Zara's 5 month behavior issues.....

[andipanda 1]

Okay my fellow Dane owners....

Zara is 5 and a half months old. She behaves well in public, she greets strangers fairly well on leash, (as long as they don't come running at her) walks fairly well loose lead, sits and downs but hasn't gotten "stay" yet. She will "give five" and speak on command (but won't shut up as easily).

BUT.... we have two big issues

1. she is still peeing upstairs, on the carpet; and she refuses to go out the dog door to pee, waiting instead for someone to open the people door. She won't even follow the dalmatian out the dog door. My daughter and I have done the one of us outside and one of us inside, calling her outside (she easily comes back IN the dog door !) but if we don't let her out the people door, she pees /poops right inside the door !!!

We praise her like crazy for potties outside, but she even will pee on her outside beds and just squat where ever she likes !!! Winter is coming, and I can't leave her inside for even an hour or two if she is going to pee all over !!! I don't want to have to leave her outside when the temp drops -- I've still got a month or so !!!

2. She is still mouthing more than I'd like, and especially does it to my daughter -who is 16, and is home with her more during the day than I am. Zara's mouthing has become more than the little love bites that she gives me, she is trying to "hold" my daughter - to keep her in place so Zara can abuse her a bit more....

We are really doing a lot of NILIF -- she has to sit for dinner, breakfast and for pets, she has to sit and down for playtime. She has to wait before she jumps out of the car when we go to the park....

We are taking another obedience class, and I"m making Jess (daughter) do more of the in class training, so that Zara has to obey her. We've only had 2 out of 8 classes...so we shall see....

Ideas on the potty thing ? and am I expecting too much on the obedience ? or is she taking advantage of us ?

[kresge86]

Does she pee a lot? Does she have constant access to water?

We still had problems with Lola at that age. Although she seemed to "get it" she would still, at times, just choose to pee wherever she was. It turned out she had a UTI problem (innie vulva, that lended itself to UTIs), followed by a case of giardia. Argh. I thought I was going to go mad as she kept peeing on her doggie bed, our couch (while we were on it), etc. However, as soon as we treated the UTI and giardia, the accidents stopped.

Given Zara's issues with the doggie door, you may have an entirely different problem, but I thought I'd mention our experience just in case...

[jeann1230]

Hi, did Zara ever go out the doggi door before? Or never?

With 5 1/2 months old Zara is still a very young puppy. Most other breeds mature a lot faster, so you cannot really compare her to the Dalmatian you have. Zara will take 3 years to mature and the first of it is spend in puppy-hood and she is not even on the half mark of that.

I would do several things in your situation:
First I would check with my vet, if no physical problem underlies this behavior (peeing). Then if she is healthy, I would try to observe her, and see how often she has to go. Some pups have small bladders and have to go more often. When my boys were that age I took them out every two to three hours. And every time they woke up, or became excited playing.

I would take her out more that she needs to go. Take her in the yard on the leash (leave your other dog in the house) to a spot where you want her to pee. Stay there and keep telling her to go peepee, until she does and then have a big treat ready and make a big to do about it.

If you do this often enough she will love going pee on command. Then she understands what the word "pee" means. The next step is to teach her not to pee where she should not. If she sits down anywhere else and you catch her: Yell "no pee", grab her up and hurry her to her pee place and tell her pee and treat.

Don't let her pee or poop anywhere in the house. Steam clean the carpet upstairs and put something strong and good smelling to you on it.

You might have hurried her in the initial training a bit along, and whenever something does not work in training you have to return to the basics. I think that is great that you going to school with her, but don't overdue it and take your time. Sometimes peeing can be a sign of stress or protest. Most obedience training is not solid anyway until your girl is an adult.

For the mouthing check out that thread

http://www.dolforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35842

Hope this will get better for you

[Bev_K]

Can you get her to go through the dog door at all? Or just not on her own accord?

If you can get her through the door with coaxing, I would do THAT every time when you take her outside to potty. Every single time. So she learns that when she needs to potty, the whole process is to go through the door, outside and then potty.

Start back from square one and plan to hit this hard for the next couple weeks. Take her outside every couple of hours and make sure you are outside with her to praise her for going potty outside.

If you can't coax her through the door, it's unrealistic to expect her to suddenly go through on her own when she has to potty. If that is the case, I would put a leash on her, get some super tasty treats (hotdogs maybe) and devote some time to coaxing her through. Then, take her through the door every time to go outside to potty.

Best of luck!

Bev

[Devil Dog]

Andi....

We are both having the fun of a new pup and the problems that can come with them. Are we having fun yet??

My problem with Cha Cha was that she was trained to newspaper and thought that was where she was supposed to go, on the papers. Then Ron had the bright idea of putting the papers in the yard and she finally got the message.

We don't have a doggy door.. we are the doormen for her so can't help you there. I'm a believer in the spray bottle approach for the nipping/mouthing or any other bad behavior. Like chewing the door jams. I've only had to spray a couple of times and now just say to her...Excuse me, and point out the bottle. Works. Of course you have to have one handy.

Dee

[andipanda 1]

Dee --

Zara thinks she is a lab or a portugese water dog. She LOVES water in ANY form !!! The water bottle is a game to see if you can catch the water !!!!! She is a total nutball !!!

[kwhit]

Have you tried removing the plastic flap on the dog door until she understands to in and out? You can put the flap back on when she gets the idea. It worked with Chance when I used to use a dog door. He was scared of the noise the plastic flap made, and without it on the door, he used it all the time. Good luck!

[andipanda 1]

Karen,

I flip the flap up, and have it anchored so that she can see out and it won't touch her back...I think she just likes having a human door monitor...

[ls1grrrl]

1. she is still peeing upstairs, on the carpet; and she refuses to go out the dog door to pee, waiting instead for someone to open the people door.

To be honest, we see a lot of people with house training issues, who also have doggy doors. I think in most cases, people try to give their puppies too much freedom around the house way too early, based on a false sense of hope that having access to outside will cause the puppy to actually go outside to do its business.

Even if the pup is being rewarded for pottying outside, if she has any anxiety about using the doggy door (which I bet she does since she potties right in front of the door, but won't go out), then that fear may trump her desire to potty outside. I'd bet that coming back inside is rewarding or important enough to her that she can overcome her anxiety about using the door to come in, just not vice versa.

Are you offering treats to reward her for coming out the doggy door to you? As was suggested, maybe you can try taking the door off for a bit, then reintroduce it. I've also recommending to clients taking a bed sheet and draping it between chairs, holding it up and luring the dog under for a reward, then repeat, slowly lowering the sheet a bit each time until they can't see what's on the other side, but are comfortable walking through. We use this method sometimes with dogs who're scared of the agility chute.


In my household, a puppy that isn't reliable absolutely doesn't get unsupervised freedom in the house. That means they're being watched 100% of the time if they're loose in the house, or they're tethered to me so I know if they try to wander, or they're crated with a stuffed kong. It's in those split second moments when you look away that the pup wanders off and has an accident, and since using the bathroom is self-reinforcing, they're rewarding themselves for using the bathroom when you're not there to intercede and hustle them outside. Behaviors which are rewarded (especially those that are randomly rewarded) will be repeated, so unless you break the cycle by keeping her from pottying inside, then it will be very hard to teach her to go outside.

As others have suggested, take her outside frequently, on-leash, and take a really great treat. Once she goes, reward her with the treat, then let her off-leash to play and have a great time seeing that pottying outside is awesome! Then she can come inside and have some freedom too (not too much, but some). It's really important to instill in the puppy that outside is the best possible place to potty, otherwise once cold weather strikes, she may not be real eager to go out to potty even if she conquers the doggy door.

2. She is still mouthing more than I'd like

What types of exercises are you doing to teach her not to mouth on people, and to inhibit her bite? What types of responses is she getting when she is mouthy? She's beginning to develop more jaw strength, and she's probably teething ferociously now, so it's important that she's given extremely consistent guidance on what is and isn't acceptable with her mouth. If you can explain some of what you've been doing, then maybe I can suggest alternatives.

For dogs (and especially puppies) that are being mouthy or having behavior challenges, I recommend that you not only use NILIF, but up the ante by actually hand-feeding them their meals (assuming they're not being raw fed, though actually I've done this even with raw fed dogs, and just wash my hands thoroughly afterwards, or use pliers to hold RMBs). The pup should perform behaviors that you or your daughter request, earning their meal several pieces of kibble at a time. You can even use the kibble for training throughout the day rather than feeding it morning/evening. This way they actually work for every bite.

This method goes a long way with many pups because not only are they getting lots of training practice with positive reinforcement using something they'd be getting anyway, but they're also learning to be gentler with their mouths because they get lots of practice taking their rewards nicely.

[XcelDanes]

I had a male that would never use a dog door ever so we had to let him in and out which I do most of the time anyway as Casino cant fit through doggy door LOL
On the mouthing youve took it longer than me.Id use a spray bottle and they catch on fast to that.I had one decided to bark one week at handlers so she did the water bottle and to this day I can hang it where she sees it and will not bark.She does love to drink out of it though so it didnt ruin her from it.