To Pee or not to Pee: What to do when your potty training regimen doesn’t work.

Potty-training basics.

A new pup can bring unprecedented happiness to your household. She can also bring long nights, pee stains, and unexpected stress. Getting potty training right early on will save you months of agony down the line.

Let’s review the basics. You’ll want to take your puppy out to use the bathroom right after waking up in the morning and before bed at night. You will need to monitor your pup very closely throughout the day to avoid accidents.

Figure out how often your puppy naturally needs to use the bathroom. If they need to pee roughly every 30 minutes, make sure you’re taking her out roughly every 20 to avoid accidents. After a little time has passed on this schedule, start testing the boundaries of this timeline and extend the time between potty breaks.

Small dogs are a particular problem as they have smaller bladders and higher metabolisms. This means, the frequency that they’ll have to use the restroom will go up. Monitor them carefully.

My dog keeps peeing in their crate when I’m away. What’s wrong?

You have a life and there will, of course, be times when you need to leave your dog unattended for stretches of time that exceed their normal bathroom limits. When this happens, you’ll want to be sure to put them in their crate or potty-proof room. Accidents will happen. But there are steps you can take to try to minimize them.

Keeping them in their crate during times they are likely to need to pee will help them learn impulse control. If they still go when they are in their bed, there’s a good chance you have left them in their crate for too long.

Keeping your pup in a crate will help them control their bladder and bowels while you are away because of the reasons already mentioned. However, if your dog is constantly peeing and/or pooping in their crate while you are away, there could be an easy reason why: The crate is too big.

If your pup can easily separate a space to sleep and a space to pee in the same crate, they will be less likely to understand that they should not use their crate as a bathroom. They will try very hard not to dirty their own sleeping area. But if they can pee in one corner of the crate without it dirtying their sleeping corner, she may not think she has done anything wrong.

Get a smaller crate, or, if you expect your pup to grow, and quickly, block off a portion of the crate so they have less space to distinguish bed from bathroom. This is a micro level issue that will become a macro level issue later on when you try to control your dog’s movements by using perimeter control devices like invisible  wireless dog fences.

My dog keeps peeing in the same corner of my house. Why?

Routine is important when it comes to potty-training. You know that your dog tends to pee and poop in the same area outside. The same might be true for the places in which your dog has “accidents” in your home. This isn’t a coincidence.

If your dog pees in a particular place in the house, then smells the urination hours, days, and weeks later, they might think it is an acceptable place to do their business. Even when you clean up their pee, faint notes may be left behind. Really get in there and make sure all scents are erased.

But I DO clean up their mess and it keeps happening.

You’d be a pretty poor pet owner if you weren’t conscious of doing a thorough cleaning of accidents. And you can clean thoroughly but still leave trace smells behind. This is because some cleaning agents do a better job of getting rid of troublesome smells than others.

Bonus, these types of cleaners are generally safer to use, both for you and your pup, and the environment.

I think something else might be to blame for my dog’s problem.

If your dog has been recently vaccinated, their immune system may be compromised. This could lead to a higher likelihood of your dog developing a UTI.

I can’t take it anymore. I need something I can do right now to help with my problem.

If you don’t have the luxury of letting your dog be an outside dog, you might still have an option. While not a perfect solution, you could look into using dog diapers for your dog if they are constantly creating messes.