My cockerpoo puppy is 6 months old now and, as far as I knew, fully housetrained. He's uses a cat flap to let himself outside and hasnt had an accident in the house since about 3 months old!
That is, until now!
My partner and I were watching a film, when the puppy went upstairs by himself (not uncommon, as he likes to belt around the house at night) and we thought nothing of it. But when I went up to the bathroom, I discovered he had pooed on our bed! Nevermind, I thought, accidents happen!
I cleaned up, stripped the sheets and put them in to wash.
A few minutes after having sat back down, I noticed puppy was not in the room and could hear him upstairs, so I went to investigate. He had wee'd on the bed this time. So this is not just an accident. Or a one off. Twice, in the space of quarter of an hour.
Don't know what could have brought this on. There's nothing different going on in our lives! It's just a normal day, a normal evening in. No abnormal foods, I checked the outside to make sure there was nothing scary looking in the yard (there's not) although it was raining, but he's been out in the rain before...
Any ideas folks??
Many thanks
Sarah

I think the phrase "housetrained as far as you knew is the key".   House trainer is an activity conducted by humans, puppies don't do it on their own :)
Left to his own devises he has been choosing to go outside and now he has chosen something different probably because it is a little colder out in that rain now.
You need to go back to basics, pop your coat on and take him out after every meal, nap or period of an hour or so and stay with him until he performs.  Introducing a command word as he performs followed by praise will assist this process as after a period of using the command just as he does it, you can start to use it as an encouragement.
I would also stop letting him running all around the house, both to aid this process and because running up and down stairs is not good for his developing joints.
I'm sure you already know it is pointless and cruel to chastise any accidents.

He does know he's supposed to go outside because when we are at my parents house, he will woof to go out. If it was just the one accident I'd say it was just an accident, it's just that it was twice... One after the other. Just strikes me as odd. Would he do this if he was worried, or feeling ignored? Possibly attention seeking...? I guess I'll just have to wait and see if it happens again?

I have 3 dogs that all refuse to go out if it rains -they have to be carried outside. (Interestingly it is mother, daughter and son, so all same family and I've heard of other people with dogs from the same line who are the same.) So it could be as simple as that he's decided he does not like to go out if it rains and as he has a choice, just doesn't do it. Housetraining does need to be taught. I had a puppy a few years ago where the back door was open all summer and he never went to toilet anywhere but outside. Then the weather turned cold and I had to shut the door and realised I had a puppy who didn't have any idea about house training at all, so I had to start from scratch.

Having said all of that, going on your bed isn't the average house training issues.  If I was you I'd keep the bedroom door shut so he can't get in there, before it becomes a habit.

Ditto Stooge, it is probably the weather that has caused the change a lot of dogs become sensitive about going out into the garden in the rain, the wet floor and the dark are not appealing at all to some, (can't say I blame them) I always used to take an umbrella and hold it over the more sensitive. :-)

> He does know he's supposed to go outside because when we are at my parents house, he will woof to go out.

I would not rely on him keeping that up as the winter sets in :)
You really need to stop him going up and down stairs willy nilly before he is fully grown anyway.

Not the first rainy day though... Plus it's not actually raining now, just damp. Plus he's a water lover!! He really is housetrained! The only difference is that I don't have to let him out myself. He knows where he has to go, and he knows that going in the house is naughty. He went all silly when I was cleaning up. "sorry mummy" springs to mind.

I think the best course of action is to make very sure it cannot happen again! At 6 mths he is only just housetrained and really can't yet be considered 100%, as you might with a dog of a year old or more.

The other thing to consider is that he might unwittingly develop a preference for eliminating on fabric such as bed linen etc.

I would not yet give him full run of the place, use baby gates and keep him nearby, not forever but just for a while longer. My own dog was almost perfect at 6 mths but not really totally reliable, there was an occasional lapse and he would poo in the kitchen of my friends house when we visited as he didn't understand that he needed to ask there, like he did at home.

But by 11 months he was utterly reliable and has been ever since.... Your chap is almost there and just needs your help a bit longer, not forever, it's tweaking, that's all. Also some breeds are slower to housetrain than others fromwhat I gather the smaller breeds especially.

> He really is housetrained!

As you wish :)

Thanks. He really has been utterly perfect since about two or three weeks after we got him at 8 weeks :)
I think it's just that it seemed so deliberate. I WILL POO ON YOUR BED. NOW I WILL WEE ON YOUR BED.
:/

Plus he's a water lover!!

:-D Strangely enough that doesn't seem to make much difference, I have a river close to the bottom of my garden and all our dogs love to swim in it, if I got the lead and said walkies in the rain not one would turn me down, but ask some of our dogs to go out in the garden for a pee when raining and they will look at me as if to say.........whoo, no chance!...... and very reluctantly go out. :-)

I know we've had rain previously, but maybe he just doesn't fancy wet feet today?

Plus side at least it is not cat pee, you'd probably have to throw your mattress afterwards, as suggested go back to making him go outside at 6 months he will be reaching the second fear stage roundabout now too, so that could also be an influence, hopefully it will stop tomorrow if you continue to make him go outside again, I know it is a pain to go back to basics, but it's the only way to re-iterate when they slip back like this.

> I think it's just that it seemed so deliberate. I WILL POO ON YOUR BED. NOW I WILL WEE ON YOUR BED.
>

Of course it was deliberate. 
It wasn't for naughtiness, spite, attention or any of these things, just because he does not know any reason why he shouldn't.  There really is no alternative to teaching him and leaving him to find his own way via a cat is not teaching him I am afraid and I cannot stress enough running up and down stairs in not recommended for dogs under a year old.

Personally I don't believe dogs contain enough abstract thought to try and 'attention seek' by pooing somewhere. I think it's more likely he's hitting an age where he's beginning to mark, which means the places he likes most. Some dogs do mark with their bums.

I would definately take him out from now on each time to really reinforce that you LOVE him going outside. He's still a baby afterall, I'm pretty surprised he's completely house-trained at 6 months as usually puppies learn a behaviour and it takes up to 6 months to 'proof' that behaviour. So I would take it back and start from there.

Another theory is stress; if there are fireworks, for example, he may be less inclined to take himself out, not to mention the fact that when dogs are stressed their bowels tend to empty. :)

p.s. He doesn't know what he's doing is 'naughty' in my honest opinion; dogs are opportunists, and really only know learned behaviours and manners, sometimes combined and (in the case of house training especially) based on natural instinct. They don't have the concept of being naughty deliberately. If a dog steals a sock, and you smile at him and give him fuss for it by chasing him and paying him attention, he'll do it again. That dog isn't being naughty, he has learnt that the behaviour is rewarded. Even a look can reward a behaviour you don't want, so just clean up without even talking to him and carry on as normal.

I don't think you get it. I taught him how to go. How to ask to go outside and not to go inside. THEN I taught him to use the cat flap. Just get past that part....

> I don't think you get it. I taught him how to go. How to ask to go outside and not to go inside. THEN I taught him to use the cat flap. Just get past that part....

As you wish :)

That's completely understandable; but often, puppies regress, right up to a year old. They learn a new behaviour, but can forget it if it isn't reinforced.

Think of it this way. If you taught him to high five you today, and did it for a week, and then just didn't do it with him for two months. Do you think he'd still do it on que like you ask? I doubt it, because the behaviour has been learnt but not proofed. Puppies learn a behaviour and then need it proofed for about six months before it's reliable; so unless you have gone out with him each time he's needed to go out and proofed his house training by rewarding it up until at LEAST six months, he will regress. No one's saying you didn't teach him, just that puppies need to have that learning continued over a time span so that they learn it forever.

> I don't think you get it. I taught him how to go. How to ask to go outside and not to go inside. THEN I taught him to use the cat flap. Just get past that part....

We're stuck on that part because of what you have written.   You have said yourself, he is housetrained, he knows to go outside... yet he has gone inside.  Twice.  That, to us, says that he is NOT fully housetrained, no matter how much you would like to think he is!  Nothing wrong with him not being, you've just got to back step a little bit with his training, that's all.  We all go through it with different training issues at some point, it's par for the course.

You say there was nothing scary outside, but if he is using the cat flap to go out then there may have been something scary earlier on, maybe some fireworks or similar going off that you didn't hear, in which case he could have decided that outside is too scary to go and gone inside.  Doing a poo then a wee so close together suggests to me he needed to go both but didn't want to go out for whatever reason.  It could be as simple as the weather or being as he's 6 months old, it could be the beginning of the teenage months - most puppies go through a period of forgetting their training, pushing their boundaries and so on (just like our teens).

As others have said, puppies do also regress without reinforcement - and if he's just using the cat flap now that's easily done.  And I say that as someone who raised my two pups with a dog flap, then moved to a house without - and immediately found myself with two 3yr olds needing a brush-up on their housetraining!

I have a 7 year old that won't go out in the rain, but she is house trained. I have to drag her outside on a lead jsut to make sure that she will go the toilet. On the other hand, take her near a stream, or a pond, and she is straight in. A lot of dogs just don't like the rain.

Your pup is starting to mature, he is not quite at the teenage phase but could very well be in the pre-adolescent phase where he will start to push the boundaries. You really do have to go back to basics. He will try it on until he knows that you will not tolerate this behaviour. I have had fully housetrained dogs that have peed on my bed in the past. The only way to stop them doing it was to shut the door so they couldn't get in.

I don't think it's much to do with housetraining.  My opinion is he is getting far too much freedom and, as owners of these breeds are now finding out, they are far too active and clever.  Sounds to me like he shouldn't be allowed to be zooming about the house.  My dogs (which are 'one' of your 2 breeds) are only allowed in the kitchen and livingroom.  They are all housetrained but still, upstairs is for us humans.
Could the fireworks have started round your area?  Somethings maybe spooked him from going outside if he usually does?  I know some kids have started here but my lot aren't too concerned. 

All comments are useful but think Wagammama is spot on. Your pup (he is still a pup) has probably popped up to your bedroom and though mmmm this smells of my family, I'll just pop my smells on here too. Remember smell is by far the most important sense for a dog and the way they identify each other and us.  Making himself at home in your bedroom is one way of him expressing his identification with you- in the way that is instinctive for him.

So, no malice, spite or dominance at play- he's simply trying to join in by saying in a canine way, I love this bed- he's marking it. However, quite naturally you have no use or desire for that aspect of his canine self- so you'll have to train around it.

You feel he is housetrained but he is not mentally mature by any means. At 6 months he'll be having a major male hormone surge, this will be making him experience new feelings and instinctive behaviours. Often instinctive behaviours easily override early and rather shaky puppy training. Note how your all your puppy obedience training flies out of the window at adolescence as he runs off in the park and refuses to come back.

So others here are right. he is not fully housetrained yet, because you cannot possibly have factored in all his behaviours. My advice, for now, stop him going upstairs and keep all your bedroom doors firmly shut. Limit where he can go until you've worked more on training to accomodate possible marking behaviour.

Nikita also makes valid point that other possible explanation with fireworks/rain/fear stage is he wanted to go but didn't wnat to go out alone. 6 months is still a baby.

I have a 6 year old bitch who is perfectly housetrained and has been for years except that if she gets upstairs she dumps in the office. It rarely happens as she isn't allowed upstairs but that has been the only solution because you can't constantly watch a dog that is out of your sight. I don't know what triggered her first 'accident' but she has decided that it is still fair game if she gets in there.

>Plus he's a water lover

Water lover does not equate to being happy to go out in the rain.

I have a breed bred to love water and mine is no exception.  Would spend all day, every day swimming if she could, regardless of houw cold it is (her coat forms icicles when she swims in the freezing cold river in winter.  However, she point blank refuses to go out in the garden for a wee if it's raining.  Show her a collar and lead and she'll happily go for a walk in a monsoon...but a quick trip down the garden for a wee?  No chance!  She has never peed in the house, though...because she's fully housetrained. 

> He knows where he has to go, and he knows that going in the house is naughty. He went all silly when I was cleaning up. "sorry mummy" springs to mind.

Dogs don't actually know wrong from right, but they do know "safe" and "not safe".... and his reaction to you most likely wasn't "sorry" but "Oh no, Mum's got that cross face on, I don't know what I've done, I'd better be nice to her so she won't tell me off."

Just a thought, have you ever told him off for having an accident indoors? It's usually said that you shouldn't let the puppy see you clearing up a mess, as your body language and dismay can be picked up by the puppy and cause issues; they may try to find places to go where you can't see them, places that to them feel "safe" - a bed for instance.

> It's usually said that you shouldn't let the puppy see you clearing up a mess, as your body language and dismay can be picked up by the puppy and cause issues; they may try to find places to go where you can't see them

Something else I've learnt today, thank you.

Think cracar may have hit on it, fireworks!! If he is used totakinghimselfout then you haveno idea if afirework popped off and frightened the living heck out of him, so he runs in and heads to somewhere secure and poops.Then you change bedding quite rightly disregarding it,he got caught short again and peed!!

Your bed could also just happen to be nice and comfy to pee on happens a lot in toy breeds they like something soft to go on. Had a collie bitch do this to me years ago before I got so involved with training, looking back it was sep anx combined with poor toileting and only ever my side of the bed. It's not personal just a dog, and he isn't sitting there plotting how to confuse you today.

Also agree that he's got too much free rein just yet for a puppy, and he is a puppy so he's still learning. He shouldn't really be running around the house entertaining himself too much he should be playing with you downstairs where you can keepan eye on him as play quite frequently brings on the need for the loo!!! 

It's just a hiccup prevent him from going upstairs unsupervised for a few weeks and I'm sure it will resolve.