Is it even possible to housetrain a chihuahua?

[sassafras]

I don't know you well enough to know if you're just joking/venting or not, so if you are please ignore me... but it kind of bothers me that you keep saying stuff like "he's not smart enough not to pee on the couch" or "how ridiculously stupid he is" for peeing where he pees.

He either pees where he's learned to pee or he can't physically hold urine. Has he ever been worked up for a medical problem that might cause difficulty holding his urine, like ectopic ureters? It might have nothing to do with training at all. And if your frustration and "ridiculously stupid" feelings are coming through in your training, it could be creating a lot of anxiety for him surrounding elimination that only adds to the problem.

In any case, a smart dog doesn't inherently know the couch isn't for peeing on anymore than a dumb dog does. You're the one with the big smart wrinkly brain, now it's your job to teach him to pee somewhere else. Yes, lockdown sucks and it's inconvenient. But in the absence of a medical or anxiety-based explanation, it's just what has to be done.

 

[JessLough]

I don't know you well enough to know if you're just joking/venting or not, so if you are please ignore me... but it kind of bothers me that you keep saying stuff like "he's not smart enough not to pee on the couch" or "how ridiculously stupid he is" for peeing where he pees.

He either pees where he's learned to pee or he can't physically hold urine. Has he ever been worked up for a medical problem that might cause difficulty holding his urine, like ectopic ureters? It might have nothing to do with training at all. And if your frustration and "ridiculously stupid" feelings are coming through in your training, it could be creating a lot of anxiety for him surrounding elimination that only adds to the problem.

In any case, a smart dog doesn't inherently know the couch isn't for peeing on anymore than a dumb dog does. You're the one with the big smart wrinkly brain, now it's your job to teach him to pee somewhere else. Yes, lockdown sucks and it's inconvenient. But in the absence of a medical or anxiety-based explanation, it's just what has to be done.

^^That.



Another member on the forum has five chihuahuas, all house trained. So no, it's not a breed thing

 

[pinkspore]

Just venting, though I am highly frustrated with him right now. Most of the frustration stems from housetraining him as a pup and catching him attempting to pee right where he had just napped.

It's not "dirty puppy syndrome" as he definitely won't sleep on a bed or spot that smells of urine.

It's not that he doesn't know how tell me he needs to go, as he knows to ring the potty bells and will even whine and run back and forth between me and the door until I let him out.

It's not that he doesn't want to go outside, we're having a nasty heat wave and the only thing this dog loves more than 90-degree weather is triple digits. I have to go get him and bring him inside.

It's not that he can't hold it, he won't go in his crate or on a tether, and the indoor peeing incidents over the last few days were all while at least one person was home. Aside from peeing on a dog bed approximately once per day he has zero signs of a urinary problem.

It's not that the beds or places smell like urine, everything hard has been scrubbed and bleached, everything soft has been replaced repeatedly.

It's not that he was paper or pad trained, he had never been indoors before, and will choose a dish towel on the floor over a potty pad.

So yes, I am enormously frustrated that my dog occasionally decides to pee in his favorite nap spots rather than asking to go outside even when there is someone sitting right beside the door. Yes, he does it because he has learned that that is the correct place to pee, but I find it bizarre and ridiculous that he has learned this because it makes absolutely no sense to me. Does anyone else have a dog that randomly and intermittently pees in their favorite nap spots, but isn't willing to sleep in pee?

 

[MilliesMom]

Does anyone else have a dog that randomly and intermittently pees in their favorite nap spots, but isn't willing to sleep in pee?

Yes, turned out she had a UTI, the only symptom was her inappropriate, and frequent, peeing. Forgive me if I missed it, but you have had him checked by a vet to rule anything else out?

 

[pinkspore]

I haven't yet taken him to the vet specifically for the peeing because he does not urinate frequently, and the inappropriate urination only happens every day or two at the most, usually only once or twice a week. I'll be at the vet today with my foster dog, so I will ask whether peeing on a dog bed twice a week is something he needs to be seen for.

 

[sassafras]

Dogs definitely can have infections without the "classic" signs of frequent urination, straining, etc. but with more intermittent signs. I've also seen a couple of cases of dogs whose inappropriate urination was anxiety-based, almost like a cat, and resolved treating it that way. Bladder stones could cause intermittent discomfort, too, with short or long periods of completely normal urination in between.

So yes, this is a dog I'd work up medically.

 

[pinkspore]

No blood in urine, no straining, no avoidance of favorite potty spots, and no anxiety until I put him in a crate and walk away, though I do have a dog that is medicated for that. He just got worked up for his tummy troubles and the vet considered and rejected stones due to his total lack of symptoms. Last time I caught him in the act he had just woken up from a nap on the couch, hopped down to the floor, and instead of going to the door went straight to the crate and started sniffing in circles. If he was showing any kind of distress or discomfort I would be a lot more open to the possibility of a medical issue, but at this point I feel that I would be spending hundreds of dollars to be told.my dog has a bad habit I need to break.

 

[sassafras]

I think you're hung up too much on what you think symptoms of certain things should be instead of evaluating the symptoms you ARE seeing objectively.

For some dogs inappropriate urination IS the only sign of anxiety. Stones don't have to mean blood in the urine. I'm not sure how chronic intermittent inappropriate urination is a total lack of symptoms, but ok, your vet must have had his/her microscopic urine examination and x-ray eyes in that day.

There absolutely might not be a medical problem at all, but if there is and you don't know about it because you didn't look for it you might be banging your head against the wall for several more months and make no progress. I guess if you consider eliminating that possibility a waste of money, then by all means keep doing what you're doing with your "stupid" dog.

 

[pinkspore]

I'm not so much hung up on what the symptoms should be as what the symptoms are.

This has been an issue since I got him at four months, when he would cheerfully wake from a nap curled in the crook of my arm and shamelessly pee on the bed right beside me. Watching him obsessively, crating him when I couldn't watch, leashing him in the house, and praising him effusively for peeing outside mostly fixed the issue.

In the last four years we have moved out of the house with the roommates' dog that marked all over everything. I have thrown out all the dog beds that had been peed on by that dog. I have thrown out all the rugs that had been peed on by that dog. We found a litter, litterbox, and litterbox placement combination that made the cats happy. We lost the incontinent hospice dog. The foster dog is now reliably house trained.

It is possible that Ru has had a silent bladder stone or infection with symptoms that improve with a better house training regiment for the last four years. It is also possible that, given all the factors mentioned above, he was never fully house trained to begin with, and it has taken this long to figure that out.

 

[sassafras]

Ok, well you've got it all under control then. Carry on.

 

[pinkspore]

By all means, I will be getting him checked out if actual house training fails to make an impact. I just don't have to resources to view $500 worth of medical testing as Step 1 for an incompletely housetrained dog of a breed notorious for housetraining issues.

 

[pinkspore]

Aaaand my regular vet agrees that he could have a urinary issue and should probably have $500 worth of tests to see if there's a reason he pees on everything. We'll be starting with a $300 urinalysis as soon as o can afford a $300 urinalysis.

 

[Fran101]

300?! Jeesh! When Merlin was suspected of a UTI they gave us some basic antiobiotics/cranberry crap and then it got better before we made the jump. Maybe try that??

 

[Beanie]

Just to chime in, Auggie had six large bladder stones growing in his belly and he gave me zero signs at all until the stress of bringing home baby Payton finally had him peeing in the house. There is no way of knowing how long he actually had an infection or how long those stones were growing in there, but it was probably quite a long time gone undiagnosed and unannounced, given the size of the stones.

Cranberry really doesn't help dogs after they have an infection. The only thing that will help is antibiotics. But if there are stones, well, surgery is often the best way to resolve that issue. Some of them can be dissolved with a dietary change or meds but the benefit of surgery is a) the issue is solved immediately and b) you can send the stones in and see what kind of stones they are.

$300 sounds a bit high for diagnostics to me, you're looking at a UA and an x-ray most likely, maybe an ultrasound if they have that tech (I had to go to the university for an ultrasound.) If they're doing an ultrasound they might be what is bumping the cost up. But vet costs of course vary by area.

 

[Greenmagick]

D-Mannose (extract from cranberry) helps Ivy when she starts to show signs of a UTI

 

[pinkspore]

He just had a course of antibiotics for his tummy issue, not sure if there would be different meds for a urinary tract infection.

Yes, I am looking at $300 for a urinalysis and another $200 for xrays. Yes, the cost of vet care here is ludicrous, so is the cost of rent and pretty much everything else. Everybody has to rent here too, because houses cost a million dollars. This I'd a large part of our homeless pet problem since most rental companies have a blanket no pets policy.

My CareCredit is currently maxed out between Ru's tummy trouble, Brisbane's various recent age-related issues, and the evil cat turning into a peedemon.

 

[sassafras]

Three hundred dollars just for a urinalysis? Are you sure you didn't misunderstand? That's... astounding.

 

[pinkspore]

$200 for the actual analysis
$45 fee for getting pee out of the dog
$60 visit fee

Nope, not misunderstanding anything. Xrays would be another $150 plus assorted other fees.

Earlier this summer I called every vet within an hour's drive asking for the base price for a full dental. The low-cost place a bit over an hour away does them for the low, low price of $400.

 

[stardogs]

I'm assuming sterile draw if they are charging you? If not, I'd be catching pee in a tupperware.

Did they tell you what all is included in the urinalysis? For $200, I'm guessing more than just specific gravity, whether there are crystals, and if there is bacteria or not.

 

[sassafras]

Is that a urinalysis and a urine culture or just the urinalysis? I just find it astounding that a urinalysis costs $200. The dental cleaning is pretty close to what I've seen just about everywhere but holy sheet.