My puppy urinates in his "bed"

[Pierre]

Hello everyone, first of all I am sorry if my english is not very good, but you helped me last year and you are my last hope...
Last year I was here because my english bulldog had some skin problems, unfortunatelly my little Alfred died last June - heart attack caused by the head this summer..... I am sure that you can imagine how sad I was...
But 2 1/2 weeks ago I decided to take a "petit brabançon" (+/- Belgian griffon) who was 8 weeks old. He is a really sweet little animal, but obviously is not yet house trained. That is not a problem as I know that it will take a while to reach that point, but when I am here (week end) I take him outside every hours , and give him a little cookie everytime, he understood the system very quickly, the problem is that when I am away ( I leave in the morning, come back home at lunch time, then back to work and I am back late afternoon) I had noticed that he used to urinate a bit in his "bed" which I found very strange because I had read that they normally never do it where they sleep... so just thaught it was a little accident.... but for the last 3 days he does urinate there... and he does "the rest" on the floor always at the same place.
Today at lunch time, I have decided to change everything: took off his "bed" and put a NEW one on the other side of the room, and put a newspaper with a bit of bleach on it (read it would attract him) where he used to do "number 2" ... when I came back he hadn't done anything on his new "bed" (good point!) but the newspaper was in pieces.

What should I do to prevent him from urinating where he sleeps????? please any advices????

Thank you already in advance , I let you know the following details....

Lots of love from Belgium

Pierre

[belle67]

What a cutie!

Since he isn't housetrained yet, is there any way that you can crate or gate him when you are not home? Having free run of the house while not housebroken could be confusing to him. By crating or gating him to a separate room (ie kitchen) he is less likely to have accidents as he might feel this is "his" area. Crating or gating also makes dogs feel more secure.
Sounds like the treats when he goes outside is working. Keep that up! Continue taking him out whenever you can and give lots of praise when he does go.
Hope this helps.

[micki76]

Originally posted by belle67
What a cutie!

Since he isn't housetrained yet, is there any way that you can crate or gate him when you are not home? Having free run of the house while not housebroken could be confusing to him. By crating or gating him to a separate room (ie kitchen) he is less likely to have accidents as he might feel this is "his" area. Crating or gating also makes dogs feel more secure.
Sounds like the treats when he goes outside is working. Keep that up! Continue taking him out whenever you can and give lots of praise when he does go.
Hope this helps.

It's also a lot safer for him and will help prevent any dangerous accidents, like cord chewing and heavy things falling on him when you're not there.

Crate training saved us from going insane when Chester was a puppy.

My question is does he actually sleep in the bed? He may not ever actually sleep in it, and just uses it as a "potty area".

And Jennifer's correct, dogs feel much safer if they are crated. It's like a little safe haven. A den sort of like they would have if they were still wild animals.

If you do crate, remember to buy on that allows for free movement, but not too much room as he'll just potty in one end and live in the other.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

[wolfsoul]

What a cute puppy!

I agree, crate training is the way to go. If he's in a small enclosed space, he will see it as his den and he wouldn't dare pee in his den.

By the way, you have very good english! Lut is a PT member from Belgium as well, and her english is very well done too. I bet she'd help you if you had any troubles.

good luck!

[carrie]

I think your pup is still developing control of his bladder and this will sort itself out in time - keep doing what you are doing with the house training and it will come right in the end. The fact that he only does a small amount in his bed before moving to another area suggests that he can't yet anticipate when he needs to go until the last second. His behaviour then is normal - move away from the bed.
The other main possibility is that he is toileting normally away from his bed and the small amount of urine in his bed is done when you arrive home through excitement. If you think this is most likely try ignoring the puppy when you get in until he is calm instead of greeting him straight away.

I am concerned that you are using bleach - this can cause damage to your puppy. It can burn his skin, irritate his eyes and lungs and cause internal damage if he eats it when chewing up the newspaper. Paper on its own is enough.

I am not an advocate of crates and don't think that it would help your pup if his problem is one of the reasons above.
When you are at home all day try to lengthen the time between toileting gradually. Try an extra 15 minutes at a time, this will help the pup practice holding on until he is outside.