I don't even think he's really a dog.
It's really hard to tell when he has peed on something, there's never a wet spot so it's down to either smelling it or finding a stain. For a while I thought for sure he was housetrained and reliable, then I started finding spots. We went back to crating and tethering, cleaned everything thoroughly, thought he had the idea, turned him loose, started finding spots.
We have all hard floors and almost no rugs, partly because rugs are a pain in the butt to clean and partly because I don't want to tempt the little rodent. We don't really leave soft things on the floor either, because the cats sometimes get creative about their litterbox use.
He's quite insistent about being let out when I'm home, so I was very surprised to see him doing potty circles in one of the crates for the real dogs. When I started smelling bedding I discovered that he had already peed in BOTH crates in the living room. He can often be found curled up in a little ball inside those crates, I thought they were safe.
So I washed all the dog bedding a zillion times, and scrubbed everything with Nature's Miracle and then sprayed an extra coating on to air dry just in case, and went back to crating him whenever I left the house. I usually leave him in bed with my husband in the morning, but no more.
I also stopped leaving bedding in the crates he has access to. I toss a bed or a quilt in there before I send Brisbane or Ulysses in, out otherwise there is nothing soft to tempt the tiny weasel. Last night I picked up a quilt to toss inside and found that it had already been peed on. There were seriously maybe two opportunities he had to pee on it, each less then five minutes, when someone was in the bathroom or otherwise not staring directly at the chihuahua.
So we're back to nonstop crating and tethering, and I am beginning to wonder if this is just the way things are going to have to be forever. If Ru sleeps in the damned crates all the time, and still considers them potential toilets, I can't imagine how to teach him not to pee on anything soft.
It's really hard to tell when he has peed on something, there's never a wet spot so it's down to either smelling it or finding a stain. For a while I thought for sure he was housetrained and reliable, then I started finding spots. We went back to crating and tethering, cleaned everything thoroughly, thought he had the idea, turned him loose, started finding spots.
We have all hard floors and almost no rugs, partly because rugs are a pain in the butt to clean and partly because I don't want to tempt the little rodent. We don't really leave soft things on the floor either, because the cats sometimes get creative about their litterbox use.
He's quite insistent about being let out when I'm home, so I was very surprised to see him doing potty circles in one of the crates for the real dogs. When I started smelling bedding I discovered that he had already peed in BOTH crates in the living room. He can often be found curled up in a little ball inside those crates, I thought they were safe.
So I washed all the dog bedding a zillion times, and scrubbed everything with Nature's Miracle and then sprayed an extra coating on to air dry just in case, and went back to crating him whenever I left the house. I usually leave him in bed with my husband in the morning, but no more.
I also stopped leaving bedding in the crates he has access to. I toss a bed or a quilt in there before I send Brisbane or Ulysses in, out otherwise there is nothing soft to tempt the tiny weasel. Last night I picked up a quilt to toss inside and found that it had already been peed on. There were seriously maybe two opportunities he had to pee on it, each less then five minutes, when someone was in the bathroom or otherwise not staring directly at the chihuahua.
So we're back to nonstop crating and tethering, and I am beginning to wonder if this is just the way things are going to have to be forever. If Ru sleeps in the damned crates all the time, and still considers them potential toilets, I can't imagine how to teach him not to pee on anything soft.