Pees on the dog bed?

[621mum]

Ok, so, Indy (12+ weeks) doesn't pee in her crate and she's getting better about not peeing in the house, though she still doesn't reliably signal a need (tends to just suddenly squat and pee). Anyway, we have a dog bed in our office. It's two blankets inside a nylon type zipped cover. She likes it, but probably 50% of the time she lays down on it, she stands back up after a few minutes and pees. She can lay on the rug at my feet and not do that, but on the dog bed it's pretty impressively consistent. I wash all the pieces and dry them thoroughly each time, so I don't think there is a pee smell. I've even tried feeding her snacks on that dog bed. No luck yet I can obviously just remove that bed for a while, and I will, but I'm mostly curious as to why this is happening... Ideas?

Also, while she is this small and still often on her leash near one of us, is there any way to teach her to signal when she needs to go outside, or will that just happen as she gets older? Our other pups just did a lot of sniffing, so it was relatively easy to tell. She doesn't. She hasn'tpooed in the house in over a week, it's just the peeing. She'll do it even if leashed and near us.

 

[lizzybeth727]

Sometimes dogs develop preferences to where they want to go potty, and even if you clean it and ALL the smell is out (though this is pretty much impossible to do), they still just like going there. I'm assuming, too, that you're soaking the bed with an enzymatic cleaner.

As far as a signal, you can certainly teach your dog to ring a bell or other such signal, others here can tell you how to do that. I personally don't like that method because I feel like it's hard for your puppy to figure out to signal to go potty, not to go outside to play. But that's just me. Dogs do different things before they go potty, you'll probably just have to figure out your own dog's "signature." My friend's dog just stares at her. My dog shivers when she has to poop. Some dogs just look distracted, that's very hard to notice especially with a puppy! Many dogs sniff, but certainly not all. The best thing you can do at this point is just keep track of exactly when she does pee - how long after drinking, how long after coming out of the crate, how much physical activity before she goes, etc. I like to even write it down so that you can start to see patterns.

 

[bubbatd]

It could be that she was crated as a pup and not trained at the breeders . Where did you get her ??

 

[621mum]

bubbatd,

She's a rescue dog. She was born in an ASPCA shelter (very pregnant mom was dropped off). When mom was ok to travel, mom and pups were moved to another ASPCA shelter. Then everyone got taken out by a rescue because the ASPCA shelter couldn't keep them the several weeks that was needed. I think the rescue had mom and babies all in a foster together for a couple of weeks and then around 7ish weeks the puppies were taken to their own foster homes. Interestingly, she does not go in her crate. It's just this one dog bed that is right out in the open in my office. LOL

 

[cinnamon]

I personally love the bell hanging by the door. My dog does occasionally ring it (I know she doesn't have pee) just to go out and sniff around.

95% of the time the bell is great because I can hear it anywhere in the house. My old dog used to ring it when he wanted to just lay outside. So, Lizzy, you might be right that they don't associate the bell with potty, but just being outside. WHen I put the leash on, she still rings the bell so the door opens.

But then, there are no accidents in the house

 

[girlbuffalo1]

You do wash the bed every time correct? Personally I would take it away until she is a bit older.

 

[mjb]

We had to take up our dog bed and a couple of throw runs until Spanky was quite a bit older and was no longer having any accidents in the house. Even then, when we put them back down, he started peeing on them again. We had to take them up for a while longer, a month or 2 more, probably. Eventually, we were able to have them down with no problem.