New Dog (new to us) and house training problems...

[chantald]

We got a rescue'd dog last week, an adorable beagle/cocker mix who is about 1 year old. She is sweet, loving and already a member of the family.

I just need some advice on how to proceed..She is house trained and I take her out to go to the bathroom every hour or so. When she first came home to us (from a foster placement), she would bark at the door to let us know she needed to go out and immediately bathroom. She is always on leash outside.. Now she doesn't seem to be giving any cues if I happen to wait too long to take her out.. she just tries to head upstairs... Her foster family (the director for this area) didn't mention any problems with house training..accidents...etc..

The last two days, if she happens to get to our second floor (fully carpeted) she will pee and poo on the rug.. even if we have recently gone out to the yard.. This am she was out twice, pee'd and had a stool (twice) and got upstairs without me knowing.. and I go upstairs and she has pee'd in the kids' room and also pooped.. She had pooped there last night too.. and our in our room..

I don't even comment when I see this.. I just clean it up, spray Bac Out on the area and that's that..

Aside from forbidding her access to the upstairs.. is there anything else I can do to help stop this? She is crate trained, and we do crate her when we are out of the house and she cannot come with us.. She doesn't seem to have these.. accidents.. downstairs on the wood floors.. although I had to remove the door rug because she did pee on that a few days ago..

Thoughts? Suggestions? Giving her up is NOT an option..

[Ola_]

Keep her on a leash inside also and attach the other end to you (belt loops work well for this). A nice light nylon leash is good for this, although I don't like them in general. This way you can make sure she doesn't make mistakes and it doesn't become a habit. We did something similar with our dogs but without the leash and we just watched them the whole time - that's hard to do if you have things you are doing in the meantime. Crating is also a good idea when you're doing something and can't watch her.

Also, keep in mind that if she doesn't go upstairs much she probably doesn't view it as part of her "living space" so it may as well be outside in her mind. One of our dogs ran into this issue - he would pee every time he went into one of our less-used bedrooms. Make sure you are cleaning the spots with an enzymatic cleaner and, once clean, feed her some dry food or treats on the floor there. Hanging out up there (supervised of course) would also help, but if you don't have time for that just feed her some treats off the floor a few times a day.

She'll get it eventually, it's just a matter of consistency and giving it some time. Hang in there!