I have been called many times by dog owners who have just moved into a new home and tell me that their dog has become un-housetrained. Changing homes can often have an adverse affect on the housetraining of your adult dog.
Dogs are creatures of association. They associate certain times of the day with eating, associate the word ‘sit’ with putting their rear on the ground, and associate the sound of a car as their owner coming home. The same happens with an adult dog that has been housetrained. This dog has associations built in with every part of the housetraining process. He has associations about where in the yard he goes to the bathroom. He has associations with certain times in the day when you take him out. He has associations with the door that he exits when he feels nature calling. The entire process of going to the bathroom is a series of associations. But the most important of all: when he is properly housetrained he associates going to the bathroom in ‘his’ house as incorrect and going to the bathroom outside as correct.
When you take your dog to a new home there is a chance that so many associations will be disrupted and broken that he begins to go to the bathroom in the house. There are a few things that you can do when you move into a new house to prevent this problem or fix it if it has started.
Your new home smells differently than your last home. Your new home looks different. The texture of your flooring is different. There is different paint on the walls. Basically, there are a lot of things in your new home that make it feel different than your last home. For this reason, many dogs don’t associate the new home as a place to not go to the bathroom.
The first thing to make sure to do is to keep your dog on the same routine that he is used to. Many housetrained dogs are really just ‘routine trained’ dogs. They are so used to the fact that a certain part of the day means bathroom time. Their association with going to the bathroom is more about time of day than it is about where they are going to the bathroom. So keep your dog on the same routine and you may find that it helps smooth the transition.
Designate a new spot for your dog. Part of the housetraining association is where your dog goes to the bathroom. When you move, your dog no longer has his spot. Choose a spot for him. Find an easily accessible area in your new place and take him to that spot at bathroom time. Encourage him to go to the bathroom and when he does give him a lot of praise. Now the key; don’t clean up the mess. That’s right, we want him to form a new association with a new place so leave his mess as a scent anchor to keep drawing him back to that general area. Don’t leave too much of a mess. Just go without cleaning up once or twice. You will soon notice that he will feel comfortable in that area of your new yard.
Many dogs, male dogs especially, like to mark new territory with urine. I have found that this is the biggest cause of housetraining mistakes in a new home. The dog comes into the new place, experiences hundreds of new smells and wants to mark over them like crazy. This happens especially if the previous occupants had dogs. There are two things that will help curb this. The first is constant supervision. Your dog should never be left alone. If you are able to supervise him you can catch him in the act of marking and nip it in the bud right away. Second, if you can’t supervise him, use a crate. Keep him in a crate while you can’t watch him and that way you know he won’t be going to the bathroom in the house. When you notice that he has been fine in the house for several days or weeks, you can wean him off the supervision and crate.
The key to re-housetraining your dog is re-building the same associations you once did the first time he was housetrained. Accomplish this, and he will have perfect manners in your new home.
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