Mabel toilets in the house This is despite having access to the garden and having daily walks.
Mabel is a Cavapoo cross Wirehaired Dachshund, age two, and she’s adorable apart from…..
Pee and poo any time. Anywhere.
The locations vary as do the times of day.
She may do her business outside and a short while later do the same thing in the sitting room (or kitchen, or hall).
She does it when they are in. She does it when she left alone and they are out.
There is no consistency with who is in the house – it could be one person or the whole family which includes to young boys.
Interestingly Mabel stays in kennels a couple of days monthly. She doesn’t toilet in her kennel. Neither does she soil her crate at night at home.
A holistic approach
I asked a lot of questions. Instead of continuing to attack the problem head-on they need a holistic approach now.
For a start they should accompany Mabel outside as they would a puppy. They will reward her afterwards where they want her to go, on the grass.
I found that she is all alone during the day for over eight hours. Some days she messes indoors and some days she doesn’t.
Whether it has much to do with the problem, it has to be much too long for a dog to be left. Perhaps they can get a dog walker in at lunch time.
A chart
I suggested the lady kept a diary of everything that happened leading up to any toileting in the house. What may have been happening at the time and who was present, if anyone.
Could there be any common denominators?
One thing is for sure, it’s been happening all the two years of her life so it will be a habit.
I also questioned carefully their response to discovering pee or poo indoors.
Their reactions are varied. There is always something – even cleaning up whilst ‘tutting’ is attention. They are understandably generally frustrated. Their body language will convey displeasure. They may put her outside.
Because they go to it straight away, in a way she has controlled their behaviour. Could it even be that when they come back her pee and poo gets the attention and seems more important than she is?
When they come home or into the room to discover a mess or pee, I asked them to ignore it and pick it up a bit later. To casually come back to it with no interaction. To try to avoid all emotional impact.
So when the lady comes home with the boys, they should say hello to Mabel but ignore any mess. With as little excitement as possible they should let her straight outside – and go with her.
They will work on garden toileting by going out with her and rewarding her outside.
Diet
They can improve the quality of Mabel’s food. The more rubbish in the food, the more probable volume of output.
Being left alone for so long, she also likely needs more enrichment – more happening in her life. Her food is just left down for her to help herself. They will now scatter her food outside and get her to hunt or work for it in a Kong.
The way forward
So now they should always go out with her, not just let her out. They will take her back to puppyhood. They will make more effort and give her lots of attention for going in the garden but indoors, nothing.
They should keep doing all this for as long as necessary. At the same time remove as much opportunity as possible for her to go indoors. This means keeping her in the same room or restricted in a smaller area – even tied to them ‘umbilically’ perhaps.
The emphasis will now be special treats for going outside. Absolutely nothing for going indoors – not even displeasure.
They have done all they can to STOP her peeing and pooing in the house. Now they will do all they can to START her peeing and pooing only outside.
