# Hopefully this isn't unique behavior...



## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

Hi everyone, nice to be on board here.

I have a 7-month old named Bond. He was born in Russia and my new girlfriend brought him over here a month ago. She's mostly Russian-speaking and I'm mostly English-speaking. Little Bond has done well the past few weeks, picking up a handful of English (No, treats, adventures, etc).

And while he was fairly well-settled into his Russian life, he's gone through a lot of changes that have yielded some turmoil. I'm hoping for some of your sage wisdom and advice!

In Russia, he stayed indoors all the time. He left his home at 3 months and then left his Russian apartment just once until he came here. He did his business on 'puppy pads' and was pretty much ready to do it right when the GF got him. Not many 'accidents', and a very simple life. A little playing, a visitor or two, but mostly just quiet companion life.

Since leaving home, he went to 'grandma's' house for a few days (with two other dogs, the first he'd met), then he had a long plane trip (14 hours door-to-door) to the UK, went to my apartment for a few days, then his 'aunt's' house for a few days, and then back here. That's a lot of changing the scenery for a young pup!

The whole time in the UK, he's really struggled to pee/poop on the pads. The majority of the time he does, but there's a 'mistake' every single day. He goes on a walk or to the park almost daily now, and he very rarely p/p outside. His word for p/p on the pad is not usually taken - he really doesn't like doing it when we can see. An hour ago, we were in the kitchen and although we had just tried to get him to go on the pad, he went around the corner and peed on the floor.

Generally:
- he doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference between the pads and the carpeting. He's peed on about 30% of the carpeting at this point.
- he likes pooping overnight, whereas it used to be after meals.
- sometimes we find his very small poops in the deep pile rug.
- we've seen him run away from the pad with a 'hanger' that will drop somewhere else in the house - he doesn't seem to understand about finishing on the pad
- he's pooped on a pillow that he sleeps on, which I understood they never do
- for the first few weeks together, he didn't understand at all when I was upset with him - now he does, and when I find poop around the house, he understands immediately and walks himself to his crate (where we never send him ourselves)
- his cycle seems less and less regular... some days 0-1 poops, some mornings there will be 3-4 waiting for me.
- his peeing seems excessive as well, he's peed 3x in 5 minutes recently, and is doing maybe 12-15 a day now. Yesterday was a long day and he held it in for about 6 hours (lots of opportunities), and then 3x in 5 minutes.

We reward him with a treat when he goes on the pad, but we've stopped it for peeing, since he goes so often. When we catch him, we yell 'no!' and carry him to the pad, and if we find the misses very soon after, we yell at him for a few seconds, and he seems to understand. If we find the misses after the fact, we don't say anything, and I've read many times that you're not supposed to punish them at all for p/p misses.

He likes to chew on everything, but otherwise he's a good little guy. He's "extremely healthy" according to the vet today, aside from enflamed ears (not quite an infection) and perhaps not enough fiber. Since coming here 5 weeks ago, we've bonded and he has really grown to see me as a 'parent', so I want to help him learn this stuff the right way! This is our first dog, so we certainly don't have experience, but he's not lacking for attention, affection or finance.

Any help would be appreciated - thanks so much for reading all this!


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## shellbeme (Mar 1, 2011)

I think the biggest thing, is, if you get upset in front of him when he potties in the wrong place-he has taken that to meaning you don't want to see him potty at all. This is why he runs and pees around the corner when you are there.

For me, what worked best was to drop all negativity when it comes to potty. The puppies are never out of my sight-if they are, they are confined to their crates (some prefer pens). I take to the potty pad (or outside-where ever you are training) and when they do their business where they are supposed to, I act like a fool-dancing and praising them and give them a treat and use the same terms, for us it's 'potty' for pee and 'poop' for poop.... Take to the pad say "Go potty!" and when they do "Good Potty! That's great!" as an example.

Do not punish and do not even get angry at the potty in the wrong spots-they don't mean to and they pick up so easily that you are displeased-it just causes more problems than its worth.

It is normal to have a bit of backstep when a dog moves to a new house. I wouldn't worry too much, try to be consistant and keep it up-it will get better.

For me, puppies pee a rediculous amount of time. I remember reading 'They should be able to hold it for x amount of time at x amount of age' yea.. that never works. Puppies pee-sometimes it feels like every 15 minutes. The good news is, you can use that to your advantage-when you see the squat-you pick him up and move him to his puppy pad. Otherwise, if you are concerned about too frequent peeing-you might see a vet to test for a UTI.


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## mdbflorida (Feb 28, 2013)

We recently went through this with Boo. We have two houses and Boo has spent all of his time in the other house because we were trying to sell the other one. Recently my husband and the dogs came and spent time in the Winter Park house and the same thing would happen. No poo or pee on the pads. We only used the pads as a back up when we were not home -running errands. I guess when you change a routine they get messed up. We went back to square 1 and had to retrain all over again and I agree with Shelly it has to be positive reinforcement


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## Matilda's mommy (Jun 1, 2005)

Maltese are very sensitive, very in tune with you, so when your upset they get upset.
When Matilda was a puppy we lived in a RV and traveled the country, I trained her on potty pads and when we went on walks she would go there also, many times she thought a throw rug was her potty pad, anything that looked about the size of her potty pad she wet on:w00t:, I found that every time I would talk stern and say no, or bad girl she would get scared. 
It took sometime and lots of love and patience and she came around. 
I think your little one is mixed up, you don't know how he was potty trained by his original owners, then he comes to a whole different life, even the language is different for him, gosh I would be upset and scared if I had been moved to a whole different country, and had my routine changed, and finding myself with someone I had never met before, and I'm a grown woman, not a little 7 month old puppy, be patient, try and put yourself in his life, your both learning about each other he only wants to please you, that's his whole purpose in life.
When all this is said and done you will only remember how precious he is and the unconditional love he has for you.
I'm so glad you found SM, enjoy your puppy, in a blink of a eye they are grown


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## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

Thanks for all that so far! Really helpful, I appreciate it!

I sometimes get very angry that he's gone somewhere he shouldn't, but the GF and I have helped each other not be upset at him. We do really understand that he's not doing it on purpose, of if he's doing it wrong, it's probably poor training (us) and/or moving around confusion. Little Bond has a pretty charmed life - and I'm sure it's only going to get better with more and more experience on our parts (with great advice!).


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## Lou's Mom (Apr 8, 2014)

You are getting really good advice. Patience is the key. One of mine would get close to the pad but not quite close enough. I read somewhere that they don't distinguish between grass, carpet or pads. I added a few more pads overlapping them at first and when she finally got the idea, I slowly removed them until we were down to one. The other thing I wonder is if there may be a scent of a previous dogs accident on the carpet and he thinks that's where he's supposed to go? Good luck.


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## LovelyLily (Mar 26, 2013)

Welcome to the site! I echo the advice you have received to go back a few steps in his training and set him up for success. Crate/pen him when you are not right there watching ever second. Make it so he doesn't have the opportunity to go where he is not supposed to.

The IRIS xpen is really good for enclosure for a pen, and you can make a flexible set up and add more panels if you want it to be larger. 

I would advise that if he has problems when in the pen start even further back in the training and have the whole bottom of the small area he is in covered with the pads, then make it half the pen, etc. until he gets the idea of going on the pad correctly in the pen--just as one would when first training a very young pup. 

As earlier noted, positive reinforcement (treats and praise immediately after going on the pad or outside) are key. Yelling or stern voices of disapproval will only do harm (as noted already, make them think that going is bad and they should hide it or try to not go at all. 

Again, welcome, and we look forward to seeing pictures of Bond!

By the way, love your log in name!

Linda


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## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

Crating:

How does this work for you guys? At 7 months, Bond has quite a lot of freedom. It sounds like most of you think 'going backwards' is a good idea, so I'm trying to get my head around crating. He certainly gets into minor mischief when we're not watching (barking at the neighbors as they leave for work and pooping on the rug are his new overnight things), so there's just no way to watch him all waking moments, never mind 24/7.

But boy does he hate being separated from us (spoiled maltese!). He needs to be able to smell one of us under the door, or else he'll bark and bark for us. He's done it non-stop the entire night in the past. I tried crating him a few days ago for barking, and the first two minutes in there he went totally ballistic for the only time in his life, just so desperate to not be locked up. If one of us is in sight, he doesn't seem to mind it at all.

So you guys think that he can survive being in there overnight or for a few hours if we're gone?


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## shellbeme (Mar 1, 2011)

For crating-my boys spend the nights in their crates until they were fully potty trained. At first, I would get up during the night to let them out to potty-we still had accidents I had to clean up. When I couldn't watch them 100%, such as when I was house cleaning or busy doing something-they were crated. If I knew they had to go (like first think the morning) and they didn't go for me-they would be crated for a bit and then we would try again. It sounds like a lot of crating-and it is, but I also didn't do much besides house cleaning when I brought a puppy home-because that's part of having one  gotta be there to keep an eye on it.


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## Dominic (Nov 4, 2012)

You could also setup a playpen and have his bed, toys, water, pee pad inside of it. That's how I've done with my boys instead of creating them and it worked well for us. Dom was natural at potty on the pad since he was 4-5 months old and Ben still had lots of mistakes at 8-9 months old, some dogs take longer and we must be consistent. I think he took longer because I kept giving him more space around the house so he could play with Dom than he was ready to handle.

Another thing, the poop and run will happen, sorry to say that to you, they start on the pad but sometimes it doesn't land there. We call it the poop victory run  

As others have said, don't raise your voice and be mad at him, just make a big deal when and every time he does right even if he goes pee 10 times, praise/treat him 10 times. You don't have to give him a treat every time if you see he is content with praising - good boy!! What a good potty!! Rub his neck, give him a belly rub - things like that works well for some dogs. He's still very young, the positive reinforcement is what he needs, You'll probably feel silly at first but with time you'll be doing in naturally. 

Wishing you good luck! It sounds hard work but pays off.


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## shellbeme (Mar 1, 2011)

Dominic said:


> You could also setup a playpen and have his bed, toys, water, pee pad inside of it. That's how I've done with my boys instead of creating them and it worked well for us. Dom was natural at potty on the pad since he was 4-5 months old and Ben still had lots of mistakes at 8-9 months old, some dogs take longer and we must be consistent. I think he took longer because I kept giving him more space around the house so he could play with Dom than he was ready to handle.
> 
> Another thing, the poop and run will happen, sorry to say that to you, they start on the pad but sometimes it doesn't land there. We call it the poop victory run
> 
> ...


 
Some day, when I get another malt, I might actually do the xpen instead. 

:HistericalSmiley: Poop Victory Run! Ahhh dogs and poop  I keep thinking of potty training days when my husband would make up songs for the boys like 'Potty all the Time' (Party all the time) and La De Da De We likes to Potty (party). Good times....good times...


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## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

UPDATE:

Miraculous advance in p/p skills! Officially zero accidents in the house the past 3 days, which is a first!

Two pieces of advice in this thread really helped out:
1. Don't admonish any mistakes at all. I had thought just no punishing, but actually no anger at all has made a huge difference. I didn't understand that he was associating p/p in general with being upset about it.
2. Rewarding consistently. We had stopped rewarding the peepee at some point, I don't know why, perhaps because he was doing it like 15x/day. We started giving him very small treats for peepee again. When he would poop, he'd be all excited for a treat as soon as he did it, but peeing was a separate thing in his mind. Our mistake!

So now, for the last few days, he's been perfect. Our rugs thank you!

Great advice, and of course, Bond is happier for doing a good job and not getting yelled at! He still gets a "no" when he's being naughty, but he understands to stop and generally doesn't go back to that (gnawing on a door or whatever).

Next stop: barking!


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## Lou's Mom (Apr 8, 2014)

That's fabulous! Good job. Let us know if you find the magic formula for the barking - mine are pretty good now inside only letting us know if there is someone at the door but outside is another matter. Birds, squirrels, neighbors and the ever threatening trash truck set them off.


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## mdbflorida (Feb 28, 2013)

Glad he is adjusting.


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## lydiatug (Feb 21, 2012)

Great news!


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## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

Well, our little man had a day to forget, today. After pooping out of bounds twice yesterday (we suspected he was sick or something), he was all over the map today. I'm hoping there's a good reason for it, or we're back to square one!

Today he pooped on two rugs, peed on another, peed on the floor, peed on his sleeping pillow and even ate his poop for the first time. Wow! Totally normal day at home, we really can't image what happened that kicked off this ignominious day! Going to call the vet in the morning, perhaps he's having some GI issues.


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## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

Took Bond to the vet - he confirmed that this kind of behavior means he's sick. I feel sorry for the little guy, but I'm glad that there's a sound reason why he's peeing in his bed among all the rest of it!


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## Ann Mother (Dec 18, 2013)

Poor baby hope the vet fixed him.


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## Agent 007 (Aug 18, 2014)

He finished his course of antibiotics several days back, and he's been accident-free since. I'll say again, it's nice to know that such erratic behavior is the fault of (treatable) health and not bad training or personality problems. We're very relieved that he's back on track, and we don't have to worry about the rugs all the time!

* small aside - when he poops and we witness it or he knows we know he just did it, he gets a treat. He gets SUPER excited about getting the treat for pooping, not so much for peeing. Well, today he started a new thing: I was out of the room when he pooped, and I could hear him dancing around... it means that he was so excited that he pooped on his pad that he started doing his '**** yes, I want treats!' dance before we were there to acknowledge it! It was hilarious - I walk in and he's strutting around like 'oh yeah, who pooped? me! that's right suckers, me!'


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