# Adolescence and potty training regression.



## yuugi (May 6, 2009)

Hello everyone,this is going to be long:

I have a PWC named Matilda, she is currently 9 months old. 

I got her at 7 weeks and i started potty training her right away. I'd take her out every hour.Whenever she started doing her business i'd say "go potty", and afterwards i'd praise her alot and give her a treat. Also if she pooped we would go on a little walk, or play a bit on the little park behind our apartment complex. 
I also tought her how to ring the bells at our door. Now whenever it's time to go out i say "Let's go outside?" and i only open the door when she rings the bells.

Potty training went quite well, by 3 months old she stopped having accidents in the house. Gradually her crate time became smaller, i managed to trust her unsupervised for over 4 hours. 
We also used the NILIF training method since we got her and well, things were great!

Then she turned 8 months old and all the problems started. She started refusing to poop outside at this time. She has always had the same schedule, she pees and poos in the early morning and then again in the afternoon. 
I was using the method suggested in Dr. Ian Dunbar's site where if your dog poops you take him for a walk, and if he doesn't you crate him and try half an hour later. 
This is good so you don't have to be carrying dog poop around and the dog poops faster. 

So she started refusing to poop on the afternoons, i'd crate her and try half an hour later but absolutely no luck. I tried to be consistent and not take her for a walk unless she pooped, but then it was an entire week and she had gone for a walk maybe 3 times.

I started taking her for a walk anyway, she didn't eliminate even then so i thought she was getting bigger and didn't need to go twice a day anymore. Well, my mistake.

She started pooping in the hallway if she didn't poop in the afternoon, or she started pooping on the sidewalk, as we walked, during our walks. And i had just stopped at a grassy spot for her to poop. She also wouldn't ring the bells to say she wanted to go outside. She just flat out pooped while staring at me.

I then started going back to basics again. I kept verbally praising her for going outside but i had stopped treating her. The treats came out again. 
She also got rewarded with playtime or a long walk in case she pooped at the usual schedule but no luck.

Now she is flat out refusing to pee and poop. It has gotten considerably worse after she entered her heat cycle(tried to spay her earlier but Finnish vets only spay after the first heat cycle). She has started the cycle on Sunday and she's been basically crated the whole day since then.

I've been taking her outside plenty of times but she doesn't do it. I only allow her 5-10 minutes to do her business. I've trained her like this because of the very harsh winters we have. 
Just yesterday she held her pee for 18 hours...i seriously don't understand how she does this.

So basically this is what happens : She poos, but doesn't pee so she gets crated. She pees but doesn't poop so she gets crated again. 

I don't know what could be the problem besides adolescence. Everything was perfect until she turned 8 months old. 
She gets praised each time she goes, both verbally and with a treat, and then she gets to play in the grass in the morning and in the afternoon we go for a walk. Granted we can't go for a walk now that she is in heat, or stay outside for very long. 

I just don't know what else to do besides keep being consistent. I'm just starting to feel really lousy for her having to stay crated for so long. But it's either that of me cleaning up pee and poo around the house *sighs*.
I'm just hoping it is adolescence and it will pass as long as i keep being consistent with my training.


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## skelaki (Nov 9, 2006)

Normal adloescent behavior. Just keep being consistent in your training and, if she's refusing to poop when you know she needs to do so, use the old trick that obedience folks use to make their dog poop before going into the obedience ring. Take a paper match (not one of the wood kitchen matches) and insert it about 2/3 of the way into her rectum. In trying to expel the match she'll poop if she needs to. Then praise her and reward her.

Make sure you clean any accidents up with an enzyme cleaner.

Go back to Housebreaking 101 temporarily and take away all house freedom. She's with you or she's in a crate (or confined in some other way).


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## yuugi (May 6, 2009)

She doesn't do both actually. 
For example : This morning she didn't poo but peed ,and in the afternoon she pooped but didn't pee.

I guess i'll just stick to my training then, thank you!


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