Help! She pees before I can get her out the door!!

[sage63]

Hi...I'm new and desperate! I have a rescued Westie (she was a stray that no one claimed) that is approx 3 years old. She is the SWEETEST thing but has quite the potty training issue and also submissive pees all the time. If you try to take her outside to go, she squats and pees right there. I have tried to pick her up so that she cannot squat but now she just pees in the air in my arms!!! I cannot get her out the door to go pee without her peeing first. I was going to go buy a crate for her today and start trying to crate train her (I think she would like it because she likes small spaces) but I don't think that once I got her out of her crate to take her out, she'd make it outside without peeing first.

How do I overcome this bad habit. I know that this can be solved with retraining. I am determined to retrain her because otherwise she is an awesome dog. My husband and kids are getting tired of it though so I need to find a solution soon.

Any help will be greatly appreciated. (I'm not giving up on her. I think I now know why she was abandoned before and I'm not going to do that to her again.)

P.S. We don't have a fenced back yard so when I let her out I have to put her on a lead. She doesn't mind this but I cannot just open the door and let her run outside to "go". I have to stop at the door and put the hook on her collar. This also gives her an opportunity to squat down and pee first!!

Not an easy situation to solve.

[Taz_Zoee]

Hello and welcome to Pet Talk.

I only have one suggestion for you, but I'm sure others will have many more wonderful ideas for you to try.
My suggestion is to get a light weight leash and tuck it under her collar so you can quickly grab it to get her outside.
Or take her out on a more frequent basis, even if she doesn't have to go and walk around with her until she goes then PRAISE her a lot.
If anyone thinks my suggestions are not good, please say so. I'm not a dog expert. But I like to think I am sometimes.

[sage63]

That is a good idea because I cannot put the leash on her without her getting excited and peeing also! She loves to go walk and if she sees the leash come out, she takes a pee. It is not an easy situation to overcome because all avenues to get her outside lead to a pee!! Aaaaaaahhhh!

[Giselle]

A calm dog is a good dog. Unfortunately, not very many dogs are born calm. We have to teach it to them.

Your first line of attack is to teach her that the leash means "Be calm", not "OMG! We're going for a walk! I'm so excited! I have to pee!". Does your pup like human touch and massage? If so, just sit on the floor and start petting her in long, gentle strokes. As she relaxes, continue your massage to touch her paws, her head, her ears, her tail, etc. This way, she learns to tolerate handling and she will associate your touch with calmness. When she is sufficiently calm, keep one hand massaging her and use the other to clip the lead on her. Be nonchalant and calm yourself. Pretend it's no big deal. Unclip the lead and stop massaging. Repeat repeat repeat. Over time, your dog should relax more quickly. In the end, you should be able to touch her, clip her lead, and she'll associate those cues with being calm.

Once you are able to get her to be calm while putting the lead on, I have a feeling that actually taking her out will become much easier and less exciting, and she'll be less prone to peeing before you exit the door. If she doesn't generalize the behavior, however, I would suggest using puppy pee pads as a temporary training aid. Teach her to pee on the pads in the kitchen. Then, move the pads to the door. Then, move it outside. This way, your dog knows exactly where she needs to pee - on the pad.

[sage63]

Giselle, that is very helpful. I will try that. She has been very meek lately and I have been giving her extra calm attention. She is so sweet. She just needs to be reconditioned because she has her outside and inside duties reversed.

Thanks again for your helpful advice!

Sincerely,

sage

[catnapper]

First off, congrats for adopting a shelter dog! This little problem CAN go away, you just need 3 things:
Patience
Consistency
Timing

Patience is obvious, because this won't change overnight. you'll have little advances then she'll backslide for a bit. Keep doing things right, and she'll eventually learn where potty is to happen.

Consistency. Well, whatever course of action works, you must do the same thing the same way every day. That not only goes for you, but your husband and children as well. EVERYONE in the house needs to be consistent.

Timing is important on many levels. The obvious is what times you take her out. Putting a dog on both a feeding and potty schedule is the key to potty training. If you don't know when she last ate or drank, how are you to know when she'll need to potty? Timing also works in the manner of "how fast you react to her" In other words.... don't correct her if the pee is more than a few seconds old. Correct her right then and there. PRAISE her like she walked on water when she does it right.

By correction, I don't mean rub her nose in it to yell at her, correction means calmly letting her know potty goes outside. Even if she misses the outside, don't yell or get upset, just say "ooops, we do this outside sweety" and take her to where she needs to go. Take her despite having just done it inside. It just might work on her because you mentioned she's a bit meek. Over time, she'll understand that peeing happens outside. Will it happen tomorrow? Nope. but perhaps she'll be dependable a couple months from now.

Whatever you do, when she submissive pees, do NOT make any mention of it. If you make a big deal of submissive peeing while she pees, you'll only make the submissive peeing worse. Just simply clean it up once she calms down. Don't correct her or anything. Just clean it up.

[sage63]

Thanks Catnapper - good advice also! This is a really sweet dog..she sleeps at my feet at my desk. I don't know if she was abused before or is just a meek dog but she's always laying her ears back submissively and in some ways is almost human the way she looks at you and responds to things we say.

She has already gotten better in the last couple of days. I have started going out the door (nonchalantly) and shutting it behind me. Then I get the lead in my hand and open the door and let her come out the door to me and then I put the hook on her collar. This has worked with her only once peeing on the stoop as I put the hook on her collar!!!! (thank the Lord for small miracles!) I think the trick is to not let her get excited about getting to go out first. Then when she peed outside I praised her like none other!!

She was so stressed out before this that she got droopy tail syndrome. (I guess that is what caused it.) Today it looked like her tail was getting better though it still droops most of the time (so sad!!)

I appreciate all the great advice here. It is helping and it has encouraged me too as my family was getting so frustrated with cleaning up dog pee. We are all resolved to retrain her together - she is SOOO worth it!!

Thanks again!

Sage

[Karen]

So good to hear you are already making progress. Keep us updated, and when you can, we'd love to see her picture!