House training a rescue dog

[krustykittens]

Hello everyone, we took on a one year old dog a couple of months ago. it was a private arrangement, the owner couldn't look after her and a mutual friend asked us if we would give the dog a home. The problem is, she hasn't been house trained and seems to go everywhere and anywhere. We have had her since August and while we are treating her like an eight week old puppy, it doesn't seem to make any difference! We are not seeing any improvement and if she does go outside it seems to be more luck and timing than anything else. Does anyone have any tips?

[BiteyShark]

When you say you are treating her like a puppy are you actually taking her out after every meal, every play, sleep, drink and frequently inbetween?

When she does go outside use a command so she starts to associate peeing with that and then you can signal outside when to go.

Praise like mad when she does pee outside so much that your neighbours will think you are crazy .

Also on walks praise again.

If she goes in the house can you do an 'ah ha' just to stop her and pick her up or usher out quickly to then praise outside?

Are you using enzyme cleaners to make sure the pee is really being cleaned as to not encourage her to go again.

Confine her abs you in a room for a while with you so that you can easily supervise and take her out at the first sign she needs to pee.

[79andnotout]

We're currently house training a rescue greyhound we just adopted. We are doing everything the poster above has suggested and he's learning quite quickly. Still some accidents but they're getting less frequent as he figures out what we're trying to get him to do.

[krustykittens]

Biteyshark Yes, we are doing all that bar the picking up. She came ot us fear aggressive and wouldn't let us touch her for some time but today I managed to pick her up and leg it for the garden without protest from her! Luckily, she is little. She used to pee an awful lot but it seems to be improving - the vet thinks she was constantly weeing from stress. She just doesn't seem to ever ask to go out and I am wondering if she will ever really get it? Is a year too old to effectively house train? I saw a Victoria Stillwell training video where she clipped a dog's lead to her owner so she always knew when the dog was about to go to the toilet and I am wondering if this will help her click? We think she was crated for long periods of time because she was licking up her pee every time she weed in the house when she first came to us.

[TheLittleBrownFox]

I have an 18 month old rescue who would happily go inside or out. 3 months in, an inside accident is very rare, so it's definitely possible. He goes 11 hours overnight (not my choice, he just doesn't get up very early in the mornings ) but in the daytime he's taken out morning, lunch, teatime and bedtime, every 4 hours or so.

[TheLittleBrownFox]

Will she wee on walks? Mine would more reliably wee on a walk, so we went for very short walks often through the day. Then as far as the garden was fine. Now we are working on not needing the lead (he used to just run back to the door). No sign of asking to go out though

[Fakeflowersaremynewnormal]

In this case I would want to talk to a behaviourist if you can possibly afford it. I think it's going to be quite hard to house train her now.

[Longfacenow]

I have only ever had rescues and was able go train a 4 year old street dog eventually. I went back to basics and got a behaviourist to advise me when the vet said a lot of it was anxiety related weeing.

[krustykittens]

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We have taken her to a behaviourist who has given us some training techniques for her more difficult problems but who also advised us to be as predictable and boring as possible so she could feel secure in every reaction we might have and in her routine in general. The vet does think her constant weeing is stress related but the good news is that the weekend was clean except for one small accident so perhaps the training is getting through and she is relaxing a bit more? I was hoping for a silver bullet, which is silly of me - you can't beat time and repetition. It doesn't help that she is a Bulldog and very stubborn!

[Longfacenow]

Brilliant news.

Keep at it. Consistency, predictability and repetition are key.