Hello All, hope you had a good Christmas

We are looking after a 6 year old West Highland Terrier for 6 months and have currently had him for 2 months.  The problem is, when he is left alone he cocks his leg and wees up the door.  He never does it when we are there.  Is there anything I can do to stop this?  He has been crated but simply cocks his leg against the cage.  He has plenty of walks and exercise although I don't think he's weeing but spraying.  I have 2 bitches who have been spayed and he has been 'done' as well.  Is there anything I can do to encourage him not to do this?  I have never owned a male dog before so am pretty clueless.

Thanks for any advice and happy new year!

Do you know if he's done this with his owners?   If this is a long-standing behaviour I would put his crate somewhere where he cannot do any damage and just put up with it for four months.   It could take that long to train him not to do it.  

I believe you can buy pads, like diapers, so that he cannot complete the act.  However, I doubt very much he would put up with wearing them and rip them off whilst he was in his crate.   Otherwise, you would need to set up a situation where you can catch him in the act, which would be pretty hard to do.

Have you thought about leaving him out of his crate in a confined (washable!) area, like the kitchen?  I would at least move his crate to an area which does not have his scent and see if that helps.

Finally, how long are you leaving him crated?  He may not be able to hold his wee for as long as you are expecting, even if your bitches do fine. 

Stacey

Thanks for the advice Stacey

He was being crated for up to 2 hours as all the dogs are excercised for 2 hours a day and go for short lead walks every 2 to 3 hours.  He isn't being crated now as husband doesn't agree with it but previous owners put him in a box rather than a crate but I don't know for what length of time.  I'm actually now beginning to think he hasn't been trained properly.  I think it's going to be a long 4 months.  When he first arrived he was so overweight he wheezed and couldn't even manage the stairs.  We have got him down to a better weight although he still needs to lose more and he can get up and down the stairs now without wheezing.  Ho hum!  Definately a long 4 months ahead.

It seems that small dogs, especially male are difficult to house train, especially once they start cocking thier legs.  We found it impossible to house train our Bichon, and in all his 17 years he was never fully house trained, he would have his particular places where he would cock his little leg :rolleyes:  I also looked after 3 dachsunds, all of which cocked thier legs everywhere even in their own home

Oh god!  At 6 years old as well I would assume that re-training is not going to be easy.  In fact the whole experience hasn't been easy.  Maud our Cocker is definately the top in the pecking order with our other dog Lily.  Lily seems quite happy with the arrangement although we do have to make sure she gets time to eat her dinner or treats as once Maud appears Lily basically offers everything to Maud.  However, little Westie boy isn't so subservient but not big enough to back it up so we have had scraps galore over the 2 months although he is learning that the girls rule in this place :D

We had this problem with our Westie but he was peeing on the beds and sofa!!!!
All we did was fully laminate the downstairs rooms, put baby gates up and stop him leaving us to go do it and kept him with us at all times so we could catch him at it. He also had run of the back garden with the door open when we were in the kitchen.
When we began catching him we would keep an empty coke bottle with tiny pebbles in and shake it at him when he lifted his leg. He soon decided he didn't like this thing shouting at him and stopped ding it.
Hpe you find a solution, you owe it to this dog to help him! He is under your care and you should be trying to help him out.
GM

Sounds like territory marking.  If he is only left alone for short spells I would drate him also . The time it would take you to retrain him the owners will be back.

Pam

Thanks for the advice.  I will certainly give the shaking of pebbles a go although I haven't caught him in action yet!  Don't mind handing him back once/if we manage to house train him or teach him not to spray as this may be a constant arrangement.  His owners live in a different country 6 months of the year and he's normally in kennels so we would like to keep him with us rather than kennel him (although if we don't solve the problem we won't be having him back)
Again, thanks for suggestions, we shall persevere.

Maudlily,

First, you have a good heart to take on this pudgy little troublemaker!  Sounds like his owners were killing him with kindness. Great that the little guy is on a health programme now.  

Little dogs can be housetrained just the same as big ones.  (Bichons are noted for being difficult to housetrain though, to the other poster's point.)  If he's been used to living in kennels for 6 months of the year then he is used to being able to cock his leg and pee through bars. :-) 

You said the owners keep him in a box .. not sure what you mean by a box.  However, if he did not wee in the box than perhaps the solution is to use a box rather than a crate.  He certainly should be able to hold his wee for two hours.

Stacey

Ah!  Didn't think about the fact that being in kennels would encourage his marking.  Good point.  Well, it's probably true that he's simply not trained enough.  The box I understand is a box that acts as a play pen albeit one he can't see out of without looking up I assume :(  I'm not that aware of his home living conditions as he belongs to a member of my husbands employees parents and she also is on holiday at the moment.  He's actually a lovely little lad who can now actually chase the squirrals in the park which is nice to see.  If we do succeed with his training and weight loss I will have to tactfully request his owners keep to the same regime

Thanks for all your help, I'll try to remember to update this post over the coming months and let you know how we're getting on.