My dog has 'accidents' when she's not at my house

[rpetkovich]

I have a Pomeranian, just turned a year old. I have crate trained her since I brought her home as a puppy and she is very good at letting me know that she needs to go outside when I am at my house. The story is a little different whenever we travel to my boyfriend's house. She is good at letting me know that she has to go pee when she isn't at my house, but, for whatever reason, she poops in the house rather than outside.

I will be moving to this house in the near future and would like this to become a non-issue, but I'm confused as to why she only does this here. Is she confused because it isn't her normal home? Is this simply a matter of re-crate training her at my boyfriend's house to get her into a new habit? Or is she trying to mark the house as her own? I would think that if it were marking, she would pee instead of poop. Any suggestions would be great.

Thanks

[Shmee]

Obvious choice of the strange house coming into play would be the clincher here. I'm sure once you make your new residence more permanent, your Pom should come around. Don't forget the smaller breeds will tend to potty train abit slower than some others. Personally speaking, my dogs haven't had an accident in the house for months, then out of the blue, my male "drops a duece" on the rug infront of the entrance door for no apparent reason. After which, a few minutes later, my female JRT decides the bathroom shower needed to be uhh.. "cleaned" and peed all over it. *shrug*

I dont get mad at these instances because they are the far and few among the better times of dog toilet accuracy.

Betterluck in houstraining,
-Shmee

[Carrie]

Dogs don't generalize very well. So, the less familiar house...the one where she wasn't trained in is to her, a completely different situation. She is apparently not able to apply what she learned at your house so easily at your boyfriend's.

I'd just do like you did at your house when she was very young and be super diligent about supervising her or else putting her in her crate if you can't watch her, even for a couple of minutes. And take her out more frequently than you even imagine she needs to. Every success, make a big fuss and give her a very yummy treat. She'll get onto what the best place is to go potty. Be sure to prevent reinforcement for going inside....that includes a reaction from you and just the fact that it's easy and convenient for her. Good luck.