need help

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dogcatmom02

Forums Regular
Hi! I am not sure what to do regarding Chandler. I have had 2 sheltie puppies in the past and had not training issues that I am having with Chandler.
He is almost 8 mons old and carpet I think he has the housebreaking down for the most part he starts having accidents again. He had several this weekend. He also is a chewer and chewed carpet two days ago. I am feeling like I am failing him. My other 2 dogs were not as bad at this age. He also does not get the concept of pooping and peeing on the same trip outside. We got him at 3 1/2 months old and I am wondering if this is part of the reason for the issues. I am also wondering if I need a trainer to come to my home. Any suggestions?
 
I got my pup at 4 month old and I don't think that has anything to do with the problems you are having. When I wrote for help the nice people here told me that this is the age when you can expect pups to regress in the their training. I never thought the regression would be over, but one day. . . it was. Hang in there.

I will say that Blithe also was a carpet chewer. He did eat the edges of some of my wall-to-wall, but mostly liked to throw back the large light weight area rugs that I had in order to get to the layer underneath that was between the rug and the carpet. I had to even take one rug up and no longer use it. It took ages for this problem to resolve itself. I did use lots of a Bitter Apple type of spray on the rugs, and made sure he was with me and closed off from the side of the house where the rugs were. I'm still not sure I can trust him. He seems to do better if it's not near dinner time. He just may be trying to tell me that he wants attention or that he's waiting for me to make a move to the kitchen.

Even though it seems hopeless now, it WILL get better, and so worth it!
 
dogcatmom02 said:
Hi! I am not sure what to do regarding Chandler. I have had 2 sheltie puppies in the past and had not training issues that I am having with Chandler.
He is almost 8 mons old and carpet I think he has the housebreaking down for the most part he starts having accidents again. He had several this weekend. He also is a chewer and chewed carpet two days ago. I am feeling like I am failing him. My other 2 dogs were not as bad at this age. He also does not get the concept of pooping and peeing on the same trip outside. We got him at 3 1/2 months old and I am wondering if this is part of the reason for the issues. I am also wondering if I need a trainer to come to my home. Any suggestions?
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I had trouble with my Dickens at about the same age. We got him at three months and he went the next five or so with no more than two or three accidents total in the house. Then he decided that the living room was an ideal place to do his Number Twos. I put it down to the fact that the living room in our house is almost never used, and he was thinking of it as not part of his actual living space; hence there was no problem soiling it, particularly when the weather was hot and he didn't feel like going outside.

I put an end to it by waiting patiently to catch him in the act, then gave him hell for it. Amazing, but of all the steps I took to try to break him of what he was doing, nothing worked like that one simple expedient, which took less than thirty seconds and subjected him to a very small amount of unpleasantry. We got back to normal right then and there, and haven't looked back.
 
We had issues with Honey around that age, increased by several moves as we got settled into a new home. We went back to some basics, she got banned from being out of my presence and loose in the house.

Although we didn't go all the way back to a crate, she did get a leash on her to keep her within 10 ft of me, and whenever we left the house we gated her into the kitchen. As she stopped having accidents we increased her area, in the end the only place she was banned from was our spare bedroom where we had tossed all the stuff we didn't want to bother sorting from the move. Like others had said, she recognized this as not being part of the general living area and started using it to do her business.

I also realized that at some point her bell had gotten lost and she had no way of letting me know she needed to go out. I gated the spare room so she couldn't get in there and put the bell on the gate, so she'd have an easy reminder to tell me she needed outside. Getting to that point took about four months, but I was going slowly with trusting her again. We kept her locked out of the spare room for around a year all told...
 
Really not unusual at that age - adolescents grrr. Both mine went backwards with their toileting when they hit adolescence, with Deska it was pooping on the carpet, Tully even managed to pee on my pillow! Some dogs have a harder time with adolescence than others - guess Chandler is one of them.

The good news is the problems don't last too long. As mentioned, go back to puppy basics for a while with the toileting until he can be relied on again. With the chewing, this is also common. While the adult teeth have come in they start moving into place at this age so he is probably still getting tooth pains. Always keep something handy to redirect him onto, maybe look at different soft toys that have a similar texture to the carpet (eg if it's plush he may want softness if it's sisal he may want the rougher texture) .

The more a dog struggles with adolescence the more he will respond to routine and structure. It gives a level of certainty in his life at a time he is experiencing all this physical change (a dog's brain actually changes and the hormones coming from the brain and other glands also change).

I recommend you try the NILIF (nothing in life is free) program. Implement a strict routine, make him work for everything - dogs actually enjoy this kind of structure, it's usually the humans who have problems. Have a search on Sheltie Forums for NILIF - it's been discussed a lot for adolescents. If you do an internet search on it make sure you avoid any of the ones that talk about alpha or asserting your leadership - those approaches tend to destroy a dog's confidence instead of building it up, which is what they need.

If you struggle with NILIF then by all means get a trainer, although I think you'll find they will introduce the same techniques. I think you would be better off going to a group class with an adolescent because it takes a lot more energy for them to learn to do things with all the distractions.
 
Also, a quick thought on getting him to take care of all his business in one trip...do you give him command words when he goes? Once he associates doing each with a specific word it's easier to encourage him to combine the two to one trip.
 
Everyone of my guys has become house-trained at different rates. Merlin was the fastest, but he is also the most sensible, confident of my three.

Sparrow is now 6 months and almost there, she has also taught herself how to use the cat flap, which is handy. Even so we do have accidents.

Try not to stress about it, it will come with time. The same with chewing, some dogs are worse than others. I've donated an old trainer to Sparrow to chew on because she is going through a real period of it at the moment.
 
Welcome to the teenager phase :lol: Most pups go through some sort of regression at that age. It is also the age that is turned into animal shelters. :(

Just hang in there it will get better :hugs

As others have said just go back to treating him like he is a young pup again.
 
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