Any advice welcome as we are tearing our hair out.
We adopted our dog 8 months ago. He is now 1yr and 4mths old. He was partially house trained when we got him but he had a few accidents. During the summer the back door was open all the time and he went in and out and it was all fine.
However...recently he has regressed and today we found pee against the sofa and in the kitchen.
- We adopted a cat a month ago. Understandably, our dog might be feeling funny about this. He did start peeing in the house more when cat arrived. We took him to the vet for a thorough check-up and there's nothing wrong physically. She prescribed him some 'calming' pills and he has one in his food each night.
- The big problem seems to be that he point blank REFUSES to pee when we take him outside and give the command. (He used to pee on this command.) Last night before bed I took him out and he sat looking at me, utterly refusing to pee. This morning I found a huge puddle in the kitchen.
- He used to be crated at night. Then we started leaving him to sleep in his bed in the living room. But then we started finding pees (this was before the cat arrived!) so we started using the crate again. However, he hates going into the crate at night and he would go and sit high up in the garden when he was let out for the last pee. When I'd get him back in he would dart about and try and go anywhere rather than his crate. BUT he doesn't ever pee in the crate which is why we were using it. Out of pity we decided to let him sleep in the kitchen instead, with the door closed. This has been far except for this morning when we found pee.
(Thank you if you've read this far!!)
- He doesn't 'ask' to go out. The back door is now closed as the cat can't go out yet. We have occasionally spotted him standing by the door and we praise him and let him out straight away but he doesn't whimper or bark. I was thinking about trying to train him to ring a bell BUT often he is outside for ages and then comes in and STILL pees somewhere.
- We're trying VERY hard not to get cross with him but it is HARD when he is pissing on our furniture and REFUSING to pee on command when outside.
Please please can anyone help???