please help i have a 6yr old male who needs toilet training again.  he was 1 when i got him and had lived out . he toilet trained pretty well and ive had the odd accident now and then which i dont mind. but its got more frequent over the past year or so and i could cry as i think that my house will smell were in the process of revamping the whole house, and it is going to be ruined my husbandhas had enough of him being dirty.  its not just through the night he will wee or poo if hes just been in the garden 20 mins before  and the door is open.  he was weeing on clouthes in the bedrooms that have been washed and in a pile on the floor . weve stopped  them from going upstairs and made sure theyer downstairs with us at all times . we have the door open or let them out for regular toilet breaks but he still does it. you can show him what hes done and he just waggs his tail and doesnt care. my bitch also can be messy but its usually in her bed that she wees. and chews her bed up. but she doesnt do it half as often as my dog does.  please help i just dont know what to do i love them so much but it makes me so mad i feel that its just lazyness

>we have the door open or let them out for regular toilet breaks

Have you ever done anything else to actually train him.  It doesn't sound like he has ever really learned it was just that for a while he was choosing to go outside but at the moment for some reason, maybe the cold weather, he is choosing not to bother.  You really need to start training him from scratch which would involve keeping the door shut and putting him out a very regular intervals, after every meal, every nap and, at this age, about every 2 hours that he is awake.  You must go with him, keep a coat and brolley handy :)  It really helps if you use a command word.  Just as he goes use the word followed by praise, after a couple of weeks you can try saying the word as he looks about for a spot but if he doesn't respond by getting on with it immediately scratch that and go back to giving it as he does it for another week and try again.  Eventually you will be able to use that word as you send him out on his own but it does take patience and I think it is much harder with an older dog.  Meantime you need to clean over everywhere he has toileted in the house with a biological washing powder solution this removes any trace of ammonia smell from his wee that will encourage him to do it again and do not use any cleaning products that contain ammonia as this has the opposite effect.

I agree that it's not a matter of leaving doors open, you will need to go back to basics and "re-train" (oh joy! :P).

I taught my girl to "go" on command, she doesn t always do it if there's nothing there, but it's so useful for those moments when you are say, on holiday with them.

Basically you can go with them outside and give them a tasty titbit when they perform, also add a cue such as "be quick" or whatever you want. Always be upbeat and cheeful.
Hate to say it, but if both your dogs are not housetrained it may be due to initial "bad" housetraining (no offence meant :P).

Another tack to take is, are they having any problems healthwise, as toileting inappropriately can have many, many reasons, some are:

medical conditions, age related problems, enviromnental change, incomplete housetraining and faulty learning, breed type, inadequate management, substrate preference, anxiety, congenital or anatomical malformation, endocrine problems, neurological abnormalities, viruses, allergies, actitivy levels and changes in gastro intestinal mobility...phew!

So any doubts and i'd suggest a thorough medical make over and maybe a behaviourist to support and guide you through - good luck!

Lindsay
x

If I understant this correctly, he WAS house trained, and now he isn't?

I wonder if it's a little bit more than simply housetraining, and more behaviour related - he may be unsettled if you're having work done in the house.  How are you cleaning up after his accidents?  Is it causing friction between the rest of the family?

PS - might be worth getting him checked by the vet to rule out a urinary infection.....

thanks for replys my dog will actually wee on command ill say have a wee we in the garden and hell do it i can then tell himm again and hell do it. he will do this 3 times if told to so he does understand the command its just when im not there. his breed is a choc labrador and actually very intelligent.  it isnt causing friction with the family but they are getting fed up as so am i ,  he just seems to be ignorant and doesnt seem to care when i show him what hes done so i put him outside on his own fir a while as ive been told to ignore a dog for doing wrong and to keep him from the pack i let him in but dont talk or fuss him for 5 mins. it did cross my mind about medical problems but he can hold himself some nights and hes healthy in every other way

>he just seems to be ignorant and doesnt seem to care when i show him what hes done so i put him outside on his own fir a while as ive been told to ignore a dog for doing wrong

I don't suppose he does care very much, to be honest! And dog memories being what they are he won't have a clue why he's outside on his own. Ignoring bad behaviour is a very sound principle but this isn't the sort of behaviour that ignoring will do much to correct.

I've successfully retrained a 6 year old dog and I simply went back to basics and treated him like I would a puppy with regular and accompanied trips out to the garden and lots of praise when he went on command. He was never put out into the garden alone to have a wee or a poo and I didn't give him the run of the house when I couldn't keep an eye on him and when I was keeping an eye on him it was a close eye! It's a time consuming process and there are no short cuts until your dog is 100% reliable in the house but some aspects of training a dog this age are easier because they can hold on for longer than pups and have grown out of that over-excited stage which makes them into little widdling machines.

>i put him outside on his own fir a while

Are you putting him outside the instant he's misbehaved? Otherwise he won't have a clue why he's beeen banished which will only unsettle him.

Try an experiment. When he's out of the room, tear up some paper and throw it on the floor (or spill some water). When he comes in, point to the mess and ask "What's this?" in the tone of voice you use when you "show him what he's done". I'm willing to bet he 'looks guilty' - even though he's done nothing wrong!

Sorry, but I know some dogs will look guilty, but years ago I had 3 dogs living together. Only 1 of them was naughty when I went out, he couldn't resist as soon as my back was turned. When I came back in I could say 'who did that, you naughty boy' & the culprits mum would look at me & wag her tail as if to say 'It wasn't me, it was him!! The 1 who had done the deed always looked extremely guilty. I know what you are going to say though, 'how did you know which dog had done it if you weren't there'? I did know though, but my point is they didn't all look guilty, only the 1 who had done it. A dog physcologist tried to tell me it could have been the dogs Mother all along, & that she was trying to get her son in trouble. Now that did take some believing!!