O.K., hoomans, I need some help. The Herd is driving me crazy! Just now, Roscoe, who I thought was the only 100% housebroken member of The Herd, lifted his leg and peed on the wall five feet from where I was standing!
Guinness is 12 and is totally not housetrained. Merlin and Beau are four-year-old small standards and Roscoe is a seven-year-old tweenie.
I have limited their access to the house and I keep them in my bedroom. I try to be on top of them all the time, but there are four of them and only one of me Any suggestions? How about breaking out the two crates and getting two more and crating everyone whenever I leave them alone. I usually leave the house for three to four hours a day. I do the whole "go make" routine with lots of praise when they go outside, and I take them out several times a day, but this is more marking than potty issues (except for Guinness).
Thank goodness I have ceramic tile floors, but I have no sense of smell, so I never know if my house smells like a kennel (which is o.k., since I have four dogs) or it smells like dog pee!
Help!! :verdict:
When you have a number of male dogs together, if one has a housebreaking problem, they all will. I went through this with my first trio, Rudy, Max and Rusty (a small mongrel). One dog would have an accident, and then the other two would attempt to mark the accident. When the original dog returned, he would mark the mark. About the best we could do is be very, very vigilant about cleaning up the urine spots.
With a male and female (Zeke & Zora), I don't have the marking issues. The only accidents I've had have been when either one gets overly excited. Other than that, both have impeccable housebreaking habits. Zora, in particular, can hold her bladder for astounding periods of time. Both of them were crate trained during housebreaking, and I still crate them when we are out of the house (we seldom are gone for more than a few hours, and if we are gone longer, our neighbor lets them out).
In my experience, my original trio was not crate trained and had housebreaking problems, while our current duo is crate trained and have great housebreaking habits. That would lead me to believe that crate training is the way to go, but I don't know if it is too late to teach old dogs new tricks. I'd like to hear from others who've also had experience with both.
Sounds like more of a marking problem than a house breaking problem to me would be allot of work but belly bands for boys & diapers for girls plus the crates really are a huge help when you leave to go somewhere. Patches is 13 mos old,Gizmo is 14 years old when I leave Patches is crated Gizmo is diapered and depending on the temperature outside Buddy is either crated or left in the back yard. I have new wall to wall carpet intend for it to stay new.
Patches mom
Thanks, I think you all are right. It would mean two of them sleeping in crates, since once Merlin and Beau go to sleep at night, they never wake up. I could crate Guinness and Roscoe at night to start with, but Guinness will bark continuously in a crate, so I'll have to get him used to it during the day first.
Brand new carpeting - brave lady! :idiot:
My two boys started doing the same thing as David's trio. My advice is...... Belly Bands and a Swifter Wet Jet!
Swiffer wet jet does it work well I still have the kitchen & bathroom floors,bathroom very small was not sure how a Swiffer wet jet would do in corners.???
Papbouv
Thanks. I get birthday cards from the company who owns Swiffer, I am such a good customer!
This thread should also relate to my burst of song on the Dyson vaccuum animal post. If I had carpeting, I'd be having to pull it out at this point.
Belly bands - do they have diaper liners that you throw away or do you take the whole band and wash it? :scratch:
They do have liners available but I use....and shhhhhh....don't tell my boys.....sanitary napkins. Much less expensive and very absorbant.
Quote from: TerriL on February 26, 2007, 09:30:10 AM
They do have liners available but I use....and shhhhhh....don't tell my boys.....sanitary napkins. Much less expensive and very absorbant.
That is TOO FUNNY for words!
But did you not learn anything from the Jack Abramoff lobbyist scandal - never put anything in an e-mail. It will come back to haunt you! And when the boys find out, boy, will they be "pissed". (Of course they're wearing sanitary napkins because they're kind of "pissy" to begin with, but let's not go there!) :2funny: