family emergency going on and I wasn't able to take her out more. Most days she is taken out at LEAST three, usually more, and as previously stated she does not need to go very often, this has been confirmed by multiple veterinarians. I have NEVER had her wait 15+ hours to go, the most, and I mean MOST that she has had to hold it would be 8 or 9 hours, a full night. Never during the day, and never more than that at night. I am personally disgusted at the thought of making anything have to wait 15 or more hours between breaks, let alone a puppy, what the hell is wrong with some one like that? And how much sense does that make? If I forced a puppy to go twice a day and hold it for more than 15 hours my whole room would be covered in waste, yet she doesn't have consistant accidents so obviously this isn't the case, if I was the kind of person to do that I would a) not bother to come to this forum and b) complain about her constant accidents to every one.


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

Get your story straight.  From your previous thread:



Captain_Russia said:


> I'm at my wit's end with her. I take her outside to potty at least two (usually three) times a day





Captain_Russia said:


> My usual schedule of potty breaks for her is one in the morning, one a little after mid-day (after training and play time) and then again in the evening before I go to bed, *but sometimes I'm too busy to take her out in the evening and she has to hold it during the night*, which she appears to have no problems doing. That being said, if I think she's getting a UTI I ALWAYS leave one or two pee pads out for her so she doesn't have accidents. I would never keep an animal with a UTI from peeing as often as it had to.


Sure, you never said 15 hours, but I guarantee you any logical person will read that and think you only take her out just after lunch and then not again until the next morning. That is way longer than 12 hours.

You then proceeded to argue that you never said you were too busy to take her out... even though that is exactly what you had previously said.


Captain_Russia said:


> I never said I was too busy to take her out. I TAKE HER OUT SEVEAL TIMES A DAY.


And you then directly implied that you had, in fact, gone 15+ hours without taking her outside:


MysticRealm said:


> So you take her out Mid-day,let's say between 12-3pm, then sometimes you are 'too busy' to let her out in the evening and expect her to hold it till morning, let's say between 6-9am. So you are thinking that a 4 month old puppy should be able to hold it for 15-21 hours?





Captain_Russia said:


> It doesn't happen often, but yes, she's done that. The first time was a surprise, and I'd even left a pad out because I didn't want her to have an accident, but she held it until I took her out in the morning so I never bothered again. I've never had a dog, I just assumed that since she did it once it was something she could do and I shouldn't worry about it.


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## cookieface (Jul 6, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> I'm not sure how much more clear I can make this. The method of confinement has had no effect on this behavior, she will do this whenever and where ever she wants to sleep. Carpet, plastic, crate, pen, bed, whatever! If she wants to sleep, she'll pee there first. That's why I came here, I searched for this issue but all I found was general crate-soiling (what most of you have been trying to help with but isn't exactly the situation) or incontinence problems.


It's very likely that peeing where she sleeps has become a habit - just like with proper house training, peeing outside becomes a habit. It's up to you to break that habit and build a new one. If you think there is something else going on, your best option would be to make an appointment with a vet behaviorist for an evaluation.


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

What do you want from the people here?


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

gingerkid; I said that I take her out at least two times a day because that was the smallest amount of breaks that she's had, and I didn't want to leave that out - even if it only happened once, it happened. I can see how the second quote would be confused for the first, but what I was trying to explain was that sometimes I'm too busy immedtiately before I go to bed - if I thought this was going to happen, I took her out between her mid-day break and the evening, and it was usually a difference of two or so hours. The third quote was (I believe) a response to some one who thought I was too busy _all day_, and I was trying to say that no, I'm not busy all day, it's just some evenings. The last quote was, again, me just being tired of trying to correct things over and over. If I remember correctly I wasn't feeling very well and I was a bit short-tempered, I didn't really feel like doing a back-and-forth about everything so I let it go, because it was true in the aspect that it was the longest she'd ever held it, I think it was 12 hours? A lot, to be sure, and I didn't think she'd do it.

cookieface; I didn't even know that vet behaviorists were a thing. If the problem persists I'll try to find one, but it seems like the heater is working just fine. As an aside, even if it is a habit instead of something else, how would I go about breaking it? I can't stop her from peeing altogether, and I've been trying to stop her when I catch her doing it but it hasn't worked.

Crantastic; I wanted a conversation, which is exactly what I got and I'm thankful. I'm the kind of person who gets a lot from bouncing ideas around, but I don't know anyone close to me with a lot of knowledge on dogs or puppies, so I come here. It's very likely that any issue I have can be directly helped by one of you, or if it can't, the conversation will help me reach a solution or at least a work-around, like moving the crate bottom or using a heater. On top of that, since I'm new to dog ownership, there's a lot of things I can pick up through a forum like this, anything from helpful articles to just general knowledge like vet behaviorists being a thing. At the very least, it certainly can't hurt!


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Ok fine, even if you took the dog out 3 times instead of twice that was still FAR FAR FAR too few times at that age to go out to potty. There is no puppy that only has to go 3 times a day at the age you were doing that, no matter that you didn't notice the dog was pottying inside. So your dog is very used to going inside so does not understand that it shouldn't be and has gotten used to lying in it. As we ahve all said, you need to STRONGLY up your potty training to get this fixed.


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## Prozax (Aug 26, 2014)

My adult dog, that I recently adopted, will go out at least three times a day. If I'm at work with her she goes out about 5 times a day, just to make sure she doesn't potty in the office. If I get a bit relaxed, she will go potty inside. Like yesterday, when I didn't pay attention to the time and 7 hours after I took her out, she went on the carpet. I usually take her out every 5-6 hours, unless she is crated.

She is in potty training, just like your puppy. However, she is an adult, able to hold it much longer than your puppy. She can probably hold it for the 7 hours that I didn't take her out yesterday, but she chose to relief her on the carpet since going outside has not become the norm for her. She still believes it's fine to go inside if she really needs to go. The whole idea of potty training is to make it a habit of going outside and only outside. That's what you need to do, even though you don't want to hear that.

Also wanted to add that she was never allowed to go inside(unlike your puppy), even at her former owner. They had a yard and she went potty outside since puppy hood, because she was an outside dog and only allowed inside during the day for a couple of hours.


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## cookieface (Jul 6, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> I didn't even know that vet behaviorists were a thing. If the problem persists I'll try to find one, but it seems like the heater is working just fine. As an aside, even if it is a habit instead of something else, how would I go about breaking it? I can't stop her from peeing altogether, and I've been trying to stop her when I catch her doing it but it hasn't worked.


You need to _prevent_ her from eliminating in her sleeping area (or anywhere inside). How are you supervising her? What exact steps are you taking to prevent her from eliminating in her crate / on her bed? Tell us what you are doing in detail. 

vet behaviorists: http://www.dacvb.org/


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Captain_Russia said:


> gingerkid; I said that I take her out at least two times a day because that was the smallest amount of breaks that she's had, and I didn't want to leave that out - even if it only happened once, it happened. I can see how the second quote would be confused for the first, but what I was trying to explain was that sometimes I'm too busy immedtiately before I go to bed - if I thought this was going to happen, I took her out between her mid-day break and the evening, and it was usually a difference of two or so hours. The third quote was (I believe) a response to some one who thought I was too busy _all day_, and I was trying to say that no, I'm not busy all day, it's just some evenings. The last quote was, again, me just being tired of trying to correct things over and over. If I remember correctly I wasn't feeling very well and I was a bit short-tempered, I didn't really feel like doing a back-and-forth about everything so I let it go, because it was true in the aspect that it was the longest she'd ever held it, I think it was 12 hours? A lot, to be sure, and I didn't think she'd do it.
> 
> cookieface; I didn't even know that vet behaviorists were a thing. If the problem persists I'll try to find one, but it seems like the heater is working just fine. As an aside, even if it is a habit instead of something else, how would I go about breaking it? I can't stop her from peeing altogether, and I've been trying to stop her when I catch her doing it but it hasn't worked.
> 
> Crantastic; I wanted a conversation, which is exactly what I got and I'm thankful. I'm the kind of person who gets a lot from bouncing ideas around, but I don't know anyone close to me with a lot of knowledge on dogs or puppies, so I come here. It's very likely that any issue I have can be directly helped by one of you, or if it can't, the conversation will help me reach a solution or at least a work-around, like moving the crate bottom or using a heater. On top of that, since I'm new to dog ownership, there's a lot of things I can pick up through a forum like this, anything from helpful articles to just general knowledge like vet behaviorists being a thing. At the very least, it certainly can't hurt!


You say you're here to learn, but you are continuously resistant to the ideas presented to you.

Fact: You have trained your puppy to sleep in urine because of your inadequate potty training. Whether it was two times a day or six times a day, she still wasn't going outside enough. I do not joke with you, most of us take our puppies out twice an hour until they're past six months old. You weren't doing that. Your schedule was inadequate.

We have all told you how to fix this. Go back to potty training 101. Take her outside every 30 minutes. Praise her like crazy. Watch her like a hawk to make sure she doesn't go inside. Throw out her bed, which probably smells like urine, and buy a new one.

Every time we give you this advice, you push back at us about it and tell us your potty training was up to par. The evidence that your potty training wasn't up to par has been presented by you yourself. Puppies don't naturally WANT to sleep in urine. They are CONDITIONED to sleep in urine.

Instead of taking our advice, admitting you screwed up pretty big and starting over from scratch, you're sitting around telling a bunch of people who own potty trained puppies who don't want to sleep in urine that your methods are okay. You've gotten the same advice from about five different people and you seem completely resistant to taking it.

That is why, I think, Crantastic is asking you what you want from us. We have all spent SO much time trying to help you, and you seemingly keep hearing only what you want to hear.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

MysticRealm; Okay, for the last time, she was checked out by multiple vets and yes, she can hold it that long at 4 months. If I didn't take her out enough, please explain why I never found anything AND why my room didn't smell? If she went even once, even if I didn't see it, I would smell it. She understands very well that she shouldn't go inside, she is not "very used" to going inside, because on days where she goes out, yes, three times, and I have the time to be around her LITERALLY every second of that day, I never see her having an accident, ANYWHERE! Not on blankets or carpet or anything else. I've had this opportunity several times - I would think that if she really couldn't hold it she would have went on one of these occasions. I also took her to a friend's house for the evening, and even though she was in a new setting, she didn't have any accidents! I was happy about that, because I read that some dogs, even fully-trained ones, may still go in some one else's house because they don't see it as a den and don't know it's off limits. Plus it was a great experience for her, she's still little and that person has two HUGE dogs - a Saint Bernard and an Irish Wolfhound, she got along with them great and had a lot of fun!

Prozax; Each dog is different, so what's true for yours may not be true for mine. The rule of thumb I keep seeing is that your puppy can hold their bladder for one hour per month of life, generally - some things I read vary and also say that it increases, so a 4-month old can hold it five hours instead of four, etc. My puppy is about five months old, which according to the AVERAGE puppy, she can hold it for five or six hours, which means that her actual control is above average, but not absurdly so. I can't stress this enough, the multiple vets I consulted about this told me that it was unusual, but not unheard of, and certainly possible, and that her bladder is larger than normal, which is adding to the time she can wait (it also makes her more prone to UTIs, though she's only had two so far). Puppies can actually hold it longer than they usually do. That being said, I'm very happy that my puppy has been able to get the hang of potty-training so quickly despite being raised on pee pads, and it wasn't very long at all before I just ditched them because I wasn't worried about it. As far as I can tell her bed problem was because it smelled like the pads (which, again, she dragged to her bed and only after that did she have the problem). When I got rid of the soiled bed and gave her a different one the problem went away completely and she had no accidents! Then the sleeping in pee started several weeks after, and I'm almost certain it was some kind of comfort or that the pee was warm, because after using the heater she's had no incidents at all, I was even able to put the liner back in with no issues so she doesn't have to sleep on bare plastic anymore.

cookieface; Well for now the issue appears to be resolved by the heater, but I'll tell you what I was doing before. I want to be clear again, she only peed in her sleeping area, not anywhere else or at any other time than if she was going to sleep or nap. I was supervising her by just watching her, maybe flipping through a magazine or something while I was (usually not). When she started peeing in the crate I took the liner away so she was on the bare plastic for most of this (I didn't want her soiling it over and over and I thought that it reminded her of pee pads too much). I couldn't take any steps to prevent her from doing it - I would take her outside to go, and she would go. I would try waiting even longer, sometimes for an hour or more, but she would only pee once. When I took her back inside, if she wanted to take a nap or sleep, she would simply go to her crate and pee right there. No sniffing or circling, nothing. If I caught her in the act I would make a loud noise (usually something like "HEY!") to startle her and try to get her to stop (sometimes it didn't work, though). Then I would quickly grab her and head straight out the door to the potty area, no waiting to get the leash, nothing, just straight out the door and put her in the potty area. If she still had any left, she would finish, and I would praise her for doing it before coming back in and tethering her away from the crate before cleaning it and letting her back in it. If I found her already sleeping in it (if I went to eat and came back or something like that), I would just grab her and give her a bath before tethering her and cleaning the crate again. When I got her I had almost a full jug of enzyme cleaner, now it's all gone, that's how many times I had to clean up! I had to clean the bars of the crate and the blanket covering it with the stuff, too, because she would make a mess, and the carpet around the crate just to be safe, and I even soaked her collar in the stuff a few times because it stank!
Thank you for the link, however, in my state there are only two vets listed, one of which appears to be out of business and the other is $300 per session, so, yikes! For something like this I really hope that heater keeps working because that's a big bite out of my budget there, but I'll do it if I have to.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

That hour per month rule of thumb is intended to be used as an absolute max amount of time to be applied to when the puppy is crated and inactive (when you are gone or overnight)

That rule does not apply to when the puppy is active during the day. The same as how we as humans need to go more frequently when we are up and active and eating/drinking, and less at night when we are sleeping and our bodily functions slow down. Puppies also need to go more frequently when they are up and about compared to when they are sleeping.


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## Prozax (Aug 26, 2014)

So you put in a heater yesterday and she has not had any accidents since then, so the problem is solved? Also, your puppy *ISN'T* holding it in longer. She is having accidents in her bed. Isn't that your initial problem? I really can't follow your logic.


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Look, the fact of the matter is, the puppy IS going inside, a lot, otherwise she wouldn't be lying in her own urine enough to have urine burns. Urine burns don't happen overnight. That takes time.

Therefore, you have not adequately trained or cared for your puppy. Full stop, no excuses, no argument, you have not.

The real question is, do you actually want to fix this? Because your puppy is suffering in ways no dog should have to and only you can fix that. You can fix that by stepping up to the plate and actually putting in the work to train her, or by rehoming her to someone who will. Those are your choices.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Okay, Hiraeth, I've tried explaining this to you and others multiple times.

1. My schedule was, and is, fine. I have talked to vets, I have tried taking her out more, - SHE DOES NOT GO ANY MORE OFTEN. If you can tell me how I can FORCE HER to pee when she does not need to, just to adhere to your "fact", I'd love to hear it.
2. She has moved past the stage of potty training 101. I even went back to it because everyone said to do it, NOTHING CHANGED. I DO praise her like crazy, I've even stated that I do everything short of CARTWHEELS when she goes. I do watch her like a hawk, though I don't even need to at this point since she HASN'T HAD AN ACCIDENT ANYWHERE ELSE SINCE THE PADS WERE TAKEN AWAY. And I already said several times that I REMOVED HER BED a while ago.
3. Most puppies, no, they don't. And if you think this is conditioning, please tell me why some one who is conditioned to, say, eat worms, would rather eat worms than a chocolate bar when given the chance? Your logic is flawed there. She is given the opportunity to pee, and TAKES IT, outside, then keeps some it before peeing WHERE she sleeps and not ANYWHERE else. That is not conditioning, that is her doing something because she wants to do it.
4. I am not resistant to taking advice, I am trying to tell you over and over - I ALREADY FOLLOWED ALL OF THE ADVICE. All of it, I potty-trained her correctly (or at least no one told me that the methods were incorrect when I posted them), yet she still sleeps on urine. I am not resistant to taking advice, nor am I resistant to admitting when I've done something wrong, I am simply resistant to being repeatedly told something when it DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO with the situation.
5. You've spent so much time repeating what I already know, and what I've already been doing. I'm sorry to anyone who hates caps, I feel like some of you just can't bother to read and it's the only way to get through to you.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

Let me tell you this.

The shelter I volunteer at has seized dogs who were from a puppymill and kept in tiny kennels all their lives. Those dogs don't think twice about having pee or poop or both totally covering their kennels at the shelter, because they don't know any differently. 

This is what people are trying to tell you. Your dog is okay sleeping on urine because it has become used to it, as those dogs became used to it. That could only have happened if it was allowed to pee on the bed, meaning it wasn't taken out before it needed to pee, meaning it wasn't taken out frequently enough.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

Personally, I do not care how frequently you are taking the puppy out. If the puppy is peeing inside, you aren't taking it out often enough, that's the end of the story.

You must prevent accidents by pre-empting them by taking the puppy out as often as it needs, and supervising 100% of the time to interrupt accidents inside. 

Follow these two things, and it will not be physically possible for the puppy to sleep in pee because you will have either A) prevented the pee by taking the puppy out before the accident happened or B) interrupted the puppy peeing on the bed, thus there is no or minimal pee on the bed to be slept in.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

So let me get this straight.

You've taken her outside every 30 minutes, including right before she goes to bed for several weeks straight? You've thrown her bed away and gotten a new one? You watch her like a hawk and yet she has a chance to pee on her bed and then sleep in it (frequently enough that she has urine scald)? 

There is apparently no way to get through to you. You are completely incapable of listening to advice from people who have potty trained puppies. You have started thread after potty training thread about how things are going wrong, and yet, when confronted with how to make it right, you claim that you're doing everything right. You have a puppy who is suffering from urine scald (which is a chemical burn and is horrendously painful) because she's being kept in disgusting conditions and you are completely OBLIVIOUS to the fact that YOU have caused this to happen. Not only that, but you seem either willfully ignorant or simply incapable of comprehending what needs to happen for your puppy to be healthy.

You should have stuck to cats. Dogs are clearly not for you.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

ireth0; I was trying to use it as an example for some perspective, not ironclad, necessarily. I figured most of you would know that.

Prozax; The problem isn't really accidents, per se, but more purposeful peeing right before bed. She can and does hold it longer all the time, it's only her bed-time when she does it, if it was a problem actually holding it she would do it when she was outside of her crate as well. And obviously her problem isn't *FIXED* right now, not until she doesn't do it for a while, but it's a definitite improvement and because of the frequency before it really looks promising.

Amaryllis; Her fur and skin is really delicate, and a mix between the frequent urine soaks and the constant washing was really giving her issues. The actual scalds were from when the liner was still in and she layed on it for a while, since removing it she stopped getting the scalds and it was mostly just patchy fur problems. Again, she's adequately TRAINED, this was a behaviour issue which seems to being going away. I did the best I could to care for her - cleaning her up and keeping her out of the crate as much as I could because I knew what she would do as soon as she tried to sleep. When kdawnk suggested moving the crate bottom, I did it immediately to help her. What else could I possibly have done?

ireth0; Okay, again, I can't do that any more than I already am. I interrupt her when she does it. I take her out before crating, and even WHEN SHE DOES PEE OUTSIDE, SHE WILL STILL PEE INSIDE. She will refuse to fully empty her bladder outside, just to do it in the crate because she likes sleeping on it. This is not conditioning, this not house-training, this is a behavioural need to sleep on her urine for whatever reason.

Hiraeth; I took her out every half hour for three or four days because she did not go more often. I didn't throw her bed away and get a new one, I washed the bed and stored it so she can have it back later when she's bigger, she sleeps on the crate liner. I watch her like a hawk when she's outside the crate so she doesn't have any accidents, the purpose of a crate is to be able to leave them in it to do something else.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

You could have taken her outside again and repeat until she went. Yep, it sucks.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

*NONE OF YOU ARE LISTENING TO ME*
I'm getting seriously worked up about this. I get constantly railed for things I'm not doing, have never done, and would never do. I get the same advice over and over, and when I try to explain that I've already followed it, I just get it AGAIN. She has no other issues at all - she is perfectly happy, she is well-trained in everything from obediance to house-training to general behaviour and tricks, only at five months! My potty threads have been about two things - DRAGGING PADS AROUND and THIS! NOTHING ELSE!!! Dragging around pads is not a house-training issue, it's a playful puppy. Peeing on her bed? It SMELLED LIKE THE PADS, and when I figured that out the bed was taken away.
*SHE HAS HAD NO OTHER PROBLEMS, AT ALL*
Not biting, or chewing, or barking, or accidents, or ANYTHING! The only thing remotely close was showing the beginnings of a car chaser, but as soon I saw her interest in cars I started bringing treats with us on walks and every time a car goes by I would distract her and now she doesn't care about cars!
If I'm so terrible, and I can't take care of a dog, TELL ME WHAT I AM DOING WRONG!!

YES, she was lying on a bed that she peed on to the point of urine scald. As SOON AS I FOUND THIS OUT I removed it and have been washing her so she doesn't get another one. I TOOK HER TO THE VET and asked what to do, that's exactly what they said! I tried every little thing that was suggested, from feeding in the crate, to moving the crate bottom, and now the heater seems to have fixed it. WHAT ELSE DO YOU EXPECT SOME ONE TO DO?! It's a BEHAVIOUR PROBLEM, not a TRAINING ONE! If I was such a terrible trainer, how is she so well-behaved? If she's in such horrible conditions why does she always look so happy and excited? I love her to death, and you all seem to think that I'm some inconsiderate jerk! I take naps on the floor with her all the time, I take her out and play all day, I changed my whole life around her to suit her needs, and you all think I don't care? I'm done. None of you can read, or if you can, you're so stuck up with yourselves that you can't even bother to pay attention when some one tries to ask you for help. You're so focused on what you THINK some one said that you can't even read what they ACTUALLY said.


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## Canyx (Jul 1, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> Again, she's adequately TRAINED, this was a behaviour issue which seems to being going away. I did the best I could to care for her - cleaning her up and keeping her out of the crate as much as I could because I knew what she would do as soon as she tried to sleep.


If you are still having this issue, she is either not adequately trained, not adequately managed, or likely both. 
Maybe she peed in the crate once and then it became a habit. Most owners shrug off one time incidences thinking 'my dog has NEVER done that! it was probably just an accident.' Unfortunately, not addressing it the first time can create a habit the second time, especially for puppies. Either way, you are continuously putting her back in the crate which means you are continuously setting her up for failure, enough that she got urine burns. Here are some things you can try:
-Go back to housetraining 101
-Try a new crate
-Try an ex-pen
-Throw out whatever she peed on and thoroughly clean everything with an enzymatic cleaner
-Break up her bed time routine and take her out EVEN MORE before and during bed time. Right now she has developed a habit of going around bedtime, it sounds like. 

Sassafrass is better suited to tell her own story. But I remember a post she made a while back about her malinois, Toast. He was doing wonderfully with housetraining but pooped under a table just once as a puppy. For a little while after, Toast was housetrained in every way but continued to try to use the area under that specific table and Sass had to work a little while longer to break that habit. Sassafrass can correct me if I am misrepresenting her experience. And Sass is a person I would trust to housetrain MY dog. But the point is again, habits form very quickly for puppies. 

The difference here is, you are insisting that somehow your puppy is adequately housetrained yet complaining of all these problems. Okay, so your puppy pees around bedtime and sleeps in her urine. Break it down into further variables: when she pees in her crate it is 10pm, she is on THIS blanket, she is in THIS crate, I am in my bedroom. What if you changed her bedtime. What if you changed her potty routine before and during her bedtime. What if she is anxious about being left in the crate and messes in it. What if you replace the blanket and crate. What if the crate was right next to your bed. What if you slept right next to the crate. What if you taught her to tell you when she needs to potty. What if trained her to sleep on a bed outside of the crate and let her out more frequently during the night.... 
Your posts are all "I followed your advice! I DID this! What more could I have possibly done!" Focus instead on the present and all the things you have yet to try to solve this problem.


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## ireth0 (Feb 11, 2013)

Captain_Russia said:


> ireth0; Okay, again, I can't do that any more than I already am. I interrupt her when she does it. I take her out before crating, and even WHEN SHE DOES PEE OUTSIDE, SHE WILL STILL PEE INSIDE. She will refuse to fully empty her bladder outside, just to do it in the crate because she likes sleeping on it. This is not conditioning, this not house-training, this is a behavioural need to sleep on her urine for whatever reason.


Then you take her out again after bringing her in from peeing. You cannot allow the opportunity for this to happen. Period. You need to take her out as often and for as long as it takes. Welcome to having a puppy, there's a reason many people choose adults instead.


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## Canyx (Jul 1, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> It's a BEHAVIOUR PROBLEM, not a TRAINING ONE!


Behavior problems come from lack of training or management. And very rarely they are severe enough to become medical issues too. So which one do you want to fess up to?


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

ireth0 said:


> Personally, I do not care how frequently you are taking the puppy out. If the puppy is peeing inside, you aren't taking it out often enough, that's the end of the story.


THIS exactly but it will fall on deaf ears. This kid is one of those who think they know it all. Why she chooses to post on a forum of "dog people" boggles my mind.


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Captain_Russia said:


> MysticRealm; Okay, for the last time, she was checked out by multiple vets and yes, she can hold it that long at 4 months. If I didn't take her out enough, please explain why I never found anything AND why my room didn't smell? If she went even once, even if I didn't see it, I would smell it. She understands very well that she shouldn't go inside, she is not "very used" to going inside, because on days where she goes out, yes, three times, and I have the time to be around her LITERALLY every second of that day, I never see her having an accident, ANYWHERE! Not on blankets or carpet or anything else. I've had this opportunity several times - I would think that if she really couldn't hold it she would have went on one of these occasions. I also took her to a friend's house for the evening, and even though she was in a new setting, she didn't have any accidents! I was happy about that, because I read that some dogs, even fully-trained ones, may still go in some one else's house because they don't see it as a den and don't know it's off limits. Plus it was a great experience for her, she's still little and that person has two HUGE dogs - a Saint Bernard and an Irish Wolfhound, she got along with them great and had a lot of fun!


Just because you told the vet that she's not going that often does not mean it's true. Just because you aren't watching her closely enough to see her go doesn't mean she isn't going. She's a small dog so pees will be small and less noticeable, even more unnoticeable if she's lying in them. My puppy can pee while I am sitting on the ground with him and I sometimes won't see him doing it if I'm glancing at the TV, and I'm keeping a much closer eye on him than you obviously are of your puppy.


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> I have no idea what's going on. I've made several posts here about similar issues, but I thought they were all fixed after some thorough bed-cleaning and item arrangement. But now she refuses to sleep anywhere except her own urine! This has been happening for several days,* she has multiple urine scalds a*nd in places her skin is so damaged that the fur is patchy and falling out. The vet found nothing mechanically wrong with her and has no idea why she would do this. Here are just two examples of her doing this:
> A few days ago my sister (who's had dogs, and specifically pitbulls before) was puppy-sitting for me while my father and I went to the coast for a few hours (he thought the trip was too long and didn't want her making a mess in the car). She took my puppy out to go, then went back in to play. After the play-time, she took the puppy back out for another potty break, but she didn't go. So after five or so minutes of waiting, the puppy was taken back in and put in her crate to wait until she had to go again. Except after a few minutes, she peed in the crate and then slept directly on the puddle after walking in a circle around the crate! To be clear, her crate is the largest I could find and can easily fit her in it six or seven times over, yet of all the places which were completely free of urine she layed down in the puddle itself.
> Less than an hour ago, I found her having peed on her crate liner again. I took it out to wash it, and after putting it in a soak I came back to clean the bottom of the crate (I didn't see any urine, but I wanted to be sure). Except by the time I got back, she had peed in a corner of the crate and was laying down in the middle of it. It wasn't even her usual sleeping corner - it was a different corner completely! I washed her in the sink (the bed was soaking in the bathtub) and took her back to the crate area. I didn't clean the crate yet, I brought out her other bed (the nice one, not a crate liner) and put it next to the crate door, then let her off the leash. She sniffed her bed, then went directly into her crate and layed down in the puddle again!
> What is going on? *I've personally seen her pee outside before letting her back in just to see her pee on her sleeping area after a minute or two. *I've tried changing beds, taking beds away completely, moving the crate, using Nature's Miracle to attract her outside, doing everything short of cartwheels when she goes outside, nothing works! As far as I can tell she actually likes to sleep on her own pee, and it doesn't even matter how often I take her out, she'll just hold some of it until she comes back in. What am I supposed to do? I don't want to keep her outside, but if my father knew this was such a problem he'd chain her outside himself. Please help!


So, does she have scalds or not? Your story, it changes.

Secondly, if she's peeing outside, then peeing inside, you need to keep her outside longer until she pees again. You also need to watch her like a hawk so you can interrupt her if she tries to pee inside. She has been effectively trained to pee in her crate and then sleep in it. Dogs are like that, you allow them to do X, you are training them to do X. You now need to train her to do Y. That takes time and effort.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

*I'm seriously sick of repeating myself. If I ignore you from now on, it's because you said something that has already been addressed and doesn't work. Please try reading, I know it's hard.*

Cranyx; I've never shrugged off those kinds of things as just one-offs, I take it all seriously. And it's not just bed-time (like when I go to bed) it's any time when she's getting ready to lay down for a nap or sleep. I've already tried anything I could think of, including changing the blanket and moving the crate. She doesn't seem to mind me leaving her alone, and her crate/bed has always been next to my bed. The issue seems to be resolved, but in any case I tried a lot of different things and only two seemed to help.
I also don't see how all behaviour problems come from either training or management, that seems like an extreme over-simplification. As for "fessing up", since the heater appeared to work, it may have been that I kept her in an area that was just a little too cold for her liking, so, management, I guess? She seemed fine the entire time until I got the new crate, so it might have been that and the cold, I don't know. I like colder temperatures than most people seem to, so I guess I never really thought about what kind of temperature my dog would like the house to be, I just thought her fur and a fluffy place to sleep would be plenty.

ireth0; I'm only addressing you again because you seem to misunderstand - I did try taking her in and out over and over, several times in a row, in addition to everything else.

InkedMarie; I've noticed that you have a tendency of ignoring what I have to say before swooping in and belittling me without actually trying to help or add to the conversation. I will repeat this one last time now that I _think_ I might have your attention: it does not matter how often I take her out, I've tried taking her out every *30 minutes* for *several days* once this started and there was no change in her behaviour, all she did was walk around the potty area seeming confused because she didn't actually have to go.

MysticRealm; I did not tell the vet "she won't go" I asked the vet if they could find anything wrong with her. When they came back saying that her bladder was larger than normal, I told them about her habits, and they confirmed what I had been thinking. She's not small, either (small compared to a Saint Bernard and Irish Wolfhound, yes, but not actually small as far as dog breeds go). When she pees, there is a lot of it, it's very noticable, even when she's laying in it you can clearly see it.
Oh? What's that? Your puppy can go while you're right there? Obviously you need to go back to potty-training 101, you're not taking him out enough! You really ought to give him to some one who can _really_ take care of his needs, it seems like you're not ready for a dog, because clearly you can't even keep an eye on him! Poor thing, he must be so unhappy living with you in such horrible conditions! There's something wrong with the way you're training him.

(On a side note, I find it hilarious that in the same exact quote you used to try and tell me that I don't watch her enough, I specifically say that there are days when she doesn't ever leave my sight. And unlike you, I don't let myself get distracted by TV or anything else when I'm spending time with her, that time is strictly for her and I come second to that.)

Amaryllis; My story never changed about the scalds, I honestly don't know where you got that idea from.


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Captain_Russia said:


> MysticRealm; I did not tell the vet "she won't go" I asked the vet if they could find anything wrong with her. When they came back saying that her bladder was larger than normal, I told them about her habits, and they confirmed what I had been thinking. She's not small, either (small compared to a Saint Bernard and Irish Wolfhound, yes, but not actually small as far as dog breeds go). When she pees, there is a lot of it, it's very noticable, even when she's laying in it you can clearly see it.
> Oh? What's that? Your puppy can go while you're right there? Obviously you need to go back to potty-training 101, you're not taking him out enough! You really ought to give him to some one who can _really_ take care of his needs, it seems like you're not ready for a dog, because clearly you can't even keep an eye on him! Poor thing, he must be so unhappy living with you in such horrible conditions! There's something wrong with the way you're training him.
> .


I never said you told the vet 'she won't go' I said just because you told the vet she's not going doesn't mean she isn't.
Yes, obviously I was not watching my puppy enough. Mistakes happen, but my guy is continuously learning more and more to go outside, and has never slept in pee and has only ever been forced to go in his kennel once and that was because I was driving and there was no place to pull over and let him out. He has no scalds from laying in his own pee because he never has laid in it. I also blame myself when he he pee's inside, I don't blame it on my dog having a behavioral issue.
No one I have seen has ever said that you needed to give your dog up, we have just all told you that all the problems that YOU are coming onto HERE and posting YOURSELF 'wanting help' are simply due to you not potty training correctly. If I came on here and asked for peeing in the house advice then I would listen to people telling me I'm clearly not potty training correctly.


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

The dog is sleeping in pee because it has gotten used to sleeping in pee. How did that happen?


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## TSTrainer (Aug 6, 2015)

Lol my eyes never leave my puppy when she's loose and she still has accidents sometimes, and its a great reminder that I should have taken her out sooner. And she's a big pup, not a tiny Pomeranian, so it's clearly noticable. And yet I don't chalk it up to a behavior problem I chalk it up to be setting my dog up to fail.

What is with all these posters coming for advice and then refusing to listen to advice or insisting there has to be something else at play. Take your dog out more often. Clean the area thoroughly with an enzyme cleaner. I don't mean spray and wipe instantly. Wipe the mess, spray the cleaner, let sit for five minutes, and then wipe up and let dry. I highly doubt it's a temperature issue, your dog is literally just used to sleeping where she pees. It happens a lot in puppy mill dogs and shelter dogs when they don't get to relieve themselves anywhere else but in their enclosure. 

By the way, projecting the idea that mysticrealm should give up her puppy because he has accidents doesnt help YOU in your situation. I wonder where you got that from since nobody said that to you at all.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Captain_Russia said:


> *I'm seriously sick of repeating myself. If I ignore you from now on, it's because you said something that has already been addressed and doesn't work. Please try reading, I know it's hard.*


How dare you? This is a forum full of people who have combined about ten thousand times the dog experience that you have. By some miracle or another, our dogs don't sleep in urine, don't have urine scald and don't have frequent UTIs. Yours does, you've started more potty training threads asking for help on this forum than anyone else I have ever seen in a two month period of time, and yet you're still resistant to basic advice and knowledge from people who are trying to help. 

We're sick of you repeating yourself, too. Especially because every time you "repeat" yourself, the details of your story change. We have all tried repeatedly to help you, taken time out of our days to read your constantly altering story and to type responses, and this is how you reply? 

Grow up. You're earning yourself nothing but a reputation for ignorance, rudeness and immaturity.


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## TheDarkestMinds (Feb 28, 2015)

If you were to go to any other dog forum or group on Facebook. You will get the exact same responses that you have gotten here.

If you know your puppy pees in the crate before bed. Try this genious manuver. Put her in the crate for a minute before she gets a chance to squat. Take her outside and wait for her to pee. Take her to the spots she pees during the day. That way the scent will trigger her. Sit there as long as it takes.

Even if you have to bring her back in and act like she is going to bed, and then take hER back out as soon as she shows signs of peeing.

If she was my puppy and I knew my puppy peed in her crate at bed time. I would never walk away from that crate until she successfully pees outside before bed. Sit at the crate and watch her. It's really not as difficult as you are making it out to be.

If she pees at other times through out the night in her crate. Guess what? You need to start setting an alarm for every 2-3 hours so that you can wake up and take her out to pee.

I was getting up every 2-3 hours every night for a month. To PROPERLY potty train him. I still set at least one alarm at night for me to wake up and give him a potty break at 15 weeks old.

Don't like it? Sounds like too much work? Rehome your poor puppy.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

MysticRealm; People were telling me to take her to a shelter on my thread about dragging pee pads around, not this one.

TSTrainer; That is how I cleaned up the messes.

Hiraeth; She does not have frequent UTIs, she's had two. Are there two Captain Russias? I've only started two threads that related to house-training in any way (the first wasn't because of my faulty training, it was because she dragged a soiled pad to her bed and made it smell like the potty place, the second is this thread). And I'm not changing my story! I don't believe I've ever done that. If I have it was probably because I just didn't articulate something correctly, I have a hard time explaining things a lot.

TheDarkestMinds; Would I get the same responses? Or would people actually read what I had to say? I've already tried that little "maneuver" and it didn't work. She also does not pee DURING the night, it is when she gets ready to sleep.


Seriously, though, out of the 52 replies to this thread, 4 have of them have been about something other than potty-training, and SURPRISE, they were the only suggestions that had any impact on her behaviour. Yes, I DID go back to "potty-training 101" when every one talked about it, even though I had already tried it before coming here.


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## WonderBreadDots (Jun 26, 2012)

Here's a screen shot of threads you started...in case you need a reminder. Looks like you started 3 threads about house training troubles. I don't know why you are so reluctant to take the good advice you have been given.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Ummm... yeah... two threads about house-training there.


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## TheDarkestMinds (Feb 28, 2015)

Captain_Russia said:


> TheDarkestMinds; Would I get the same responses? Or would people actually read what I had to say? I've already tried that little "maneuver" and it didn't work. She also does not pee DURING the night, it is when she gets ready to sleep.
> re.


No need to get snippy dear. My reading and comprehensive are great. I have read every post and topic on this issue. 

You have clearly not stuck to the method of taking her out like I suggested very long. What did you give it? A few days? A week? Cause it could take even longer. Because at this point she is not a normal puppy. She is in fact.conditioned to sleep in pee. And that is going to make her even harder to properly potty train.

And yes I stick to my statement about other forums and Facebook. Go ahead and give it a try. I can promise you will get the exact same responses you have gotten here.

Everyone has been more than helpful on this forum. You just don't want to hear it. Mutiple people have given you mutiple solutions. And each and everyone you have shot down. I don't understand why you keep asking.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

I gave the method several days and it didn't work. At this point she stopped after I put in the heater, so it doesn't really matter, anyway. And I actually started another post on a different dog forum to see what happens before you posted, so we'll see. The people here have tried to be helpful, I know, and I'm not saying otherwise, it's just that the advice is constantly repeated and I've tried again and again to say it doesn't work or that I already did it. I haven't kept asking, I've just been trying to reply to everyone instead of just going dark - the issue seems to be resolved.


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

"Several days" is nothing when it comes to potty training. _Nothing_. Training a dog is about repetition. Potty training to the point where a dog is 100% reliable can take weeks or even months. 

If you want this dog to stop peeing inside, *you have to remove any opportunity she has to pee inside until she knows 100% that pee only happens outside*. It's not magic. That's all there is to it. How you choose to prevent her from peeing inside is up to you.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Oh my god, seriously? SHE'S STOPPED.


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

Captain_Russia said:


> Oh my god, seriously? SHE'S STOPPED.


Then what on earth is this thread about?


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

Awesome. We can all go home, then.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

I was replying to everyone because I didn't want to just leave you all in the dark. I already said earlier in this thread that she'd seemed to stop.


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## Canyx (Jul 1, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> I also don't see how all behaviour problems come from either training or management, that seems like an extreme over-simplification.


You're right. There can be medical or genetic factors in play as well. But working with the dog in front of you... If genetics and health are against you then it is up to you to manage. If your dog is otherwise healthy, then yeah it's a training thing.
But your specific issue, assuming your pup is healthy (which you've said she is), is a training thing. But you've said she stopped so.... congrats? Either way, I would keep an eye on her for a while because one instance is not enough to prove a pattern. Good luck.


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

Glad she stopped. When she starts back up, don't bother posting again; just re-read the advice youve been given.


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

Captain_Russia said:


> I will repeat this one last time now that I _think_ I might have your attention: it does not matter how often I take her out, I've tried taking her out every *30 minutes* for *several days* once this started and there was no change in her behaviour, all she did was walk around the potty area seeming confused because she didn't actually have to go..


Oh. You did it for several days? Okay then. It is obviously something wrong with the dog then and not because you don't seem to realize that it takes more than "several days" for a puppy to become fully housebroken. More like "several months". But what do we know, our puppies didn't grow up to pee on their beds and lay in it.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

InkedMarie said:


> Glad she stopped. When she starts back up, don't bother posting again; just re-read the advice youve been given.


:clap2::clap2::clap2:


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## cookieface (Jul 6, 2011)

Captain_Russia said:


> I was replying to everyone because I didn't want to just leave you all in the dark. I already said earlier in this thread that she'd seemed to stop.


Hasn't it only been a day? As several others have said, it will take weeks - in your case months, perhaps - for her to be reliably house trained. This isn't something that happens overnight. 

My puppy had 3 accidents in the house when he was quite young, but I didn't consider him house trained until he was nearly a year old. It sounds as though your puppy has had the opportunity to develop a habit of eliminating in her crate; it will take at least twice as long to modify that habit.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Canyx; she stopped for a while, of course I'm to keep an eye on her though.

InkedMarie/Hiraeth; Why thank you. And after all this WONDERFUL advice I've been given that I ALREADY TRIED, I will be sure to turn into the definition of insanity and try to follow it FOR A THIRD TIME if she does it again.

cookieface; Yes, it's been a little over a day, but from what I've seen she doesn't have the desire to go in her crate anymore.

gingerkid, there's a wonderful thing called reading, I know it hurts and it's really hard, but it's a good thing to learn. Here, I'll just quote myself for you:



> I've had her for a full week, and already she knows the commands "Sit", "Stay", and "Come", as well as the word "No" and where she's allowed to relieve herself and what she shouldn't be chewing on.





> she knows to go outside, her pads are only for when she has a UTI.





> ... but while she's having a UTI (like now) she needs to go every half hour or less, tiny bits at a time, ... in fact I've even seen her hold it all night (with a pad supplied) just to go outside in the morning.





> I haven't found any accidents and on her current schedule of potty breaks she won't go any more often than that, even if I take her out and give her the command to do so. ... And while not finding accidents doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't have them, she noticably pees more in the morning after (presumably) holding it all night.





> But she honestly doesn't seem to need to go. She was used to going on pads when I got her, so I left them out all the time while I was trying to train her off them by taking her outside. I got her on a schedule with that and she stopped going inside the house at all (outside of infections)





> As far as housetraining goes, I'm honestly not worried. She picks things up in an instant - in just a day or so I was able to teach her "stay" and get her to follow the command even when I was filling up her food bowl or dishing out a treat. I'm not worried about the housetraining at all, especially since she appears to like going outside much better and will only go on pads inside (which we only give her when she has a UTI).





> And I don't get this "in a corner somewhere" business - there are no corners she can sneak into! Nothing to hide behind or under - there's her bed, the "crate" and floor. ... She chooses to hold it, I don't make her do it. She can use her pad any time now because of her UTI, but she usually waits for me to take her out.





> I started a log after my post on this and WITH a UTI she's peeing every hour and a half or so. Pretty much everyone is trying to tell me that she should be peeing about that often NORMALLY and she does NOT.





> Training her to go outside was really easy, I just took her outside and gave her the command, she followed it every time and I praised her a lot.





> When I take her out to go I give her the command, she goes. ... I'm not giving her five minutes and saying "Whelp, she didn't go so she doesn't have to go". When I take her out I always wait until she goes before I bring her back in unless it's between the usual times, and again we're out there running about for half an hour. The carpet in my room is a light blue one (I didn't pick it) so it's very easy to see wet spots on it. Not to mention that my room doesn't smell like dog pee, which it should if she's been peeing on the carpet all this time. I also tend to walk barefoot inside and I've never stepped on a wet spot before, so as far to my knowledge she hasn't had a pee accident in there since she was 7 weeks or so old; even then, it was because she didn't make it to the pad in time usually. I remember when she was not even a month old, we took her to the vet where she was diagnosed with one of the worst UTIs the vet had ever seen (she had it before we got her, she just didn't show symptoms until a while later). All the way to the vet's office, in the waiting area, in the vet's office during the exam, and on the car ride back - no accidents.





> I got her a used crate (very large, a $150 crate for $35) which had a fluffy little white pad. ... but I left it in because it would be easy to wash and most of the towels I have would not be big enough to cover the whole crate. She's had no accidents in it all, even though I missed one of her potty times





> She is properly pad-trained anyway - if there's a pad down she has no accidents. ... Thank you for the source, it was interesting to read and some of the info was new, though most of the actual training was exactly what I've been doing.





> I've never had an issue with her pottying outside, she always goes straight to the potty area and does her business with no waiting at all. Usually if she waits it just means she doesn't have to go. Even if she does wait, for whatever reason, she resonds well to the potty command so I never have to stand for any long length of time.
> As for the other advice, we're already following "training 101". I don't let her drink before bed and I always take her out before crating.





> She doesn't go anywhere else in the house, not on blankets or cushions or carpet or anything. It's only where she sleeps.





> I've also already said that no matter how often or how long I take her out, she will still urinate in her crate/bed before sleeping on it. My "methods" aren't the issue here because she does not poop in the house at all, and does not pee on anything other than her bed area. The issue is not trying to up the house-training, it's trying to fix this particular problem which can NOT be fixed by normal house-training. If it could, I would not be here.





> Here's what I did, exactly, and you can tell me if that's not normal house-training:
> 
> She was already trained to use pads, so when I started house-training I would take her outside in between breaks on the pad. I increased the amount of potty breaks until I took her out every hour or so, then removed the pads completely. (She hadn't used the pad in over a day which was how I knew it was frequent enough.) I took her out every hour or so after that (unless I was asleep) until she started needing to go less, then I increased the time between breaks. If she had an accident I took her outside immediately, didn't punish her or anything; her accidents were where the pads used to be (all my fault, not taking her out on schedule usually), and of course after the pad-dragging incident she had a few accidents on her bed because it smelled like the place to go. After that started happening I moved some things around to block her from the area where the pads used to be, removed her bed, and got her a crate, which stopped all of her accidents except this new problem which started recently. When she went outside I praised her and gave her treats (I still praise her for it). I cut off water a few hours before bed, and of course her food is on a strict schedule, too. I take her out in the morning, after a lot of play, and right before bed, though she doesn't always have to go after play-time; she gets fed in the morning and the evening, so her potty breaks are usually right after eating. I trained her to use a potty command by telling her the command every time she would go, now she knows what the command means and will follow it if she has to go. I also take her out to the same place in the yard every time so she can smell it. So far, her ONLY house-training problems seem to have been from dragging a soiled pad to her bed or me missing a scheduled potty break. She doesn't go on anything else, and she didn't stray from the training after the accidents occurred, we picked up right where we left off after some cleaning, and she seems to know that they are "accidents" because she looked guilty if she had one.





> If I didn't take her out enough, please explain why I never found anything AND why my room didn't smell? If she went even once, even if I didn't see it, I would smell it. She understands very well that she shouldn't go inside, she is not "very used" to going inside, because on days where she goes out, yes, three times, and I have the time to be around her LITERALLY every second of that day, I never see her having an accident, ANYWHERE! Not on blankets or carpet or anything else. I've had this opportunity several times - I would think that if she really couldn't hold it she would have went on one of these occasions. I also took her to a friend's house for the evening, and even though she was in a new setting, she didn't have any accidents! ... That being said, I'm very happy that my puppy has been able to get the hang of potty-training so quickly despite being raised on pee pads, and it wasn't very long at all before I just ditched them because I wasn't worried about it. As far as I can tell her bed problem was because it smelled like the pads (which, again, she dragged to her bed and only after that did she have the problem). When I got rid of the soiled bed and gave her a different one the problem went away completely and she had no accidents! Then the sleeping in pee started several weeks after, and I'm almost certain it was some kind of comfort or that the pee was warm, because after using the heater she's had no incidents at all, I was even able to put the liner back in with no issues so she doesn't have to sleep on bare plastic anymore.





> 1. My schedule was, and is, fine. I have talked to vets, I have tried taking her out more, - SHE DOES NOT GO ANY MORE OFTEN. If you can tell me how I can FORCE HER to pee when she does not need to, just to adhere to your "fact", I'd love to hear it.
> 2. She has moved past the stage of potty training 101. I even went back to it because everyone said to do it, NOTHING CHANGED. I DO praise her like crazy, I've even stated that I do everything short of CARTWHEELS when she goes. I do watch her like a hawk, though I don't even need to at this point since she HASN'T HAD AN ACCIDENT ANYWHERE ELSE SINCE THE PADS WERE TAKEN AWAY. And I already said several times that I REMOVED HER BED a while ago.





> I took her out every half hour for three or four days because she did not go more often.





> I'm only addressing you again because you seem to misunderstand - I did try taking her in and out over and over, several times in a row, in addition to everything else.





> Seriously, though, out of the 52 replies to this thread, 4 have of them have been about something other than potty-training, and SURPRISE, they were the only suggestions that had any impact on her behaviour. Yes, I DID go back to "potty-training 101" when every one talked about it, even though I had already tried it before coming here.





> I gave the method several days and it didn't work. At this point she stopped after I put in the heater, so it doesn't really matter, anyway.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Captain_Russia said:


> Canyx; she stopped for a while, of course I'm to keep an eye on her though.
> 
> InkedMarie/Hiraeth; Why thank you. And after all this WONDERFUL advice I've been given that I ALREADY TRIED, I will be sure to turn into the definition of insanity and try to follow it FOR A THIRD TIME if she does it again.
> 
> ...


There are also wonderful things called respect, politeness and humility. You seem to be somewhat lacking in these categories. 

This has crossed over from being laughably ridiculous to disrespectful and annoying. Actually, it did that when you started your THIRD potty training thread in a month and a half and were having the SAME issues that we told you you'd have a month ago, and then REFUSED to take any of our advice and basically stomped all over the thread like a twelve-year-old child having a temper tantrum. "Why aren't you listening to me?" "Learn how to read." "I'm not going to repeat myself, but here's me repeating myself for three more pages". Wah wah, boo hoo.

We've given you the advice, take it or leave it. My only other advice is to take a step back before you further damage your reputation in this community, which you are probably going to need again in the future, judging from of your posts so far.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

I'm confused, is the puppy still doing this or not?


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

sassafras said:


> I'm confused, is the puppy still doing this or not?


Ugh, oh man, sass! Can't you read? It's right there - clear as butter!


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

No, seriously I really want to know and there's too much back and forth for me to keep track.


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

sassafras said:


> No, seriously I really want to know and there's too much back and forth for me to keep track.


I think the puppy supposedly hasn't done it for a day or so now (because of a heater?), but I'm just as confused.


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## cookieface (Jul 6, 2011)

Effisia said:


> I think the puppy supposedly hasn't done it for a day or so now (because of a heater?), but I'm just as confused.


Yes, one day of not peeing in the crate and problem solved.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Hiraeth; Respect, politeness, and humility were gone from most of you before I ever started talking back. I don't feel well and all I ever get when I come here is broken records and disrespect, it makes me a bit short-tempered, and I apologize for the outburst. That being said, I did not start three potty-training threads here, EVER. I have started eleven total threads here, they are as follows:
A "Hello" to the community
A general post about my puppy when I first got her
An itching question
An update on her health from the previous thread
Her taking blankets off my bed
Her playing with pee pads
A thread about what to let her eat off the floor (for my dad)
A thread about a weird nose she kept making
A thread about peeing on her own bed (which turned out to be a repercrussion from the pads, NOT TRAINING)
This thread
So please show me the THREE potty-training threads I made out of those.
Secondly, no where did any one try to tell me "Because of her bed smelling like a potty area, and her three accidents she had on the bed from that, more than two weeks from now she will suddenly start being comforted by the warmth of her own urine and sleep in it while simultaneously having no other problems or symptoms of bad training."
I did not "refuse" to take your advice, I tried to tell you over and over that I either already had been doing it, or it didn't work. Let me try this a different way.
Let's say my car stopped working correctly. I'm not a mechanic, so I go to a bunch of people who know more about cars than I do. I tell them, "Hey, my car squeaks and squeals really bad, what do you think is wrong with it and how could I fix it?" Some one comes by and says "Oh, that's definitely your timing belt, you should get it changed." "But I've already changed the timing belt, and it didn't fix the issue." "Well, it's still a timing belt, you need to get it fixed." Then one person comes along and says "Oh, sounds like it could be your breaks, try getting them changed." And while every one else is still yelling about timing belts, I fixed my car by getting the breaks changed, and if anyone had bothered to actually read, they'd realise that timing belts weren't the problem because they had been changed.
So while yes, generally when a dog or puppy is eliminating anywhere inside, it's because they weren't properly house-trained. But if most of you had bothered to read the details, you would know that she's been properly house-trained already, and that the issue was something else the whole time. You just focused on the perception you already had of me as an owner (gleaned from not paying attention, I'm pretty sure) and convinced yourselves that it was my training instead of something else. There are obviously several of you who did pay attention, and even some of you who kept suggesting that training seemed to be paying some attention, but there were also several of you who didn't, at all.

To the rest of you, so far she has stopped doing it. I know the problem isn't case closed until she hasn't done it for a while, but before the heater she was doing it all the time and so several nights passing without her doing it is huge.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

A dog who is properly house trained does not pee inside. End of story. No questions about it. Your dog pees inside.


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## TSTrainer (Aug 6, 2015)

Puppies aren't cars. Cars don't have behaviors that are reasonably predictable based on experience. They don't have behaviors at all. You can't just replace a part on a puppy and fix the issue. Puppy issues are fixed over the long term with training and consistency. 

When you ask us a question and say you did what we are saying to do, you are not doing it for the long term, you are only doing it for a few hours/days and expecting a major turn-around. Puppies don't work like that. I've had a puppy for six weeks and potty training is an hourly occurrence. If I let her stay in the crate or playpen for 8 hours without giving her a bathroom break, she would pee in it, and then lay in it. And if I didn't clean up after her, bathe her or if I let her continue to do that for days/weeks/months she would come away with fur loss and urine scalds. That is the consequence of improper potty training on a grand scale. Many people do not potty train their dogs correctly, and somehow their dogs don't have injuries from it.


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

How old are you?


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

Captain_Russia said:


> To the rest of you, so far she has stopped doing it. I know the problem isn't case closed until she hasn't done it for a while, but before the heater she was doing it all the time and so several nights passing without her doing it is huge.


When she was doing it, was it only on blankets or bedding, or would she pee on the bare crate floor too? I'm sorry I have to keep asking questions this thread just got so massively off track it's hard for me to follow the actual story of what was going on.


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## TSTrainer (Aug 6, 2015)

sassafras said:


> No, seriously I really want to know and there's too much back and forth for me to keep track.


OP asked for advice because her puppy has urine scalds and fur loss due to peeing in her crate and sleeping in it. Posters suggest changing potty training routine, because this is not the first potty training issue OP has had and obviously puppy is still urinating in the house. One poster suggests maybe the puppy is cold and the pee is warm so she is sleeping on it to stay warm. It is the only piece of advice of this nature. OP says "genius! I'll put a space heater by her crate!" and then less than a day later says "She's stopped peeing in her crate! problem solved." Posters are confused because OP's details continuously change, suggest to OP that her problem is not, in fact, solved, and she begins to demean them by suggesting they cannot read. The next morning (today) OP is convinced her problem is solved.


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## sassafras (Jun 22, 2010)

TSTrainer said:


> OP asked for advice because her puppy has urine scalds and fur loss due to peeing in her crate and sleeping in it. Posters suggest changing potty training routine, because this is not the first potty training issue OP has had and obviously puppy is still urinating in the house. One poster suggests maybe the puppy is cold and the pee is warm so she is sleeping on it to stay warm. It is the only piece of advice of this nature. OP says "genius! I'll put a space heater by her crate!" and then less than a day later says "She's stopped peeing in her crate! problem solved." Posters are confused because OP's details continuously change, suggest to OP that her problem is not, in fact, solved, and she begins to demean them by suggesting they cannot read. The next morning (today) OP is convinced her problem is solved.


Yes, I'm well aware of the crap show that this thread turned into. I'm just trying to get some current information and not interested in wading through it all.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Hiraeth; Yes, I know, it's a technicality. What I'm trying to say is that it isn't training, if it was training she'd go anywhere, or at least at any time. She only did it if she was going to take a nap by herself or sleep.

TSTrainer; The one thing every one said repeatedly was "go back to potty-training 101". I did this the INSTANT she started crate soiling, not for a few hours or days. I came here when it didn't work. I also said that I did everything I could to help her, I did not leave her in that situation by any means, you're making it sound like I just left her there and didn't bother. Her skin/fur is very sensitive and she got the urine scalds by sleeping in the puddle overnight for a few nights (cleaned between, obviously, but the shampoo I had at the time was apparently not strong enough to get it all out and I had to buy a new one to get her properly clean). That is why she has urine scalds, not because I neglected her. Her training was not improper, it was exactly what the training is supposed to be, as told to me by every article I've ever read as well as what every one here has told me.

Effisia; Creepy?

sassafras; She only ever went on the crate liner, then the bare plastic when the liner was removed. I'm well aware of how off-topic and craptastic my threads seem to get, it's very frustrating.

TSTrainer; I would appreciate you not trying to answer what I've already answered, because you got it wrong.
Please re-read my explanation about the supposed "potty training issue" and actually read it. She does not urinate in the HOUSE, that makes it sound like a wide-spread problem, it was ONLY her crate (technically bed before that, which was not a training issue in the first place). No one actually said "she is sleeping in it to stay warm", they suggested that it was comforting. I then thought about putting a pad heater in the crate, which has worked SO FAR, I never said the problem was 100% definitely solved, I said it SEEMED to be solved. My details do not change, and if you notice an inconsistentancy, point it out instead of just claiming that it does. I keep telling people they can't read because it honestly seems like they can't (or won't) as they repeat what has already been said don't read everything I try to tell them.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

sassafras said:


> When she was doing it, was it only on blankets or bedding, or would she pee on the bare crate floor too? I'm sorry I have to keep asking questions this thread just got so massively off track it's hard for me to follow the actual story of what was going on.


Thread started on 1/19 Pup dragging SOILED pee pads to her BED? - OP stated she was only taking the puppy outside 2-3 times per day and was too busy to take her outside any more than that. Puppy started dragging soiled pee pads to her bed and laying on them. Puppy did not have a crate as OP's father refused to crate train the puppy.

Thread started on 1/30 Puppy peeing on her own bed and sleeping on it. - OP insisted that the puppy did not need to go outside before it ate breakfast and then was confused about why accidents were happening and demanded sources that specifically said 4.5 month old puppies needed to go outside to pee before eating. Puppy had accidents on bed at least three times.

Thread started on 2/20 Puppy refuses to sleep on anything but pee?! - Puppy has urine scald and is still urinating in her bed and sleeping in it. Now that a heater is placed nearby, the problem is solved.

Oh, those are all the threads NOT about potty training that OP insists she didn't start. Even though the second sentence in the third thread starts with "I've made several posts here about similar issues...."


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Okay, that second one is pretty misleading. First off, only one of those accidents was because of the morning feedings, and only because I didn't get dressed quickly enough, the schedule was eating, then eliminating, and when I didn't get her out the door instantly she assumed her bed was the correct place because of the smell - every single other time, she had no problem with this schedule. The other two accidents were schedule flukes, and had nothing to do with the feeding schedule whatsoever. I asked for sources because the sources I had myself told me that puppies are input-output machines and need to be fed before going outside.

On the third, she was not "still" urinating in her bed - she had STOPPED COMPLETELY. The bed was completely removed the first time around, and this is a separate issue.

And no, those are not "potty-training" threads.

1. Puppy playing with pee pads.
2. Puppy having accidents on bed because of SCHEDULE FLUKES and SMELL, not training.
3. Puppy sleeping on urine, presumably because it was comforting.

I called them similar because they all dealed with pee in general - soiled pee pads, peeing on bed, sleeping in urine. Stopping them from playing with a pad has nothing to do with potty-training. Potty-training has no impact on bed peeing if all the accidents were smell-induced. Potty-training has no impact on sleeping in urine if it's a comfort issue - all the potty breaks in the world couldn't stop her from not fully emptying her bladder, short of just chaining her in the potty area outside and leaving her there for the rest of her life.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

I shall quote myself!



Hiraeth said:


> A dog who is properly house trained does not pee inside. End of story. No questions about it. Your dog pees inside.


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

Creepy? Not so much. Just speaks to how well you're able to take advice without freaking out and getting all defensive (naturally older people do sometimes react that way and younger kids sometimes don't.) It just feels like arguing with a child who is absolutely convinced they know everything, are completely right, and everyone else is nuts. 

As for going back to potty training 101, you did not, in fact, do this. A hallmark of going back to pottytraining 101 is error-less housetraining. That means not giving the dog ANY chance to potty in the house. As the dog DID potty in the house after you say you started back with potty training 101, it stands to reason that you didn't actually do it. That's not to say you didn't try, but I don't think you gave it a fair shake. 

The training or behavior issue - it's a behavior that she learned because she wasn't trained properly and it became a bad habit. Everyone's right. Yay.


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## Kathyy (Jun 15, 2008)

To recap puppy is half pit bull and half something else, possibly wolf/mal/GSD mix so not a tiny sized pup. First post was in November and puppy was doing brilliantly with basic training after a week so pup was something like 9 weeks old at first post so pup might be 5-6 months old now. 

Pup had and was treated for 2 UTI in much less than that time. UTI are expensive and take a long time to treat. You have a sterile culture taken so the correct meds are used and a week after the meds are finished another culture is done on another sterile sample to be certain the infection is actually gone. So to vet for the issue with one sample cultured, meds taken for 2 weeks, wait a week and culture again. I seriously doubt any of this was done due to the tight time frame. 2 UTI in such a young dog sounds like frequent UTI to me. My elderly dog had 2 in a year and we were concerned! My dog seemed fine after meds were taken for a couple days but in both cases I completed the course of meds, the infection was still present in both cases. She would have had a relapse if she hadn't had the second course of antibiotics. 

Bucky was adopted as a 2 year old dog. He may or may not have been house trained at his previous residence [wasn't much of a home] but here he definitely was seriously confused. He would pee in front of us and when ever he felt the urge but also peed/pooped outside during the hourly potty trips where we whooped it up and gave him really good treats. He has been here 6 months and it took at least 3 before he STARTED to know that potty was supposed to be outside and it took 4 months here before he really tried to hold it to get outside. I doubt he will ever be as house trained as Ginger who will pee in the bathroom next to the toilet or Max who would pee at the back door if alone and bursting.

Before 6-12 months of age you are simply catching the dog before it soils, YOU are the trained one much like human babies don't know and cannot hold urine/stool before 1.5-3 years but it is possible to regulate meals and activity and learn the infant's signals so urine/stool can be caught.

I read these threads and never ever want to deal with a puppy, Bucky's been the worst I've dealt with. Raising a pup is a long hard slog. My dogs are great by the time they are about 3 years old so I cut off 1-2 years of annoying young dog stuff by getting adolescent/young dogs.

I doubt the UTI is actually resolved. 

Nobody is withholding information, this is about repeating over and over the same routine no matter what happens. Accidents may happen even with the best routine, clean it up and move on. Praise and treat after potting outside. If pup pees in bed overnight then get up an hour earlier until you find the time she needs to get outside. You might consider making some sort of grate so she isn't laying in the urine since she has damaged skin from laying in it. Consider having her crate in your bedroom so you can take her outside at night when you hear her moving around.

Being cold could have something to do with all this too. If she is cold she may not be able to sleep soundly and others have posted how sleeping slows down urine production. If she is shifting around trying to get warm she's awake and kidneys are filtering away.

One dry night doesn't mean issue resolved. She isn't potty trained and won't be for quite a while.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Hiraeth; I shall quote myself!


> Hiraeth; Yes, I know, it's a technicality. What I'm trying to say is that it isn't training, if it was training she'd go anywhere, or at least at any time. She only did it if she was going to take a nap by herself or sleep.


Effisia; It is kind of creepy to ask some one's age on the internet, that's a common feeling about it, ESPECIALLY if you think some one is a child. While I will admit that I jump the gun here a lot, I just keep getting the feeling like I'm being jumped on myself, and the fact that I have to keep repeating (and quoting) myself has put me on edge and frustrated me. I've never been through that "phase" of feeling like I know everything and am completely right, I never understood how some one can think that. I've always been nervous and cautious, to the point where it's actually caused me a lot of issues. If it feels like you're arguing with a child, then I'm sorry, kids can really annoy me sometimes and I never want any.

As for the training, I understand what you're trying to say, and I hate to use the word "but", but, it was impossible to error-lessly do this. I tried watching her in the crate, but she doesn't show any signs of needing to pee, she'll just go. When she did it, I corrected and redirected her to the right place, with lots of praise. I cleaned and scrubbed everything in the area with enzyme cleaners. I went outside what seemed like constantly, and stayed for hours out there trying to give her the command. I tried "tricking" her by letting her in the crate after a potty break and then going right back out. I tried moving and changing everything I could think of.

She was trained properly in the first place, to the point of being error-less. It wasn't an issue where she did it and it went unchecked (becoming a "habit") she just started doing it, and with a purpose from the start. It's hard for me to try and explain my thinking on this - it's like, how could it be a habit to not empty her bladder when she's always done it before? There would have to be a "catalyst" for such an extreme change in behaviour, a concious "I'm not going to completely relieve myself" kind of thing (I know dogs don't think like that). Where would she get that from? Why would she do it one day after being good about her training? That's why I think it can't be training - her training was going well and then there was a sudden and drastic change with no warning. She didn't have a crate accident and then get used to it, she never had a crate accident before this at all.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

It probably happened right around the time you expected her to only go outside two to three times a day and to hold it for 10-12 hours at a time. That would be my guess.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Kathyy; I don't know if you read all of this mess, so I'll recap on some things, first and foremost, though, she seems to have stopped.
Pup was 6 weeks when I got her (rescue, couldn't get her any later) she's about 5 1/2 now.
Vet didn't do a culture, she did a urinalysis and gave us meds that didn't work. I gave her lemon juice that happened to get rid of it (vet confirmed with another urinalysis). When her second infection came I just treated with lemon juice, gone in two days, she's not had any more.
She was potty-trained just fine before this issue - my training routine was exactly as every person and article has ever suggested, it was never different.
She does not pee during the night, never did.
kdawnk suggested moving the plastic crate under the grate bottom to get her out of it, which I did, before using a heater to keep her warm which seems to have solved this.
Her crate is, and always has been, in my room. In fact when she was little and didn't have a crate I would actually sleep on the floor with her, and even now I sometimes take naps with her because she loves sleeping next to me, but I don't want her on the bed.

Hiraeth; As mentioned before she had pads supplied during that time, she did not have to hold it.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Captain_Russia said:


> Hiraeth; As mentioned before she had pads supplied during that time, she did not have to hold it.


Ah, so you were punishing her by telling her "NO!" loudly for going inside while simultaneously expecting her to go inside when you refused to take her out? Makes perfect sense.


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## Effisia (Jun 20, 2013)

It is, in fact, possible to do error-less housetraining. I've done it now with two dogs, and I'm fairly certain a lot of other folks here have, as well. First, pee pads don't really constitute error-less since you're traching the dog to pee inside. Secondly, you've mentioned before that she's had accidents when you weren't watching or too busy to watch her. That's not the dog incapable or error-less pottytraining, that's you not taking the time to follow through.

I give up. You refuse to listen and keep changing your story, so I don't see any reason to bother any further. Good luck.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Hiraeth; Um, no? When I trained her to go outside, I would interupt her by saying "hey!" and take her outside. She could tell the difference between a pad and the rest of the floor, so if she had a UTI she would use a pad.

Effisia; I know it's possible to do error-less house-training, it was just in this particular instance of the crate that I couldn't do it, as I explained. And trust me, I hate those pads. I wish the guy who had her before hadn't trained her to use one. Again, you aren't paying attention - I never, EVER, blamed her for those accidents. The accidents were my fault, and I said that MULTIPLE times. She's had a few accidents, the ones on my part were schedule flukes, and the others were when she was very, very young, being unable to make it the pad in time (she'd get her front feet on them and then go, I would have to pick her up and move her forward a few inches until she got the idea). And it wasn't me "not taking the time" to follow through - would you like to know what those schedule flukes were? My dad having a false heart attack and one of my cats getting stung by a bee on the lip, both more important than a single potty-training accident, which can be fixed, so to speak. Those evenings when I was busier are very much private family issues and I don't want to share them, but I think you get the idea.
Again, how am I "changing" my story? If you can't even point it out I feel like you read something wrong.


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## TheDarkestMinds (Feb 28, 2015)

I wouldn't blame all the problems on the pads. I have two small dogs and a 15 week old pup, who are pad and trained to potty outdoors. None of which potty on anything but pads when indoors. Not the floor, not the rugs, not towels. And they don't drag their pads. Because crazy method. But I taught them not too. They also do not potty in their crates.


I want to be clear though. I would never pad train a larger breed dog. So if the breeder had sent me home. 

Sidenote I am confused you said the pup was a rescue that you had to take at a young age....But you continue to say the breeder sent her home with a pad.....So which is is it?

Anyways point is. If someone sent me home with a bully mix and pee pads. I would have thrown out the pads day one and focused on regular house training.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

I never blamed her problems on the pad, I just said I wish she hadn't been trained to use them, they're a hassle. She didn't pee on anything but pads when she was indoors, either. Out of curiosity, how did you teach them not to drag pads around? I tried to get her not to, but I never caught her in the middle of it because she would sit at attention when she heard me coming, and bitter spray didn't work.


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## TheDarkestMinds (Feb 28, 2015)

To be honest neither of my females ever tried to play with the pad or drag it around. They weren't pad trained previously either. So I guess I just lucked out with them. 

Now Cosmo (my little male puppy)on the other hand thinks that fresh pads are awesome. He always would attempt to steal fresh pads after they were changed. I just always caught him in the moment. I would stop him and redirect him with a squeaker toy or something more fun than the pad. 

I also keep the pee pads for the small dogs in my bathroom, which is right off my living room. So I could always hear the rustling of pads if he was attempting to drag. And I would be able to either call him or squeak a toy and he would abandon his pee pad fun. 

Now if I had the pads in a crate. I would keep that crate in my living room or what ever room I frequent the most. Because that way I always have eyes or ears on the puppy and pee pads. In other words the puppy wouldn't have a chance to play with the pads and drag them out onto the bed.

It's just like anything else. You work it out to set them up for success.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Oh, I didn't have a crate when I first got her. The pad and bed were both on carpet, so if I wasn't in the room I couldn't hear her playing with it. It's not a problem at the moment, but if she gets another infection and needs a pad down I'll need to try and keep a better eye on her. She didn't even mind playing with dirty ones, either, it was so gross! I'd find little poops scattered on the floor because she'd play with them and fling them around, even though she had real toys!


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Captain_Russia said:


> I never blamed her problems on the pad, I just said I wish she hadn't been trained to use them, they're a hassle. She didn't pee on anything but pads when she was indoors, either. Out of curiosity, how did you teach them not to drag pads around? I tried to get her not to, but I never caught her in the middle of it because she would sit at attention when she heard me coming, and bitter spray didn't work.


This right here says EXACTLY what we have all been saying. You clearly are not keeping a close eye on your dog if your dog can repeatedly drag his pee pads around and you don't catch her. This is how she can pee inside without you seeing it.


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## InkedMarie (Mar 11, 2009)

MysticRealm said:


> This right here says EXACTLY what we have all been saying. You clearly are not keeping a close eye on your dog if your dog can repeatedly drag his pee pads around and you don't catch her. This is how she can pee inside without you seeing it.


My puppy is six months old. I am starting to relax now, I can shower if he just peed; otherwise, I still watch him.


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## TSTrainer (Aug 6, 2015)

InkedMarie said:


> My puppy is six months old. I am starting to relax now, I can shower if he just peed; otherwise, I still watch him.


Yep. At four months, my puppy gets crated if _I_ have to pee. Errorless potty training!


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

Captain_Russia said:


> gingerkid, there's a wonderful thing called reading, I know it hurts and it's really hard, but it's a good thing to learn. Here, I'll just quote myself for you:


I thought you were done repeating yourself.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

MysticRealm; #68
gingerkid; It's hard not to with you people! It's like getting slapped in the face over and over, it's pissing me off at how incapable you are - I feel like you're five and I have to lead you around by the hand! At this point I'm only bothering with this site at all because I want to see how long it takes some of you to re-evaluate yourselves.


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

I've read every post in all these crazy threads and it all leads back to your lack of supervising and potty training your dog, just like virtually every single last poster has said in all of your potty training threads.


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

Captain_Russia said:


> MysticRealm; #68
> gingerkid; It's hard not to with you people! It's like getting slapped in the face over and over, it's pissing me off at how incapable you are - I feel like you're five and I have to lead you around by the hand! At this point I'm only bothering with this site at all because I want to see how long it takes some of you to re-evaluate yourselves.


If people do not understand what you are saying, maybe you should consider re-evaluating how you relay information to others. You are the only person who knows what information you are trying to relay to us. The rest of us only have what you say (or write) to go off of.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

MysticRealm; I supervise her just fine!! And her potty-training is fine! You just don't listen to me or I can't explain it to you.
gingerkid; I have problems with high-order cognition, I can't tell you any other way and it gets really frustrating because I can't do things clearly. It makes sense to me but a lot of the time people don't get it!


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

Captain_Russia said:


> gingerkid; I have problems with high-order cognition, I can't tell you any other way and it gets really frustrating because I can't do things clearly. It makes sense to me but a lot of the time people don't get it!


I can only imagine how frustrating that must be, but blaming (and insulting) other people for not understanding what you are trying to say is neither respectful nor helpful to anyone. It doesn't help anyone here understand what you ARE trying to say, and it may actually make them less likely to want to help you.


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## Crantastic (Feb 3, 2010)

Captain_Russia said:


> MysticRealm; I supervise her just fine!! And her potty-training is fine! You just don't listen to me or I can't explain it to you.


Why do you keep making threads about pee-related issues, then?


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

gingerkid; I'm sorry. There's been a lot of stress in my life recently and to be honest, I'm having a lot of trouble trying to cope with it, I've been letting my temper get the best of me and I apologize.
Crantastic; The pad thread was because she did it while I couldn't supervise her, during dinner or something like that. The bed peeing wasn't a supervision or training issue, she only did it because of schedule problems, they were one-offs (I made the thread because I wanted to know _why_ she did it not anything else). This thread wasn't about supervision or training, either - I watched her all the time, and as soon as the behaviour started I saw it. Her training wasn't the problem because literally all her other training is going perfectly and this was something more intentional than just an accident. If it was an accident I wouldn't have come here.


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## MysticRealm (May 30, 2007)

Captain_Russia said:


> gingerkid; I'm sorry. There's been a lot of stress in my life recently and to be honest, I'm having a lot of trouble trying to cope with it, I've been letting my temper get the best of me and I apologize.
> Crantastic; The pad thread was because she did it *while I couldn't supervise her, during dinner or something like that.* The bed peeing wasn't a supervision or training issue, she only did it because of schedule problems, they were one-offs (I made the thread because I wanted to know _why_ she did it not anything else). This thread wasn't about supervision or training, either - *I watched her all the time, *and as soon as the behaviour started I saw it. Her training wasn't the problem because literally all her other training is going perfectly and this was something more intentional than just an accident. If it was an accident I wouldn't have come here.


 You watch her all the time... except during dinner and something like that. That sounds like unsupervised times a puppy could be peeing inside.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

No, back when she had the pads she didn't have a crate, so she was either supervised or had complete reign of my room BUT she was pad-trained. And in #68 I quoted myself saying that there was no way she could have had an accident without me knowing - no smell, no stain, no wet spot, no guilty look, no missing the pads when I was there. Now that she has a crate she can be supervised or confined 100% of the time. Not that it matters much about the pads since she doesn't need them, though.


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## BostonBullMama (Apr 20, 2013)

Captain_Russia said:


> I have no idea what's going on. I've made several posts here about similar issues, but I thought they were all fixed after some thorough bed-cleaning and item arrangement. But now she refuses to sleep anywhere except her own urine! This has been happening for several days, she has multiple urine scalds and in places her skin is so damaged that the fur is patchy and falling out. The vet found nothing mechanically wrong with her and has no idea why she would do this. Here are just two examples of her doing this:
> A few days ago my sister (who's had dogs, and specifically pitbulls before) was puppy-sitting for me while my father and I went to the coast for a few hours (he thought the trip was too long and didn't want her making a mess in the car). She took my puppy out to go, then went back in to play. After the play-time, she took the puppy back out for another potty break, but she didn't go. So after five or so minutes of waiting, the puppy was taken back in and put in her crate to wait until she had to go again. Except after a few minutes, she peed in the crate and then slept directly on the puddle after walking in a circle around the crate! To be clear, her crate is the largest I could find and can easily fit her in it six or seven times over, yet of all the places which were completely free of urine she layed down in the puddle itself.
> Less than an hour ago, I found her having peed on her crate liner again. I took it out to wash it, and after putting it in a soak I came back to clean the bottom of the crate (I didn't see any urine, but I wanted to be sure). Except by the time I got back, she had peed in a corner of the crate and was laying down in the middle of it. It wasn't even her usual sleeping corner - it was a different corner completely! I washed her in the sink (the bed was soaking in the bathtub) and took her back to the crate area. I didn't clean the crate yet, I brought out her other bed (the nice one, not a crate liner) and put it next to the crate door, then let her off the leash. She sniffed her bed, then went directly into her crate and layed down in the puddle again!
> What is going on? I've personally seen her pee outside before letting her back in just to see her pee on her sleeping area after a minute or two. I've tried changing beds, taking beds away completely, moving the crate, using Nature's Miracle to attract her outside, doing everything short of cartwheels when she goes outside, nothing works! As far as I can tell she actually likes to sleep on her own pee, and it doesn't even matter how often I take her out, she'll just hold some of it until she comes back in. What am I supposed to do? I don't want to keep her outside, but if my father knew this was such a problem he'd chain her outside himself. Please help!


I'm only just coming into this *now* - but from this first post, it sounds like she was pad trained IN her crate. So she doesn't see the crate as her space, she has mentally connected the crate to relieving herself. The feeling of relief is the re-enforcement for her to continue the behavior. She doesn't care that she's sleeping in pee, because in her head, the crate isn't a place to sleep, it's a place to relieve herself. 

The bed, has essentially become the training pad to her. 

I would highly suggest removing the beds altogether, and taking potty training back to basics. 
Bring her outside every 10 minutes until she pee's/poop's - walk her around, play with her, whatever it takes to keep her outside until she pee's. Reward heavily with something high value - hot dogs, another ball throw, don't take her in right away because going inside may be disappointing to her, which she could be connecting with relieving herself outdoors. 

Ie: When I pee outside, games stop and we go back inside =  
When I pee in my bed, I get let out of my crate and a form of attention while my human bathes me and cleans my stuff =  

You want to make peeing outside more rewarding for her than sleeping in her own urine. 

I'll be reading the rest of this thread now, but if you have any questions - feel free to PM me.


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## BostonBullMama (Apr 20, 2013)

Captain_Russia said:


> samshine; I will try this, thank you.
> Hiraeth; I took her out WAY more often than every twelve hours when I started potty-training her, and I kept the pads away from her sleeping area from the start (an entire room's length, not like a foot or something). And if you read my previous posts, you would know that my training schedule wasn't intentionally lax - she would simply not go more often than every three or four hours. The only result of taking her out every thirty minutes is making a hassle and getting her cold and wet, don't you think I tried that when she started doing this? I thought maybe she had a UTI but her behaviour is the same and the vet found nothing wrong.
> cookieface; I've been doing all that except the food part, which I will try. Waiting her out is impossible, I actually took a lawn chair and a book (in the rain, so I had an umbrella, too) and sat there for over an hour waiting for her to pee a second time but she never did. Sure enough, pee as soon as she got to her crate. (To reiterate - she peed and pooped as soon as we got to the potty area; waited an hour; went back in, peed in her crate.)
> BKaymuttleycrew;* Actually, no, fur loss is common with even one urine scald*, and it's not a lot of fur, either, though any amount of fur loss is worrisome. Though this has been happening for a little while. And I've been meaning to ask about this *"conditioned" business* - I never liked lettuce. Whenever I would get a burger somewhere there was always lettuce on it, and after a while I was just kind of used to it so I don't care about it anymore. But if you gave me the choice between a salad or a hamburger, I'm picking the hamburger every single time.* Why would my puppy choose to pee on one corner of her barren plastic-bottom crate and then lie in the literal puddle of urine* instead of the carpet outside the crate, or just a dry part of the crate? Especially if that puddle is away from her usual sleeping corner? That's not being "conditioned" in my opinion. *She used to drag soiled pee pads on her bed*, so I can understand peeing on the bed then (it smells like the proper place to go), maybe even laying in it once it was dry or something, but why the crate? Especially when I removed the liner to avoid this exact problem? Is she marking it or something? That's a bit young and the wrong gender, right? She doesn't go anywhere else in the house, not on blankets or cushions or carpet or anything. It's only where she sleeps. And (again) the most puzzling thing about all this (to me, at least) is the fact that she will urinate, then hold SOME of the urine just so she can sleep on it! I don't mean after half an hour, or after drinking something, or after playing, I mean within minutes of going back inside and letting her in the crate.
> kdawnk; That's a very good idea, I think I'll do that right now! And if it's the actual feeling that she likes it might stop her from trying to do it in the first place!


The acidity level in her urine would have to be quite high to cause fur loss in 1 go. 
The smell of urine has become something re-enforcing to her. Why? I can't offer an explanation at this point. But it's going to take time to fix this issue. She has built on this behavior for quite some time if she was dragging her pads onto her bed to sleep on them. The fact that the urine is wet makes no difference to her anymore. 

All genders mark, but I doubt that is what's happening at this point. 

I would remove the crate from the equation entirely.

(Have to go for now - back later to read the rest)


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## BostonBullMama (Apr 20, 2013)

Captain_Russia said:


> Okay, I want to get this straight now. When that came up it was ridiculous but there were more important things to address than repeating myself over and over, but let me be clear now:
> 
> *I did not take her out only two times a day, nor did I expect her to hold it for 15+ hours at a time.*
> 
> That was something some one made up based off of assumptions of my schedule. *There was ONE TIME where she was taken out only twice in one day - there was a family emergency going on and I wasn't able to take her out more.* Most days she is taken out at LEAST three, usually more, and as previously stated she does not need to go very often, this has been confirmed by multiple veterinarians. I have NEVER had her wait 15+ hours to go, the most, and I mean MOST that she has had to hold it would be 8 or 9 hours, a full night. Never during the day, and never more than that at night. I am personally disgusted at the thought of making anything have to wait 15 or more hours between breaks, let alone a puppy, what the hell is wrong with some one like that? And how much sense does that make? If I forced a puppy to go twice a day and hold it for more than 15 hours my whole room would be covered in waste, yet she doesn't have consistant accidents so obviously this isn't the case, if I was the kind of person to do that I would a) not bother to come to this forum and b) complain about her constant accidents to every one.


That 1 day could have caused your set back. She learned in that 1 day, that she couldn't depend on you to take her out. The re-enforcement of pottying on her bed became enough for her to justify doing it again and again. 

Dog's who "look guilty" are often not conveying that emotion at all - they aren't capable of guilt. They ARE capable of fear and nervousness though and that's where that look stems from. They look guilty because they have begun to associate specific scenario's with a negative action like yelling or worse - even if the action is not directed at the dog. 

For example - my dog dislikes yelling. If I yell at my kids, he get's low to the ground, ears back, and slightly wide-eyed and slinks away. To someone else, he may look guilty because he's making slow movements and keeping his head low - to me, I know he simply dislikes the yelling, and so I actively try not to lose my temper with my children because my dog doesn't know the difference between me yelling at the kids - or yelling at him. He does know that I'm being loud and scary and he feels like, in that circumstance, I am unpredictable. 

3 times a day is still too little for a puppy. I would aim for 7 - minimum. Before breakfast, after breakfast, after play, after lunch, before dinner, after dinner, and before bed. OR 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, 9pm - if you stay up later, take her out again right before you're actually going to sleep.

At 5 months old, this schedule should work wonderfully for her and will be often enough to really re-enforce the behavior of pottying outside. Especially accompanied with some basic life-rewards such as the opportunity to play with a ball afterwards or sniff the yard for an additional 10 minutes.




> I've been trying to stop her when I catch her doing it but it hasn't worked.


What are you doing to try and stop her?


Last edit, I promise: Wow.. this thread is crazy... you've received a lot of really good advice, and I'm sorry you're feeling attacked. Behavioral issues such as the one you were (are?) seeing tend to be born out of training issues. For example - a dog begging (behavioral) is born from the dog being re-enforced in some way for the action (training). The best way to curb begging, is to redirect it - and there is no overnight solution. 

Just as with your problem, there is no overnight solution to a dog peeing on their bed. A heater could be drying the urine faster though, and if her crate is located in the basement, it may not be as noticeable a smell once dried. 

Anyway, I'm happy you feel the issue is resolved.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

She's fed a mostly-meat diet, which means her urine pH is higher than normal, it's more acidic. Plus her fur and skin is sensitive, anyway, so it didn't take much for her to get patchy.

While she did drag pads to her bed, I only ever found them on top of her bed twice, the rest of the time I caught her "in the process" of moving them so I don't know if she actually slept on the pads themselves or not.

I didn't think she would be marking, but it came to mind so I'm glad you debunked it.

That one day where she only got out twice was rather early on, and her bed was removed shortly after, I've been very consistant since that happened, and anyway there was a large amount of time separating the bed incidents and this. Obviously they could related, I just don't think so because she was flawless in-between.

I know they don't feel guilt like we do. She's a very sensitive puppy, and sometimes I feel like she's psychic because she always seems to know how I'm feeling. If I'm not feeling well she'll want to cuddle instead of play. If I'm sad she'll settle down next to me and let me pet her instead of doing normal puppy things. If I'm happy or excited she starts to jump around. Likewise if I'm upset or annoyed she gets the "guilty" look, even though I don't do anything to get one from her - I don't punish her, get louder, anything like that. Maybe she knows what a sigh means? I don't know, it's probably just body language and I don't realize it.

I try to take her outside to potty more, but she honestly doesn't go every time. Four max! That's me taking her out more frequently than the schedule you suggested! (Thank you very much, by the way! I like to see advice like that, more than "take your dog out more" or something equivalent.)

When I caught her, I would make a loud noise (like shouting "HEY!") to try and surprise her and then hurrying to grab her before taking her straight outside.

I've always been very good with her training in general, I'm not sure if I've just always understood dogs in a sense or if she understands me, but it works. She tried begging at the dinner table once, _once_, and never did it again - I told her "no" and moved her paws off, then ignored her for the rest of the meal and she just quietly layed down behind my chair. Didn't even try with anyone else! She started looking like a car chaser on walks, so I took treats with us and every time she became alert to a car going by I would distract her and reward her for giving her attention to me instead of the car, now she doesn't care about them. In less than a week of walking on a leash she learned to walk next to me and not pull or charge ahead. It just makes so much sense to me, and whenever I see people with dogs who don't listen on the first command or who pull on leashes I just think "HOW?! You'd literally have to not be trying at all for that to happen!" That's why I was feeling "attacked" - I was trying to explain this, that even without experience of being around dogs or even basic knowledge of how to do those things, I did them easily and quickly, how could potty-training be different? When I tried to say "No, I already did that" and just got "No you didn't" it frustrated me because I felt like I was being put in the category of people who couldn't even teach their dog basic things, like how to follow a "sit" command for longer than five seconds, or not to eat another dog's food at a friend's house.

Sorry about that. Anyway, even if all that about the pee being hidden is true, I'd still see it because her crate liner is a very bright white, you can easily see any kind of discoloration, dry or not, and especially if it pooled on the bottom of the crate liner.

I'm actually surprised that you were able to finish the whole thing, I have to say, thank you.


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## BostonBullMama (Apr 20, 2013)

Captain_Russia said:


> She's fed a mostly-meat diet, which means her urine pH is higher than normal, it's more acidic. Plus her fur and skin is sensitive, anyway, so it didn't take much for her to get patchy.
> 
> While she did drag pads to her bed, I only ever found them on top of her bed twice, the rest of the time I caught her "in the process" of moving them so I don't know if she actually slept on the pads themselves or not.
> 
> ...


Dogs are experts at reading body language - that is what their entire communication is built on and based off of. A simple sigh, or even an eye roll will be picked up by a dog and they will learn to associate it with certain behaviors you do. For example, if you end a play session abruptly this can cause your dog to feel disappointed, but establishing a routine - such as 'treat' then end play, can tell her you're just all done for the moment and it's not because of something they did. If you are training and you ask your dog to sit repeatedly and they don't, and you become frustrated and sigh or roll your eyes or maybe pick at your nails on one hand - your dog will notice these things and relate them to your frustration and see them as a negative behavior. They absolutely feel our emotions. It's quite interesting actually!  

Sometimes when a dog has created and established a bad habit they begin to wait for the opportunity to continue self-rewarding for that habit. For example, a counter surfing dog will wait for the opportune moment to counter surf again. Maybe for a week he does really good ignoring the loaf of bread on the counter, but one day you leave for work and forget to implement your technique for management - such as a gate - and he goes for the bread. All that work you did prior is instantly void because the dog has self-rewarded for the behavior again. With these habits it's really important to find a way to manage the behavior while you train a preferred behavior. So for your dog, I might suggest removing beds altogether, and rewarding all eliminations outdoors the moment they are happening - even if she appears reliable, just further re-enforce that peeing outdoors is MORE rewarding than peeing on a bed (even if she's discontinued it). You can use bits of blue-rare steak, cooked liver, cooked chicken, an apple slice (no seeds), or even just a quick 5 minute play session. 

Making a loud noise to interrupt the behavior can actually steer her in the wrong direction, and I will tell you why - When a dog makes a mistake, be it in training sit or potty training, and you make a big noise, it will actually make the animal more nervous about performing that specific action in front of their human altogether. So, by making that loud noise to interrupt her, and then praising her for urinating outside, you've confused her. She is going to be actively finding ways to relieve herself without you seeing. What you want to do instead is ignore the behavior - quietly leash her and take her straight outside with that yummy steak and reward her for sniffing the ground, for squatting, for ANYTHING the looks even remotely like she *might* be looking for a potty spot or actively pottying. (Do not interrupt the pottying to reward though, just wait until directly after). This will help her to avoid hiding the behavior and will help you to solidify her house training. 

Training puppies is very simple, and no doubt - it sounds like you're doing most of the right things  So be proud of that!! For sure! That said, around 6-7 months, most puppies enter the "teenager phase" - not all, but most - and will begin to blow off cue's and self-reward and all sorts of behaviors begin to pop up and they will make you want to pull your hair out. Trust me  But if you can build a solid foundation now, you have a better chance of keeping those learned skills solid later on too. Dogs tend to go through a "teenage phase" twice, at least I noticed it most in my own dog twice - when he was 7 months to 12 months and again around 2 years. His house training never wavered but recall was a different story  

Anyway, I hope my posts were informative and that you weren't made to feel belittled by me. Everyone here is a huge dog lover and many of us have a lot of experience under our belts. Some may come off abrasive but try not to take it personally. 

Good luck with your puppy!  And again, feel free to PM me if you have any questions about anything I've said or anything you don't feel comfortable posting.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

You've been very helpful! Thank you! It's very interesting to learn about dog behaviour, I love learning about psychology in all its forms. I haven't noticed her trying to hide behaviour from me, I always gave her bigger rewards for going in the proper place if she was having an accident, and I never had to sharply reprimand during a training session - a simple and quiet "Ah-Ah" at most if I need to get her focused on me or if she was being really slow, but I usually don't even have to do that. For example, she had a bit of trouble trying to tell the difference between sitting and laying down, so if she sat and then tried laying down before I told her to, I would say "Ah-Ah" and move my foot under her so she couldn't lay all the way down and praised for sitting straight again - she learned the difference very quickly! That was the only time where I really had to step in (pun intended) to correct her making a training mistake, everything else was very easy and required little else than repetition until she understood what the command meant. I've also taught her multiple signals to follow the same command - pointing to her crate instead of just saying "crate" if I want her to go inside, snapping my fingers instead of saying "come", that sort of thing - a wonderful side effect of the last one is that a combined "Come!" and snapping fingers has made a _very_ reliable recall! I once recalled her in the middle of chasing a squirrel, and she came immediately! I was actually very surprised, and I don't think I need to mention she was very highly rewarded for it! That being said, I'll be sure to look out for her "teenager" phase(s), thanks for the warning! For now the heater appears to still be working wonders, not a single accident! But if she does it again I'll try removing the bed once more. I've also gotten some varied and interesting advice from elsewhere that I could try if all else fails.


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## gingerkid (Jul 11, 2012)

Captain_Russia said:


> She's fed a mostly-meat diet, which means her urine pH is higher than normal, it's more acidic. Plus her fur and skin is sensitive, anyway, so it didn't take much for her to get patchy.


Acidic urine would have a low pH, not a high one.


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## Captain_Russia (Nov 18, 2015)

Oh I meant lower, oops.


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## teddybearmalshi (May 4, 2016)

How's potty triaining going? any improvements?


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

The OP has been permanently banned from this forum. 

Pretty sure the revival of this thread has triggered some mild post traumatic stress for me. Other participants will probably know what I mean.


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Imma need therapy.


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Amaryllis said:


> Imma need therapy.


Perhaps a heater next to you while you sleep will magically resolve all of your issues.


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

Hiraeth said:


> Perhaps a heater next to you while you sleep will magically resolve all of your issues.


With or without coconut oil?


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## Hiraeth (Aug 4, 2015)

Amaryllis said:


> With or without coconut oil?


Soak all of the blankets with it before you even lay down.


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