Frustrating......

[smallscreamy]

I wonder if anyone can help me out. We are having another problem with Willow's house training again. She is now 14 months old and we really thought all the problems with that were solved. She does not go to the loo in her crate and will quite happily tell us when she needs to go outside if we are in the living room/kitchen etc. If we leave her in the kitchen when we go out (this is still quite new to her) she still waits till we get home to go. When we are home, she will normally tell us when she wants to go out by either coming to get us or by barking in the kitchen.

The problem is if we leave her in the kitchen for any reason and we are in - she won't wait and just pees on the floor. I am a little baffled as to why she is doing it. I can't understand why she just doesn't bark by the back door if she is left alone in the kitchen and we are in. She will bark in the kitchen if we are in the living room and the kitchen door is open so I don't understand why she won't if the door is closed over. Our kitchen is off our living room and we have a stable type door that she usually looks over by standing on her hind legs! I am guessing she must be able to tell the difference as to whether we are upstairs or when we are out because she doesn't pee if we are not in the house. If we leave her in the kitchen and leave the back door open, she takes herself outside, so she knows she is meant to go outside and not in the house.

Please help as this is sssoooooooooo frustrating!

[jesterjenn]

What is your reaction to her when she pees in the kitchen?

Do you think it's an attention thing?

[smallscreamy]

We just mop the floor and don't make an issue out of it. We just can't understand why she only does it when we have put her in the kitchen with the lower part of the door shut and we are in and no other time. I have put this up on another forum and I was asked why I put Willow in the kitchen in the first place. I have young children and I trust Willow but you do hear such horror stories of dog attacks so it's just not worth the risk. There are times when you need to be somewhere else in the house eg the loo or getting washing!! Also Willow steals anything that is not nailed down - socks, washing, remote controls, phones, cuddly toys, paper etc! She just can't help herself in spite of having loads of toys!

[jesterjenn]

Not sure why she's doing it to be honest

When you put her in there, could you maybe give her a bone to gnaw on, or a filled kong/treat ball to give her something else to concentrate on?

[smallscreamy]

I do if Willow is going to be in there for a while but she is doing this even if she has only been in there for even 5 minutes

[Jude]

Ihad a rottweiler who used to do a similar thing. She was always clean and dry at night and during the day if she was left when we went out but if for any reason she was put in the kitchen when we had dog-waryvisitors or if the children had friends round she would pee on the floor. I always shut her in when we had vising children as although she was absolutely fine with mine she used to get very excited if there were other children running round and I could never be sure that she wouldn't take hold of one in play - with all the bad publicity surrounding rotts twenty years ago I could not take the chance that a child would tell its parents that my dog bit it, even in play. We always assumed that the peeing on the floor in this situation was her way of letting me know that she did not think much of being shut in.

[zetstaff]

Tilly would do this, pee + even poo, but all of a sudden she stopped

Don't know why, it's as if she grew up overnight

They get there one day, *shrugs*