New Chapter in ‘Care & Training’ Section

Why is my dog suddenly having accidents in the house?

If your ‘house trained’ greyhound suddenly starts having accidents in the house he’s doing it for a reason. We have to work out what that reason is in order to get him to stop.

The first thing we must do is take a sample of his urine to the vets to ensure he doesn’t have an infection. Collect the first one of the day because its stronger. If he has an infection the medication supplied by the vet should resolve it.

Once you’ve ruled out an infection, and your dog isn’t old or a middle aged female you need to revert back to what you did when he first arrived.
1. Let him out straight away after a meal or a chew.
2. Let him out each hour during the day unless he's asleep then let him out as soon as he wakes up.
3. As you are leading him to the door keep saying the word you use when you want him to do his toilet outside.
4. Every time he goes outside, whether in your garden or on a walk make a point of praising him.
5. When he goes inside the house make a point his pack leader isn't happy with him by 'growling' at him and taking him straight outside saying the word you use for toileting all the way to the door. When he comes back in praise him. When you are cleaning up what he's done show him, his pack leader isn't happy by growling all the time you are cleaning it up.

Monitor every accident.
Make a note of the time of day he did it, the day, what the weather was like outside, what was on the TV if it was on, had you just arrived back in from being out, did the post just arrive, did you have a visitor, were the children being overly playful or was there an argument, were you feeling unwell or anxious, and what was going on outside your house at the time. If you do this each time he has an ‘accident’ you will notice a common denominator that is triggering him to do it. Work this out and you will be half way to resolving the situation.

At the time of writing this we've had nearly 800 dogs arrive and stay in our house and our common denominators are:
1. One of the other dogs telling a new one off for being anxious.
2. When they get back from the vets they've not spent enough time in the garden before being allowed back in the house.
3. They haven't been let out straight after they've been fed or given a chew.
4. Its raining outside.
5. New people arriving at the house.
6. Not letting them straight out after we arrive back after being out.
7. One of us is ill or anxious about something.