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stepdog question

sterlingsilver's picture

Submitted by sterlingsilver on Fri, 11/02/2012 - 10:13pm

Yes, you read right, my dh's pooch is very much like another step kid. I try to disengage but alas I ALWAYS get stuck with the feeding, watering, cleaning up messes, buzzing his hair and bathing him. He is a fixed shitzu and a very, very, very smelly little guy. Since moving into this house 6 months ago he has done fairly well being house trained but there is one thing he does and that is he will follow my dh into our bedroom and he always pees on the floor just inside our door. Today he peed so much is was about a 2 foot wide puddle and he walks all thru it and all over our room. DH cleaned it up but never does a good enough job so I had to redo it. Before cleaning it though I took the dog and made him smell it and then wacked his butt and put him outside. We crate trained him about 2 years ago b/c we were having problems then too but he was doing fine for awhile. He is one of the most stubborn, sppoiled, whiny, whimpery little dogs I have ever met. Other then all that he's not too bad. lol So my questions is, do any of you have any advise or experiense to share with me? I am at my wits end. First I had to train my ss15 how to behave like a human and now I have to train an animal how to behave in a human home. HELP! THANKS!

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Purplemom's picture

Submitted by Purplemom on Fri, 11/02/2012 - 10:31pm

He needs to be either in a crate or leashed to someones belt loop at all times. SHI's are just HARD that way.

Putting his nose in it or whacking him are just going to make the problem worse.... dogs don't associate things the same way we do... so if you called him to you, picked him up and then did those things he associated those actions with coming when you called him- not with peeing on the floor. Unless you catch him in the act, then take him outside and be his biggest cheerleader when he goes outside then he will just start hiding from you to pee- and worse, he may not even go outside when you are watching him because he will develop an aversion to eliminating in front of people.

Dogs are like kids stuck at 2 years old- any lapse in house training that is not due to illness are the fault of the people, not the dog.

If you google "sacramento canine placement assistance" our web page will come up- click on "behavior and training" and there are lots of great (free) handouts to help with this Smile