my pom won't go outside for business!

[lexie]

my pom is 4-6 yrs old and a fixed male. when we got him he was either compleatly or mostly housetrained. now he goes all over the house. he knows it's wrong. we just have a huge house and it's hard to catch him in the act. it's always pee pee too. never poo. how can i get him all housebroken?

[wolf_Q]

How long have you had him? Have you taken him to the vet? Smokey pees all over my house too, and it's because he is very old and has health problems. It's possible that your dog has something wrong that makes him have to go all the time.

What do you do when you see him pee? Do you only do something when you catch him in the act? The reason he might be peeing in places where you can't catch him is because he's afraid. If you really discipline and scare him when he does it, he might think that "peeing is bad" but he still has to go....so he'll do it behind your back. He needs to know that peeing is not bad, he just needs to pee outside. When I was potty training Nebo, if I'd catch him in the act, I'd just loudly say "Outside!" and rush him outside to finish. If you don't catch them doing it, just ignore it and pretend it didn't happen.

If it checks out that his health is fine, you're going to have to go back and treat him like you are potty training a puppy. Keep him confined in a room or somewhere that you can watch him, and take him out frequently. Really praise him when he does his business outside.

Oh, and make sure you really clean up the places where he has peed already! He could be smelling his previous pee, and going there again. Smokey kept going on the same spot on our couch for months.