Thoughts on Misbehavior

I spoke earlier this week with a woman who is very frustrated with her dog.  He pees AND poops in her house!  According to her, this happens all the time and may just be the end of her marriage as her husband has had it with the dog's misbehavior.  She thinks the dog is mad at her and this is how he shows his displeasure. She did take the dog to the vet's office for a check up; nothing medical going on and that's where she got my contact information.

Come to find out that this dog is new to this home; he's been there just two months, and this is his fourth home.  This new home environment is huge (more than 7000 square feet) and also has a toddler in residence.  During my phone conversation with the owner,we were interrupted by said toddler a half dozen times!  When I asked where the dog was while we were talking on the phone and her toddler was running in and out of the room, and the owner didn't know.  So, why am I telling you all of this?  Oh, yeah, misbehavior.

Misbehavior, by definition, means bad behavior.  Toileting is obviously in and of itself not bad behavior. Toileting in this house MIGHT BE, depending on the house.  If this dog had been taught in one of its previous homes to toilet inside on pee pads,for example, then the fact that he toilets now indoors isn't all that surprising, nor is it misbehavior. If we think about the large home space available now, add in the lack of supervision, and a toddler who by all accounts terrorizes the dog, then we have a recipe for disaster.  And a dog who toilets inappropriately.We need to address the underlying reason this dog is toileting in the house, not just talk about the behavior itself.

I suggested treating the dog as if he were a new puppy. By keeping the dog on leash, in his crate, or in an x-pen, she will know where the dog is and she can listen for cues that he has to use the bathroom. If she feeds him two meals a day rather than free-feeding him, she will have a better idea of when he needs to go to the bathroom. Keeping him on leash, in a crate, or in an x-pen also means that she will know when her toddler isn't treating the dog properly and that can be corrected. Obviously, we also discussed how to go about cleaning up all of those previous messes and what to tell her husband we are doing to take action on this issue.

The bottom line:  this example of "misbehavior," isn't really about misbehavior at all. The inappropriate toileting was just a symptom of a much bigger issue.  My hope is that this owner will do all of the things we discussed, even though she is a bit overwhelmed caring for a dog and a toddler.  I did tell her that this dog will need some retraining if he was indeed taught previously to toilet indoors.  We will cross that bridge the next time we talk.  In the meantime, I am crossing my fingers that this all works out. I'd hate to see this nice dog get moved to a fifth new home.

As always, if you have questions regarding your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

Westley loves his crate and crating him certainly 

helped with his house training as a puppy.