Case study – Toilet training with Bolton

So often toileting issues can come up in adult dogs too.  Bolton had recently moved into a new house with his Mum and understandably, everyone was nervous about any toilet issues arising given it was a new rental with new carpet put in.  Up to this point, Bolton had been a super star with his toileting behaviour. He had been trained to use a wee mat in the home, and to go outside when he was out on his walks or just spending time outdoors.

When Bolton moved into the new house however, there was a problem. He had an accident on the new carpet! After this, he continued to go on the carpet and in a certain spot behind the couch. His Mum was rarely able to catch him doing it and spent many sleepless nights having Bolton shut in her bedroom to prevent any further accidents. This not only stressed his Mum and impacted negatively on her sleep, but Bolton was really unsettled being shut in the bedroom.

In our consultation, we had to get a really thorough history and understanding of what behaviour patterns had been happening so that we could work out how this had come about and to work on fixing it so everyone could sleep easy and the carpet could be safe once again.

The goal was to be able to sleep once more with Bolton having access to the whole house, to wee once more on the wee mat, and Mum not having to worry any more that accidents on the carpet would happen. Bolton had stopped using the wee mat altogether and we had to work out why.

It took some detective work, but we managed to work out that the first time Bolton had an accident on the carpet, his poor Mum got a fright and worried about the damage to the carpet and ran to Bolton to tell him it was not what she wanted to happen and told him NO!  To Bolton, this gave him a fright and he learned to not wee near Mum or he could get in trouble.  The strange thing was that he was super proud of himself to wee outside and often made a show of it to get a treat for going to the toilet in the garden.  He refused however to use the wee mat in front of his Mum.  On closer inspection of the wee mat, it was a very similar colour, texture and pattern to the carpet. Eureka! We have solved it! Bolton is worried that the wee mat is carpet and he didn’t want to use it in front of his Mum in case he got in trouble.  Going outside however was fine, that meant treats!

So, to fix it we had to implement a few new strategies.  First we had to restrict Bolton to a space that was accident free and had access to the wee mat as the only soft thing available. We also had to make it that his Mum wasn’t close by in case his fear of getting in trouble meant he held on and on and on without using it. We cordoned off the tiled areas of the house for him to only have access to, and placed a super sized wee mat for him to use with a few wee mats taped together to make it very enticing. Mum was to stay in the lounge and not take too much notice of him and give him calm praise and toss a treat if he used the wee mat.  He held on for quite a few hours, but he did it!  And he did it again, and again and again.  After a few days of successful trials of this, he was able to have access to the rest of the house, confident he wouldn’t get in trouble for weeing near Mum, and that the wee mat was not the same as the carpet and to use the mat and not the carpet area to toilet.  Happy to report, 100% success ever since.  So happy for Bolton and his Mum’s awesome work!

Motto of the story, the old myth of rubbing your puppies nose in their own mess as a way of toilet training is NOT the way to go. This will only make your dog not want to use the toilet in front of you and you only lose the opportunity to reward the toileting behaviour that you DO want, whether that be on a wee mat or inside.  For successful toilet training. learn the cues that your dog is about to toilet (sniffing, circling, just woken up, had a drink etc) and take them to the spot you want them to use and reward, reward, reward!

If your dog does have an accident inside, get them and take them to the spot you want them to go immediately, but do not frighten them with harsh corrections. They will only learn to not go in front you as they will only learn you get angry when they toilet, but not learn where you do want them to go.

You’re awesome Bolton and Evie!!!