doggie door =/= housebroken ...

[wi girl]

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So the wonderful cocker spaniel I've adopted was "housebroken" to a doggie door. And, as I live in a condo, I don't have the option of installing one. I've spoken with my vet, and we're working on potential medical issues for her urinating in the house, but I'm just soliciting advice on ways to train a doggy-door broken dog to "complete" housebroken-ness (?). I'm pretty stressed about this, because I'll be at vet school all day, and won't be able to come home every three hours to take her out .... and I really would prefer to not clean up urine every afternoon I come home.

In my application to rescue, I specifically mentioned I needed a dog to be housebroken for roughly 8 hours .... and apparently she is when there is a doggy door.

Sorry for the ramble .... does anyone have an ideas/experience with this?

She is urinating right near the door, so I figure she knows she needs to go out, just hasn't learned to "hold it" for long enough yet .... but then again, I might just be reading good intentions into her actions ....

 

[pressmom]

Have you tried crate-training?

 

[wi girl]

The rescue tried it, and quickly gave up in favor of the door. She does hold it during the night as well. So I'd crate during the day then, when I'm gone, assumably?:

 

[bclover]

wi girl,

The only thing that I can think of is backing up and starting to work with her over the next two months as if she was a puppy. In other words, set up fairly frequent times to take her out and then slowly increase the time in between. (Praise, praise, praise her - of course!) If she is a quiet waiter at the door until she can't hold it anymore, (like one of my guys), you might try to teach her to ring a bell hung on the door knob. Probably the biggest challenge is you taking the time to re-train her. (Assuming you have the time to do it.) Also, using the crate during the day will likely help the situation. And, yes, you may eventually work up to/find that she is crated when you are gone.

Also, if you and your vet find she has no problems you may want to consider how much water she has access to and when.

A few years ago I had a very challenging young rescue, and after we confirmed that his problem was "likely psychosomatic" and not medical, I just had to really work with him. In his case, even crate training didn't work - at first.

I know that she is lucky to have you - and good luck with making her your vet school buddy!

 

[adOggy07]

do you have a sliding glass door that leads to a patio by any chance? you don't have to install one of those traditional type doggy doors where you put a hole in a door/glass/wall. I got the kind that you can just slip in between the sliding glass door and the wall and it works great with no installation involved! I don't know if that's an option for you... but just making a suggestion if you have a sliding glass door available.

how old is your new doggy?

 

[wi girl]

My new doggy is 7 years ... and while we are still in the "testing" phase, I can tentatively leave Leah (the problematic one) alone for about four hours without issue. I think I'm going to try doing four hours for a week, then increase it to five for a week, etc. And if there is any backsliding (i.e. at six hours a few days in she has an accident) then I'll just drop down to five again. She's fairly good about letting us know when she needs to go out (other than the fact that we're still learning what each of her whines mean) I'm more concerned about when I'm not home.

I would love the sliding door idea, but I live on the ground floor of a condo, so I do have a patio, but I can't put up a fence ... which means no dogs outside without me 🙁 Great idea though ....

Thanks for all the help so far everyone! And I've heard back, and Leah has tested positive for early renal disease (low albumin, high protein in urine -- unless I flipped that, its pretty early in the morning for me) so that may be some of the inside urination issues -- lots of water intake. However, we're sticking her on a new med to see if we can regulate the loss of protein into her urine. Yea for using your own dogs as learning devises! 🙂 (My positive outlook on things)

 

[nyanko]

do you have a sliding glass door that leads to a patio by any chance? you don't have to install one of those traditional type doggy doors where you put a hole in a door/glass/wall. I got the kind that you can just slip in between the sliding glass door and the wall and it works great with no installation involved! I don't know if that's an option for you... but just making a suggestion if you have a sliding glass door available.

How's the insulation on those things? I live in a rental with a sliding glass door leading out into a fenced yard and would love for my dog to be able to let himself out there when he wants to go. More information please! 🙂

 

[adOggy07]

How's the insulation on those things? I live in a rental with a sliding glass door leading out into a fenced yard and would love for my dog to be able to let himself out there when he wants to go. More information please! 🙂

The insulation is not the greatest, but there are things you can do to make it better, although it will never be the same as closing the sliding door completely.

You can buy insulation padding from a store like The Home Depot and place it on the sides of the sliding door glass so that there are less holes and cracks between the sliding glass door and the doggy door set up. That really helps! Since the doggy door is not a complete seal and dogs are always going in and out, that makes the temperature of the room that the doggy door is in, more cold (or more hot) than other rooms depending on the weather outside.

For me, it didn't really bother me because there are always other things I can do to control the climate inside a room (fans, heaters, fireplace, more/less layers of clothing). And as long as the climate outside is not extreme, it's not that much of a difference.

It may be a problem for people who own cats, since those sly creatures can easily figure out the doggy door works just as well for them as dogs.

Another note. You're supposed to screw in the top of the doggy door to the top of edge of the sliding glass door.... and also install the lock portion. To avoid putting holes anywhere, I simply bought a long wood stick (also from Home Depot) and cut it to fit the size of the space on the ground between the sliding glass door and the adjacent wall so that the sliding glass door could not be opened if the wood stick was there. Just a security thing so that I didn't have to install the lock. The sliding glass door itself is pretty sturdy, so there really is no need to put in the screws.

I bought my sliding glass door from Petsmart for about $180 and I love it! The best part is that I can take it with me everywhere I move and use it over and over again anywhere as long as it has a sliding glass door and fenced type area. 🙂

 

[VeganChick]

I have the same situation. I adopted a 4-year old Min Pin from a local shelter who assured me he was housebroken. I am assuming that the folks who gave him up just put that on their app or had lots of time to walk him, because he is in no way, shape or form housebroken. He pees and poos all over the house. Last semester, I was NEVER home, so I didn't even have the chance to try.

Anyway, lucky for me, Hershey is both quite smart and extremely food-motivated. So, currently, every time I take him out and he goes, I praise and praise him and give him a piece of kibble. Not sure if it is working yet, but he is doing a little better. So we'll see... but you might try it yourself.