Chapter 11

Sorting Out Humans’ Housetraining Challenges

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Making housetraining a family affair

Bullet Managing schedules, treats, and crate time

Bullet Working with dogs who are home alone or on the road

Bullet Addressing household changes

Bullet Housetraining a shelter or rescue dog

Some of the challenges a puppy or dog faces during housetraining are not of her making. Such challenges are generally those her humans pose. Perhaps different humans in her household have different ideas about housetraining. Perhaps the humans are putting her in her crate and expecting her to hold it for hours on end. Maybe they’re giving her too many treats or not cleaning up completely when she makes a mistake.

Maybe changes in her life or the lives of her people are causing her to hit a housetraining plateau — or worse, regress. Another challenge may occur when she joins her family on a road trip, even if she’s a housetraining ace. And all too often, dogs who come from rescue groups or animal shelters face special challenges as they attempt to master Housetraining 101. That’s not the fault of their temporary caregivers at the shelter or in foster care, but such dogs nevertheless experience challenges over which they have little or no control.

This chapter helps you deal with special circumstances that can beset the canine housetrainee and the human members of her pack.

Crafting a Family Housetraining Plan

In some ways, a person who lives alone finds housetraining much easier than people who live with other people do. If you live solo, you’re the only human who’s in charge of your dog’s care. Unless you hire help such as dog walkers and pet sitters, you don’t have to coordinate dog care tasks, including housetraining, with anyone else. The only person who can be inconsistent with housetraining is you — and you certainly won’t be inconsistent, will you?

But when other people reside in your household, things get more complicated. Living with other humans gives you a choice: to be the sole caregiver (not an option I recommend) or to get the other human pack members involved in the housetraining enterprise. Here are some ways to make sure the latter option works.

Dividing duties: A plan to relieve the primary caregiver

Former First Lady Michelle Obama said that she’s assuming primary responsibility for taking care of the First Puppy, a Portuguese Water Dog named Bo. She has just the right attitude: She realizes that then-10-year-old Malia and 7-year-old Sasha were too young to have full responsibility for taking care of their new Portuguese Water Dog, and she committed to taking on that responsibility herself. But if Mrs. Obama was on the road with her husband or on her own, she knew she could rely on someone in the office of the White House Usher (the household staff) to step in and take Bo to his potty. Most primary doggie caregivers aren’t so lucky.

Being a dog’s primary caregiver shouldn’t mean drawing a 24/7 housetraining detail — unless that’s what the caregiver really wants to do. But if you’re the primary caregiver, don’t think you can do it all. You’ll just end up with a boatload of resentment toward your nearest and dearest (read about my experience in the nearby sidebar). For the sake of family harmony, figure out ahead of time who will take Fifi out and when.

Getting the adults on the same page

Housetraining is next to impossible if one adult is trying to teach the pup to potty on newspaper and another wants that pup to do her business outside. Before you bring your four-legged friend home from the breeder, shelter, or rescue group, the adult members of the household need to agree on the following:

  • Whether the pooch will potty outside or inside
  • Which type of indoor potty your dog will use (if you all opt for the indoor option)
  • Who will clean the indoor potty or pick up the poop outdoors (and when that will happen)
  • Who will perform other dog care duties, such as feeding and training
  • Who will clean up accidents and when

Tip Here’s the best option for who-cleans-up-when: Whoever finds the accident also cleans up that accident. Unless the accident-finder is a child under the age of 6, no one in your household should be yelling, “Mom/Honey, the dog just had an accident!” and expect Mom to come running to clean up the errant puddle or pile. And although you shouldn’t expect the under-6ers to manage cleanup on their own, they should still help out when possible to discover that living with a dog involves much more than simply petting and playing with that dog.

Getting the kids on board

When President Obama and his family acquired their puppy, Bo, the president declared that everyone in the family, including daughters Malia and Sasha, would be taking turns walking the dog. He said exactly the right thing.

Remember All the members of the family who can care for the family pet need to do so, starting with housetraining. That’s why you need to make sure that every member of the family agrees to the family dog-care plan before that dog joins the family.

That said, I don’t think having children under the age of 6 assume the dog-walking share of family housetraining responsibilities is a good idea. A growing pup can be way too strong for an under-6er to handle — and even if the puppy is small, most kids in that age range simply aren’t ready for that sort of responsibility. Have kids that age help with other tasks, such as feeding, training, and accident cleanup — but always under adult supervision. My daughter helped her dad and me with cleanup duty when she was going into first grade and we were housetraining our Sheltie, Cory, and she came with me to Cory’s puppy kindergarten classes.

Tip Your kids may beg and plead for the new dog to sleep in the same rooms that they do. Resist such begging and pleading — at least for now — and have the dog sleep in your room. That way, you’ll be more likely to hear if the dog gets restless, whines, or otherwise indicates that she needs a middle-of-the-night potty break. After your canine companion becomes a housetraining ace, perhaps you can reconsider the dog’s sleeping assignment.

Warning Most experts say — and I totally agree — that you should never leave children age 6 or younger alone with a dog. If an adult can’t be there to supervise interactions between a child and a dog, confine the dog to a safe place, such as a crate.

Balancing Crate Time

After your dog becomes a housetraining ace, you can generally let her go in and out of the crate as she pleases. But during the housetraining process, you often need to close the door. You can misuse the crate in two ways when housetraining: using the crate too much and not using it enough.

With your dog safely in her crate-den, you can take your eyes off her, allowing you to leave the house, take a shower, pay the bills, or otherwise keep your household running. The crate time also helps the housetraining process along. By keeping your housetrainee in her crate when you can’t watch her, you tap into her desire to refrain from dirtying her domicile — and as she gets refraining practice, she develops the physical control she needs to become a housetraining graduate.

However, being in the crate can be cruel to a dog if you leave her in there for too long. If you’re away all day, you can’t leave your housetrainee in her crate the whole time and expect her to hold it. You need to find ways to give her some relief (I discuss some options in the next section).

So what’s the right balance of crate time? Chapters 6 and 7 provide some example housetraining schedules that account for time in the crate, potty breaks, and time to play or just hang out with the family.

Relieving the Home-Alone Dog

If you’re training your pooch to potty indoors and her potty is accessible to her at all times, you don’t need to make arrangements to relieve your home-alone dog. But if your dog is an outdoor housetrainee, you can’t expect her to hold her water or the other stuff while you’re away all day. Until you know that your four-legged friend is a housetraining ace (Chapter 8 helps you figure that out), you need to provide her with some daytime relief, literally. This section suggests some ways to do that.

Tip If none of the options for relieving your home-alone dog are available five days a week, maybe you can combine them: Work from home one or two days a week, go home for lunch one day or two days a week, ask a neighbor for help one or two days a week, or try some other combination.

Getting a pet-sitter or dog walker

If your dog hasn’t mastered basic bathroom manners yet, one way to help her do so is to hire a pet-sitter or dog walker who can come to your home one or more times per day and take your pooch out to potty. Dog owners who reside in major metropolitan areas or their surrounding suburbs can find plenty of qualified pet-sitters, dog walkers, or pet-sitting companies by logging on to an online classified website such as Craigslist (www.craigslist.org). Your local newspaper's classifieds or telephone book may also offer listings. Still another pet-sitting option may be to enlist the assistance of a dog-loving neighbor who’s home during the day.

Tip Can’t find help through the classifieds? Don’t have a dog-loving at-home neighbor? Visit the website of Pet Sitters International (www.petsit.com/locate) or the National Association of Professional Pet Sitters (www.petsitters.org), type in your zip code, and find an accredited pet-sitter or pet-sitting company in your area. Both of those sites also contain valuable information on how to choose a pet-sitter.

Bringing your dog to work

Many companies allow employees to bring their dogs to work with them; maybe yours is one. Check with the Human Resources department at your company and see whether your workplace has a pet policy that allows you to bring your puppy or dog-in-housetraining (some companies specify that housetraining must be completed before your canine companion can join you in the office). If you get the green light, bring your dog, some toys, a water dish, a leash, and a crate with you. You'll find that following your dog’s schedule in the office is just about as easy as it is at home.

Tip If you’re looking for a new job and want to find a dog-friendly workplace, visit Simply Hired at www.simplyhired.com. Depending on the type of job you’re looking for, you can turn on a “Dog-Friendly Companies” filter and find a place to work that lets you bring your four-legged friend with you.

Going home for lunch

If your workplace is close to your home and you have an hour or so for lunch, consider going home at lunchtime and taking your pooch out for a potty break. Eat lunch at your desk either before or after the trip.

Working from home

Maybe your job allows you to telecommute, at least temporarily. If you spend most of your workday in front of a computer and/or on the phone, see whether your company allows you to work from home, at least during your canine companion’s housetraining stage. Of course, if you’re self-employed and chained to a computer or phone (like I am), your only task is to add your dog’s housetraining schedule to your daily to-do list.

Creating a potty-proof home-alone area

If none of the preceding options are available at all, reconcile yourself to not having your puppy trained to potty exclusively outdoors — at least not right away. If you or someone else can’t spell her during the day, you need to give your puppy an indoor potty to use even though you’re training her to do her business outside. Here’s how this method works:

  • For when you’re going to be away for several hours: Create an indoor home-alone area for your puppy — preferably someplace that doesn’t have a carpet and is easy to clean. The kitchen, laundry room, or bathroom works well here. Cover the entire floor area with several layers of newspaper. Put the puppy’s crate and dishes at one end; leave the door to the crate open. Use baby gates or an exercise pen to enclose the entire area so your pup can’t venture beyond the room.
  • For when you’re home: If your puppy has pooped or peed on the papers, clean them up without comment when you arrive home. She hasn’t done anything wrong by eliminating on the papers, but you don’t want her to think that you want her to use the papers over the long term. Don’t lay down new papers. Anytime you’re home, remove the papers and follow the outdoor training instructions in Chapter 6.
  • For short trips out: If you need to head out on a quick errand or otherwise can’t watch your little darling, you don’t need to set up the home-alone area again — put her in her crate.

Eventually, when your puppy nears 6 months of age or so, you’ll be able to bypass the papers forevermore. You’ll know she’s ready to become a totally outdoor-trained dog when you repeatedly come home from work at night and find nothing on the papers.

Sticking to the Schedule

Most of the time, you’re probably very good about getting home at midday to give your puppy-in-housetraining a much-needed potty break, but perhaps you just plain forgot today. Or maybe you decided to meet friends after work at the local watering hole without stopping to think that your pooch needed to, well, let go of some water.

In such instances, you shouldn’t be surprised to find a little puddle or pile waiting for you when you get home, nor should you be angry at the individual who deposited that puddle or pile. You, not your puppy or dog, are the one who screwed up, because you didn’t stick to the potty schedule you established.

That schedule conditions your canine companion to eat, drink, poop, and pee at certain times, and it helps you anticipate when he needs to eliminate, thus preventing accidents. The schedule also helps him learn to hold his pee and poop until you get home to give him the potty break he’s come to expect. But if you don’t show, he’ll still need to go. He’ll pass his personal can’t-hold-it-anymore threshold and have no choice but to perform a doggie download.

And even when your dog is fully housetrained, you still need to take his needs into consideration when you make plans that don’t include him. The next time you want to take advantage of a local establishment’s Happy Hour on the way home from work, ask yourself whether you could refrain from doing your bathroom business for as long as you’re asking your dog to refrain from doing so. If the answer is no, then do yourself and your dog a favor: Go home and give him a chance to do his business.

Bottom line here: Whenever possible, stick with the schedule that you’ve created for your housetraining student. You and the student will both be glad you did.

Managing Snacks

I’m a firm believer in positive reinforcement training. The old ways of teaching dogs — choke collars, harsh leash corrections, or the alpha rolls that required humans to roll dogs onto their backs in order to impose some sort of discipline — are dangerous to humans, not to mention incredibly stressful to the dog. I’d much rather catch a dog doing something right and reward her when she does. Most dogs think the best reward is a tasty treat.

As I note in Chapters 6 and 7, rewarding your beginning housetrainee with a treat whenever she potties in the proper place is a great way to persuade her to continue pottying in that place. But that treat needs to be very small for two reasons: first, so she doesn’t put on too much weight and second, so that the treats don’t wreak havoc with her bathroom schedule. In other words, too many treats are likely to put on too many pounds and prompt too many trips to the potty — or even accidents if she can’t get to the potty in time. What size of treat is small enough? As tiny as you can make it.

Tip If, despite your efforts, your pooch is porking out by ingesting too many treats, reduce the sizes of the portions you serve her at mealtimes. Alternatively, check out the info on low-calorie treats in Chapter 4.

Messing Up the Cleanup

True story: Years before I began writing about dogs and their care, I had the pleasure of interviewing one of our nation’s best-known etiquette experts and observers of social goings-on. I arrived at her home and rang the doorbell, and the expert herself opened the door, graciously inviting me inside. As I stepped into her well-appointed foyer, one of her teeny-tiny dogs ran up to me and piddled on the floor in front of me. I offered to help clean up the resulting puddle, and she accepted the offer. While I broke open some paper towels, she went to get something to clean the floor with. Unfortunately, that something was club soda. And during our interview, the expert acknowledged with some embarrassment that her dog often peed on that spot. She couldn’t understand why.

But at least the expert knew that the puddle needed to be cleaned up right away. So often, dog owners forget to do that. Maybe you really meant to clean up the little puddle that your canine companion left on your carpet. But before you could get the pet stain cleaner, a telemarketer called, or your teenage daughter came home from school bemoaning how awful her school day was, or worst of all, your household toilet overflowed (that would be ironic, wouldn’t it?). Now, a few hours later, you see your four-legged friend performing an encore on the very same spot where he left the earlier puddle.

Why did the expert’s dog pee on the same spot time after time? And why would any dog want to pee in the same place she’d peed on earlier?

In the first instance, the expert wasn’t using the right cleaner. Club soda may appear to remove a pet stain, but it doesn’t remove the odor. The lingering scent was like a magnet to her dog, practically screaming, “Come pee again! Right here!” In the second instance, your failure to clean up at all had the same effect as the expert’s failure to use the right cleaner.

The lessons here are simple: Clean up your dog’s bathroom boo-boos as soon as possible after those boo-boos have occurred, and when you do, use a commercial cleaner designed specifically to remove pet stains and odor. Otherwise, you’re sabotaging your efforts to housetrain your dog and you’re setting her up to fail.

Anticipating Lapses Due to Household Changes

Dogs are social animals, and they don’t always respond well to changes in their pack. A change in your household — such as a romantic breakup, the death of a family member (human, canine, or feline), or the departure of a child for college — can wreak havoc with your dog’s bathroom manners.

Tip If you anticipate a change in your household or are undergoing one, act now to keep your pooch from pottying in the wrong place. Here are some ideas:

  • Limit access. If your dog is doing his business in the same indoor place every day, limit his access to that place. Close the door, block the spot with some chairs — do what you must to keep him from reaching that spot.
  • Keep up routines. As much as possible, maintain your dog’s regular routine. Feed, walk, and play with him at the same times every day.
  • Up the exercise. Trainers often say that a tired dog is a good dog, and they’re right. If your four-legged friend gets sufficient aerobic exercise, he’s more likely to sleep than leave his mark in the wrong spot.
  • Call the vet. If your dog continues to potty in forbidden areas despite your taking the preceding steps, he may be sick. Have your vet check him out for a urinary tract infection or other health problem.

Helping the Newly Adopted Housetrainee

If you’ve adopted an adolescent or adult dog from an animal shelter or rescue group, props to you! You’ve saved at least two lives: that of the homeless dog whom you’ve welcomed into your household and that of another homeless dog who will take her place at the shelter or rescue group — hopefully just before she finds her forever home, too.

Shelters and rescue organizations point out that many of the dogs they put up for adoption are already housetrained — and in many cases, that’s true. But in my experience, assuming that the dog you adopt is one of them is not a good idea. Even a dog who’s been a housetraining ace may regress as she negotiates the changes from being abandoned or surrendered to the shelter or rescue group, adjusts to the shelter or foster home, and then adjusts yet again when you adopt her.

Tip I strongly suggest that you assume that, at the very least, your newly adopted dog is going to need some housetraining help, if not start from square one on the path to understanding proper potty protocol. Here’s how to give your shelter or rescue dog that help:

  • Get her a den. Ideally, this den is a crate, but if your new family member doesn’t take to a crate — or if you’re going to have to be away all day — create a living area such as what I describe in Chapter 3.
  • Decide where her bathroom will be. If your adoptee is very small, consider training her to potty in a designated indoor bathroom area. Otherwise, plan on taking her outside to do her business. Either way, check out Chapter 3 for indoor and outdoor potty placement pointers.
  • Create a schedule. The adolescent or adult dog doesn’t need to potty nearly as often as a young puppy does, but she still needs a consistent schedule so that she can figure out how to regulate her potty urges. Until you’re able to see just how well housetrained she is, plan on taking her out first thing in the morning, last thing at night, immediately after being confined to her crate or living area, after naps, after playtime or a chewing session, and after each meal. Chapter 6 offers a sample housetraining schedule for an adult dog.

  • Supervise, supervise. Until you know how well your adoptee can regulate her bathroom behavior, she needs your close supervision at all times, except when she’s in her crate or living area. Keep a close eye on her when she’s not being confined. That way, you figure out what she’s likely to do before she deposits a puddle or pile, which can help you anticipate when she’s about to do the doo.

    Tip A good way to keep an eye on your dog as you go from room to room is to attach a leash and take her with you wherever you go in the house.

  • Take care with her diet. Find out what your dog ate during her stay at the foster home or shelter and get a week’s supply of the same food. You can keep feeding her the same food or gradually switch her over to a regimen that you prefer. If you opt to make a switch, do it gradually over several days. An abrupt switch can upset your adoptee’s stomach, which may result in diarrhea or other disruptions in housetraining.
  • Expect accidents. With the excitement and stress of adjusting to a new home, your new friend is bound to make a couple of bathroom mistakes. (This is especially likely if your dog has just been spayed or neutered.) If you’re lucky, you can catch her in the act, distract her, and hurry her to her potty spot. If you find an accident after the fact, just clean up calmly and completely and resolve to keep a closer eye on her next time.
  • Reward bathroom successes. Take your adoptee to the same potty spot for each and every pit stop until she gets the hang of housetraining — and every time she potties at the right spot, give her a very small treat and lots of loving praise.
  • Be patient. Some dogs take longer to figure out proper potty protocol than others. If your dog is over 6 months of age, a good rule of thumb is to consider your dog fully housetrained if she hasn’t had an accident for a month or so.
  • Watch for problems. If your adoptee is doing well with housetraining but suddenly regresses for more than a day or so — or if her output is clearly not normal for the same amount of time — she may be sick. The same may be true if her bathroom behavior suddenly changes. Either way, put in a call to your veterinarian and check out Chapter 10, which outlines a number of maladies that masquerade as housetraining lapses.

Hitting the Road with Your Housetraining Graduate

Some of the best times I’ve had with my dogs have been when I’ve traveled with them. I have especially fond memories of traveling with Allie from my home in Virginia to a very special place in Vermont called Camp Gone to the Dogs, where she and I bunked together at night and engaged in all kinds of activities during the day: hiking, swimming, lure coursing (a sport in which a dog chases a scented lure that’s attached to a string), freestyle (a relay race that requires the dog to retrieve a ball and jump over hoops), and even, at one unforgettable juncture, sheep herding (Allie was very interested in the sheep but hadn’t a clue as to what to do with them).

However, all the excitement of going to camp — plus the extra treats and change of food involved with traveling to a training camp — wreaked havoc on Allie’s digestion. About midway through each visit to camp, she and many of the other canine guests developed loose stools and some memorable flatulence. Although Allie never made a bathroom boo-boo during our stays at camp, we did make a lot of extra trips outdoors so she could potty, and scooping up all her poop was definitely more of a challenge than normally is the case.

Allie and I don’t do camp anymore, but we continue to travel together — mainly to visit my mother, who lives about 200 miles away from us. Here’s what I do to keep Allie’s bathroom behavior on an even keel when we hit the road:

  • Limit dietary changes. When Allie and I went to camp, I had to change her diet from raw food to canned because I couldn’t keep the raw food fresh at camp. Going to visit my mom, though, is a different story; I bring the same raw food that Allie eats at home. I pack it frozen and it defrosts on the trip, ready to serve when we arrive.

  • Step up bathroom breaks. The excitement of travel seems to make Allie want to go more often, and I accommodate that desire as best I can. She gets a potty break just before we leave, about two hours into the trip, and when we arrive at my mom’s.

    Tip If you’re staying at a pet-friendly hotel with your dog, give her extra pit stops until you see whether the new, temporary digs are affecting her behavior, bathroom or otherwise.

  • Pack extra poop bags. Chances are the places where you take your dog to potty won’t have poop bags at the ready, so bring your own.
  • Bring the comforts of home. In an unfamiliar place, your dog may appreciate the familiarity of her crate, particularly when you’re not with her. The crate also helps her control her bathroom urges. If your dog is trained to potty indoors, bring the indoor potty with you as well.
  • Pack some pumpkin. No one knows exactly why, but canned pumpkin (just plain — not sugar-heavy pumpkin pie filling) does wonders to regulate your dog’s pooping. Amazingly, the stuff balances out both diarrhea and constipation. For Allie, who weighs 70 pounds, I add about 4 ounces to each meal.
  • Bring along a pet stain cleaner. My late Sheltie, Cory — who otherwise was practically a housetraining genius — developed a bad habit of marking new territory, which proved embarrassing whenever we traveled to someone’s house. I carried a small bottle of pet stain cleaner with me when we ventured elsewhere, which helped restore my hosts’ good opinion of him and of me.