# Housebreaking problems



## lelandEOD (Dec 1, 2009)

Well, I'm almost at my wits end. I love my girl but she is driving me crazy with housebreaking problems. Before I got a Vizsla I read that they could be hard to housebreak. Well, she's six months old and is still having sporadic accidents in the house. 

I've trained her on the bell at the back door and we seem to understand that when the bell gets rung, the door magically opens. I still praise and reward her for going. I'm to the point where I now wonder if I've praised her too much or something because she really doesn't seem to want to go unless I come out with her. Ridiculous.

She won't pee in her bed and makes it through the night without problems. But, if she is left alone for a few minutes (especially when I take trash to the curb or walk outside to check the mail) I come back to find a tinkle spot. She screams bloody murder when I leave her in the house and I can only attribute her urination as some form of stress.

She seems to be particularly BAD when the weather is crummy (raising a puppy in winter sucks). It's freezing rain out tonight and about twenty minutes ago, she just up and decided to poop on the carpet! She hates getting wet.

How long does it take to housetrain most vizslas?

I just had to vent.


----------



## Bodhi (Jan 1, 2010)

Bodhi is a little over 11 months now. He has not had an accident in the house for almost two months. Although he did get the idea that he needed to take care of business outside when he was ten weeks old, he still would have these emergency episodes were we had less than seconds to get him out after he signaled us that he had to go. In most cases these emergency episodes happened after indoor play sessions or a middle of the night call of nature. We do remove all water approximately at 7 pm to reduce the night time nature calls. It seems his adult bladder grew in at about 9 months and he can control himself a lot better than before. So hang in there, it should get better in few months (at least it did for us).

Our current problem is Bodhi doing his #2 while on a walk in town, which we promptly clean up with our bag and then no more than 10 minutes afterwards he goes again (of course we are not prepared for the second coming... and have to run into a shop to buy something so we can get another bag). We now don't leave the house without multiple bags stuffed in our pockets.

Aloha


----------



## Pineapple Princess (Nov 20, 2009)

I think at least once a day we ask ourselves if Hobie will ever be fully housebroken. She's 5 months old and almost daily has accidents, usually moments after we bring her in from pottying outside. She loves to trick us.

I think the cold weather has hurt as well. Hobie hated going in the snow and ice and frigid temps.

Also most of our house is hardwood flooring and the breeder had all hardwoods too. I think the carpet has seemed foreign to her since we brought her home.

we are keeping at it - praising, looking for signals... she's just so quick.


----------



## chablis (Mar 12, 2010)

Hi Poppy V is a year old now and is fully house trained so it will come ... She is very clean and will pee while out for a walk but waits till she gets back to the garden to poop..so we all have our problems your not alone ..
This morning as soon as we got up we walked her for 3 miles thinking yes today she will... but no .. she did it as soon as we got back through the gate ..I wouldnt change her for the world though.. 
Regards


----------



## Islander (May 2, 2009)

Ziva was pretty easy to house train but I am lucky I work from home so was available to zip her out the door at a moments notice when she was little. We do not have a fenced yard, plus live in a 'piling house" in Florida, which means a house up on stilts... so that meant each and every time she had to potty we clipped on a lead and down the stairs we went. 

She was totally house trained by about 10 to 11 weeks old and knock on wood has never had an accident since so I am VERY VERY GRATEFUL 

Also when we took her out we worked on going potty on command, so she knows what 'pee pee' is and 'poop poops' ..... if we're getting ready to go for a walk we take her in the yard first and tell her to do poop poops and then we'll go for a walk.... and 9 times out of 10 she will poop. If she doesn't she will as soon as we get back to our yard. 

I will say though that from 8 to 10 weeks old I swear the girl could pee every 10 minutes. So that made for a lot of trips up and down all those stairs!


----------



## gunnr (Aug 14, 2009)

My wife likes to call that type of behavior "spite work". I don't know that dogs are mentally developed enough to do "spite work", but for lack of a better term I use it too.

If she doesn't like going out in the cold rain. Put a jacket on, grab her leash and make her go out. She's definitely old enough now. Take her out and don't let her come back until she does her stuff, and keep her on that leash. She's not made of brown sugar even though she may think so. Mine used to pull the same stunt, but a couple times out in the rain on a leash and they soon learned I meant business.
I'm not heartless though, each return was met with a nice vigorous toweling session and a cookie.  There has to be reward.

The "tinkling" part is something she may outgrow. I've never had that problem. Hopefully someone else has some insight.


----------



## vizslandobes (Feb 9, 2010)

I must have just gotten lucky. Grady has not had an accident since day 4 of having him home. That makes a month now. Even in those 4 days he had only 2 accidents. Never has he done his "business" in the house.

Have you spoken with your vet and breeder at all about this. They may be able to shed some light both physically and psychologically.


----------



## JutkasPeople (Jan 22, 2010)

We've experienced many of the same issues that you have with your beloved V; ours is 4 months old now and I've resigned myself to a steam carpet cleaner as a must have item - I don't recall any other breed of dog that we've had having quite such a time with housebreaking as our darling Jutka.

I believe that the urination when you're not in the room with your girl is caused by stress; have faith, I'm sure things will improve and you're not alone in this.


----------



## PennandBust (Jan 12, 2010)

Our almost 3 year old V penny had a lot of the same problems yours does. The screaming bloody murder when we take the trash out, the not wanting to go out unless we go with her. These problems though sound like separation anxiety problems though, not house breaking problems. We approached those behaviors just like we approached all of penny's separation anxiety behaviors. Routines routines routines. If you take the trash out the same way every time you do it, if you give her the same verbal cue "ill be right back" and then you do every time come right back she will get it. If you take her outside to pee and wait till she does no matter the weather you can back off how close you are to her. Take her to the grass then don't leave the porch, then don't leave the door step. You see what I'm saying. Patience and routine has helped penny's anxiety behaviors ease off and that anxiety tinkling has stopped entirely.

Also I should say in fair disclosure that although most of penny's anxiety went away through routine and conditioning we also have a 5 month old male pup now (buster) and he has helped alot too. His presence seems to ease penny's mind and she's happy to have him.

Good luck with you V. It might take a long time, but she'll learn to calm down.


----------

