# Only housebroken in certain areas of house?



## AugiesMomn (Nov 19, 2011)

I got my 2 dogs in October, and they were 6 months old then. After a couple months, the house training was going well. Usually, it still is. I keep them downstairs and the stairs are babygated off. However, the one can jump the fence, and sometimes they manage to get up. That's not the main problem, though.

The problem: when they get upstairs, they pee or poop. Even if they've just peed, they seem to immediately lose all housetraining. Once they both peed right on the steps, just now one went upstairs, I got him to come down, and he peed on the living room floor, where he never pees, so i figure it must be related to having just been upstairs. I took them out for a walk half an hour ago, and they've never had problems with stuff like marking, so it's not that. Otherwise, they ALWAYS go to the back door if they need to potty. Otherwise, I haven't had to clean up an accident in over a month.

Eventually, I'd like to allow them upstairs, but the pottytraining doesn't seem to extend to other areas of the house. I read before to keep puppies to one or a few areas of the home at first to help with potty training. I know it's probably that it's far away from where they eat/sleep, so they think it's ok to potty there, but it's not ok with me... 

So my question is, how do I make them understand that peeing/pooping indoors is ALWAYS bad? They seem to get it when it comes to the downstairs rooms, but they haven't generalized to other areas of the house or, likely, other people's homes. Should I just wait?

ETA: Any time I brought them upstairs on purpose, I let them pee outside first. But even if they pee outside first, if they get up on their own, they sometimes pee. So I'm not sure how to go about potty training them elsewhere in the house.


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## DustyCrockett (Sep 24, 2011)

you house break 'em upstairs just like you do downstairs. Don't give 'em the opportunity to go potty on the floor.


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## AugiesMomn (Nov 19, 2011)

DustyCrockett said:


> you house break 'em upstairs just like you do downstairs. Don't give 'em the opportunity to go potty on the floor.


But they peed outside right before on our walk, that was what confused me.

And one more thing I should add: they never pee upstairs if I let them upstairs, only if they "break out" of the downstairs and get there without permission, so I think it's their anxiety level or something, too.


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## dogclickerfan (Mar 3, 2011)

Were they ever harshly scolded for peeing upstairs? Is the peeing accompanied by submissive body postures? Could it be submissive urination?


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## DustyCrockett (Sep 24, 2011)

AugiesMomn said:


> But they peed outside right before on our walk, that was what confused me.
> 
> And one more thing I should add: they never pee upstairs if I let them upstairs, only if they "break out" of the downstairs and get there without permission, so I think it's their anxiety level or something, too.


Dogs never empty their bladders completely. they hold back a reserve in case an opportunity for marking comes up later. 

with permission, w/o permission, it's all the same to a dog. Of course only a dog knows what a dog knows, but I'm convinced that once they get there, it's all the same. I'm guessing they are just not yet 100% housebroken. If they've been living in a shelter, they probably have some emotional trauma to overcome.


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## marap43 (Dec 23, 2011)

Do you have a carpet or a wood floor upstairs in your house? Have you tried cleaning the areas where they usually go upstairs REALLY WELL? Often when a dog goes once indoors, they'll go back to that same area and go again, because they can still smell where they went before. If the smell is there, it's a signal to your dogs that this is the place to go again. Makes sense to a dog right? Try cleaning each spot will a scrub brush and a really powerful cleaner. Hope that helps


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