NZ Baby Blog

What to do when your dog is toilet trained most of the time, but sometimes they’re not.

The dog in question is a sweet young male beagle called Finn. His owners say he’s mostly toilet trained, but that when he comes back from kennels he pees on furniture and the bed. He then might ask to go out as well. So what’s going on and how do you fix it?

What’s going on?

He’s likely marking because the house doesn’t smell enough (like him) for his liking, and so he’s reclaiming the furniture and the bed by peeing on them.

He could be having a bit of anxiety & exhaustion mixing in too if he’s wetting his own bed as well.

What to do about it

I’d take a two pronged approach. If he’s not rock solid on toilet training generally then you need to try and get him that way.

Train a “Go Toilet”  Command
It’s useful if you can give your dog a command (or at least a suggestion) and they understand that they should try to go to the toilet. This is good for putting them out at night, making them go to the toilet at a good place on a walk, making them go when on a long car trip, and before going somewhere scary like the vets.
The command I use is “toilet time” and this is how I train it.

1. Accompany your dog outside when they need to go to the toilet, taking clicker & treats.
2. Wait patiently.
3. When they go to the toilet click and treat them.
4. Repeat
5. Next time, say the word that you want to be your cue word - eg “toilet time” when they are doing it, click and treat.
6. Repeat for a few weeks as often as you can.

Part 2

When the dog next comes home from the kennels you want to empty their bladder before they come in the house, praise them for going toilet outside, and discourage them from going inside.

1. Take dog from car to lawn/backyard. Get him to go use the facilities and let him wander about doing the territory thing outside if he wants to
2. Put dog on lead and take inside
3. Take dog around all his favorite “haunts” in the house, let him sniff and reacquaint himself
4. If he sniffs and looks away then I’d click and treat
5. If he sniffs and moves away then big treat
6. If he tries to pee, grab him and take him outside
7. If he has a pee outside, or after a couple of minutes so your heart stops racing, come back in with dog on the lead and try again.
8. If you use a crate, consider putting him in the crate for that first evening, or only having him out if he’s on a lead.

When you’ve had a few successful goes at this, you can then try doing the same thing off the lead.