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Using Bathroom in House...

3135 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by  fred'smom
Mattie... ever since we have moved Mattie pees in the house when we go to work in the evening. We are only gone 4-5 hours. When we were at the old house she only did this once in a great blue moon but now she does it every time.
The house we moved into was my mom's. So she has been here before it is not a strange house for her. We leave the tv on for noise and a lamp on. And she has the 3 cats to play with. We do have new carpet so... I sort think that might be the issue but I am not for sure.
I do not crate her, she has never been crated and she is 6 years old now so I don't think I can start. I would block her off into the kitchen but I have a feeling she would destroy something in there cause that is something she would do.
Any ideas and suggests.. I am open to anything tried of scrubbing pee up......

*Side note... she goes outside right before we leave everytime, we make sure this happens trying to prevent the peeing from happening**
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From what I've read on here dogs typically aren't good generalizers for house training. When others on here have been in similar situations advice given has included starting from the beginning with house training. When I moved into this house I had to start fresh with my girl Lily, but it didn't take her long to catch on. Good luck!

~Heather
Luck is what we are going to need with Mattie! LOL!!

She is good about going out when we are home its just when we are not here. I think it is her pay back on us for not taking her.
do not crate her, she has never been crated and she is 6 years old now so I don't think I can start.


it does not matter the age of the dog to start crate training. But you do not want to start by just shoving her in a crate. You need to turn the crate into a happy place to be before using it for house training see

crate training

how to crate train

you can use a x-pen set up in the kitchen as area large than a crate but smaller than the entire kitchen and a more controlled environment. one caveat is not all dogs can be contained by an x-pen you may need one with a roof.
From what I've read on here dogs typically aren't good generalizers for house training. When others on here have been in similar situations advice given has included starting from the beginning with house training.
Agreed. Dogs cannot generalize. Just like when you started house training, you have to teach them from each room what they need to do. It's worth starting fresh and saving yourself the frustration. It might be just my opinion, but I'm pretty sure they don't feel good about going in the house either, so it will help you both out.

I say puppy proof the kitchen and put her bed (or blanket, whatever you have that represents "bed") in there during the day. It's against their instincts to go where their bed is, so she might just start holding it and you can go from there.

Lots of luck!
Dogs cannot generalize
That is not the case dogs do generalize and some do so almost as quickly as humans but thas certainly the exception, for the typical dog ther mind set is see how similar situation are different [Discrimination] than that which is more typical of humans which look at how . So in general it takes many repetition is diferent locations, situations etc before a dog will generalize a behavior.

Heck if dogs never generalized they never would run to the door whenever there is a door bell or a knock coming from the tv
different situations are the sam.
We have went two days without going in house! Which makes me very very happy!!
She has been scratching at the door to go out when we are home so.. so far so good!!
retraining is much easier and faster than the first time.
Keep up with training even after you think the problem is fixed. Anabelle likes to forget every few weeks if we stop praising her for going outside.
We have been 3 days without no accident in house and two of those days we worked in the evening too!! :)
we just recently moved from a house to apartment and while we didn't have Fred 100% housebroke at the house (she was 99.993% housebroken) she has had 2 accidents here in the month we've been here, and one was right on my feet as I was watching tv. So we have gone back to step 3 she goes out every 30 minutes and we start slowly extending the time. Also insane praise and treats when she goes outside.

Good luck to you hope she keeps doing great.
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