Dog still not potty trained at 4 !!

[workshy44]

We have had a golden retriever since she was a puppy. Trained for about two years and now pretty much every night for the last year she does a wee during the night or before we let her out in the morning. I am up VERY late so she is walked and taken out at 12.00 at the earliest for the last time
I am at the end of my tether, she looks sheepish in the morning but it still doesn't stop her, The house stinks. What can we do ? She is a pretty dumb dog generally but I thought she could have at least grasped this concept !!

Can we assume you've spoken to the vet about it to make sure there's not an underlying medical cause?

Yes - there is nothing there from a medical point of view. it seems she can't be bothered holding on, just goes anywhere when the urge takes her

Well if you can smell it then that’s probably your answer , unless there is something physically wrong with her , if she can smell where she’s been it will encourage her to go again in the same spot .

If she has a small bladder or something perhaps she needs a litter tray, like a cat would have only bigger?

Put a bit of her pee in it so she knows she’s allowed to go in there and reward her if she does. Restrict her access to the rest of the house overnight. You could train her to toilet on command. Just say the word over and over when she does the toilet on your walks and give her a food reward. She’ll soon get the message and then you can say ‘busy’ (that’s the word that guide dogs used to be trained to toilet at, but you can say whatever you want) she should pee. Then you can put her in the litter tray and command her to pee. Then she’ll hopefully go there as she thinks pee there and I get a treat. Reward good behaviour.

I know I can’t hold on overnight with my tiny bladder so I feel for her if she can’t help going! It hurts not to (for me anyway)!

Mine has needed to pee in the night and he knows I will get up to let him out. It doesn't happen often now but if he awake then he will sometimes ask.

I presume she doesn't sleep near you. I think I would be tempted maybe to get up in the night and take her out or use a baby monitor so you can hear her get up. Move her bed so she wakes you up when she gets up. I am thinking in the hope that this breaks the nightly pees inside and maybe instead she asks to go out or starts to sleep longer.

If there's nothing medical going on then something has gone wrong when you've been toilet training.

If you can smell wee in your house then that's going to be part of the problem. Animals go where they can smell that they've been before. You need to get a pet urine cleaner (Simple Solution is good) and use it on every inch of the house that the dog has been to the toilet. But I suspect by now the urine has soaked through into underlays or floorboards so you may never get rid of it completely.

If she's going through the night then you need to do what you do for puppies - figure out when it happens, set an alarm for about 15 minutes prior, get up and let her out. Mine is 2.5 and still asks to go out at night occasionally - but he sleeps in our room and asks to go. He's never, ever had a night time accident.

Is it possible she's experiencing any anxiety? Some dogs will toilet if they're scared or nervous. Is she happy on her own downstairs? Is something happening in the night to scare or disturb her?

How much wee is it?

My best guess would be some form of separation anxiety.

One of my more sensitive dogs did this for a while when she was younger. Turns out she hated sleeping downstairs without being able to hear us and now sleeps on the landing where she has a view of my bed from 8pm-9am with no accidents and never moves a muscle.

The change was instantaneous, she has never had an accident since I decided to try her upstairs.

She has no separation issues during the day at all, it must have been something to do with being worried sleeping at night without a human but it’s worth a try? I figured having a dog upstairs is less cleaning than cleaning up wee and the smell every morning.

How long is she expected to hold it for overnight?

Does she always wee in the same place? If yes, it's likely she sees and smells this place as a familiar place to go. If it's always the same place you need to eliminate the smell and possibly close the door to that area until you're certain it's gone (they have far more sensitive noses so when we think the smell has gone, they don't). I'd try this first as we had a very similar problem last year with our 3yr old dog. Always the same place (luckily nowhere near where she relaxed to sleep). We shut the door, put a lock on it (she's a big dog and can open doors!). She's never gone to the toilet inside since. Presuming you've eliminated any medical problems perhaps give that a go x

Is there a reason why she doesn't come and tell you through the night if she wants a wee? All of ours have done that.

My dog sleeps in a bed next to mine. On the rare occasion he needs the toilet in the night he wakes me. Could you try putting his bed next to yours to see if that makes a difference?

All 3 of our dogs sleep near us so we know if they become restless. If they get agitated, start nudging or complaining then we know they need to be out. A previous dog preferred to sleep downstairs but would come and wake us if she needed to be out.

Does your dog have access to you overnight op?