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Puppy 15 weeks old and peeing on himself still?

2K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  carmspack 
#1 ·
Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to see what kind of thoughts and feedback I could get from this awesome forum about our little boy (15 week old long hair black shepherd) as he is just so different from our girl (3 year old long coat white shepherd girl) They are absolutely best friends already its so amazing to see.

The problem:

Our girl never pooped or peed in her kennel, EVER. We got seriously lucky, and we know it. She was too much of a 'princess' to soil the place she slept!

But our little boy, he doesn't care in the slightest and will pee and poop very happily in his crate and lay straight down in it without even yelping or crying to let us know!

We take him out every 2 hours on quite a regimented schedule, and this was working an absolute treat from when we picked him up (9 weeks) but I don't know what happened it all seemed to completely go out of whack in the last week (from when he was 14 weeks old) The one thing we can think of is that we are now leashing him when we take him out to pee or poop ( for the first 4 - 5 weeks he would find his own place to pee or poop immediately after letting him outside) and the reason for leashing was that he eventually started to NOT go anymore, and would instead bound around the yard going crazy and having fun instead.

Now, we can often now we can be standing out there for 15 - 20 minutes on the same spot, no play, no interactions and he just doesn't need to go. After putting him back in his crate, after about 30 or so minutes he will pee and then happily lay down in it.

I'm not sure what we are doing wrong, if anything. We excersize and play with him very regularly and we also allow the both both dogs to spend time together and play when he has peed and pooped.

We only crate him for blocks of time during the day as he is not quite potty trained yet, he is an absolute gem through the night, he can sleep soundly from midnight / 1:00am through to 9:00am - 10:00am without ANY pee or poop in the kennel.

Our breeder is absolutely awesome BUT she had a very large crate and trained him to pee / poop on newspaper on half of the crate and his bed was on the other half. We are thinking maybe there is something there, combined with our upped levels of restriction due to leashing and he is rebelling because of that ?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks so much!
 
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#2 ·
Make his sleeping area in the crate as small as possible. Consider getting another type crate and put it in another location to completely disrupt his routine and habits. I think this problem goes back to the way your breeder kept them in their crate, possibly way too long stretches at a time. Keep him tethered to you when he is not crated and take him out every hour (set a timer). The fact that he masters the night time routine is hopeful and you should be able to build on this. Keep us posted.
 
#3 ·
I had a lab puppy who was happy to soil himself. Didn't seem to bother him at all. My vet warned me that he would be extremely difficult to housebreak as he seemed to not have the inclination to avoid his own waste.

Every time he did it, I immediately scrubbed him and his crate. I did the usual potty training tricks, such as taking him out frequently and praising him when he went where he was supposed to go. Suddenly, probably when he was around a year old, he got it! I have no idea why or how, but I believe he grew to like the feeling of being clean and having the crate clean. It was a relief since I had resigned myself to spending the next 10+ years to scrubbing him and and his crate.

Stick with it, and hopefully he will eventually get it.
 
#4 ·
Thanks so much for the advice so far, I do think you are right, perhaps 2 hours is too long for a 15 week old pup ? The crate he has now is pretty small, if he stands up and stands lengthways he can JUST fit in it.

We have noticed that the last couple of days it appears as though hes concious of his pee finally.
He will pee in one corner then try to sit away from it in the furtherest corner at least for a short while anyway so thats something!

I sure hope he doesn't keep doing this until he's 1 haha!! Will keep posted!

Here are some picks of our furry family btw for reference!!
 

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#5 ·
Hang in there..our puppy never pooped (2 times when he was 8 week, first week at home, which is ok) but he did pee in the house and in his playpen (but never in his crate) until 18 weeks... then suddenly he stopped and never did anything in the house ever again(1 yo now)...he used to pee outside and when I bring him back in the house he was again dripping couple drops in the kitchen. I was so frustrated and covered the kitchen carpet area with plastic carpet protector...
 
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