so im in need of some input. Kibas been crate trained for many reasons but the biggest is so she won't have accidents in my house while im gone. Right now when we're home, she wont go in the house she will ask to be let out to potty when she needs to go. HOWEVER, i have tried gating off a room and leaving her un-crated for small increments of time while i run errands and every time i do, she has accidents (were talking half an hour alone). Its like she doesnt "get" it. As soon as we're gone, pottying in the house is "okay" to her. Is there a way to bridge this learning gap so i can leave her un-crated as she gets older?

Does she ever potty in her kennel? Sounds like it could be separation anxiety? Or that she's anxious in the room that you're confining her in?

Gus has separation anxiety, and would potty within SECONDS if we left him in his kennel. Add in a lot of crying, howling, and scratching too. Confinement to a small area was the same, but he would settle down a lot faster, and there was less chance of him injuring himself by trying to escape from his crate. After several months of separation training (which included him peeing everytime we left), he has stopped peeing, but will still howl or cry if we're gone for too long (4+ hrs).

do you ever hear her crying? Any destruction?

The funny thing is that he stopped peeing JUST as i bought TWO jumbo boxes of pee pads. 300 pee pads!! I guess i should be happy

no she never pottys in her crate. she can hold it all day long and sit quietly in there without issues. If i am home and i crate her or gate her in a small room she gets worked up and whines and barks. However, if she thinks we arent home (if i am quiet) shes as quiet as a doormouse in her space and wont make a peep unless she hears me. so im not sure what that says about her possibly being anxious or not but thats how she typically acts.

Does she know it's bad? Like, when you walk inside, does she act submissive or guilty that she peed while you were gone?

I know many don't follow this method, but this is what I do. If Juneau peed while I was away, I would take her to the pee spot while gently holding her collar (and by this point, she knows she is in trouble) and point my finger at it. I'd look her directly into the eyes and say, "No! Bad! No peeing in the house! Bad girl!" Very rarely do I have to give her a spank on the butt. I'd put her in the kennel for about a half hour and clean it up.

Most people don't do that method because you aren't punishing them in the '8 second' window time span that it happened. However, Juneau would still remember, even if it happened a few hours ago. They also don't put their huskies in the kennel in case they develop a negative feedback from it, but Juneau will still hang out in her kennel.


If I put Juneau in the kennel and do random stuff around the house, she whines too. She just wants to join in on the fun! My foster does the same thing if she knows we're moving around.

Yeah she doesn't act like the pees a big deal. Not submissive or anything. Just "oh hey your back!" I don't get it

Could you setup a webcam and see what she does when you leave? It sounds like anxiety to me, but only because the only time she does it is when she is loose (outside her crate, even if she's confined to a room) and you're gone. When you're home and quiet, she probably knows you're there but just isn't whining because she thinks there's no action happening.

it very well could be i just dont know much about anxiety outside of the extreme cases you see on dog whisperer or "its me or the dog". and those dogs are all chewing through walls and shredding couches so i figured that maybe we just missed something important in the process of potty training. I really hate crating her all day. Right now she goes out in the morning with me, gets crated until lunch when i go home again. and then is crated until i get off work. so 4 hrs is the max i leave her. Id love to expand her space though i just cant afford to have the carpet in my apartment ruined

If it is anxiety, what do i do to help it?

Maybe approach it in the same way you initially approached crate training. Start by leaving her in her area, walking out the front door, locking it, and coming back in, then standing outside for a few minutes, then going down and back up the stairs, and slowly increasing the time and have a special reward when she doesn't have an accident. I have an area baby gated for Dizzy that I will leave him in for short periods of time, and when I first started doing it, I would put him in his crate like normal when I left, and close the crate door, but not lock it. Then I would put him in his crate with a pig ear, and leave the crate door open, like I 'forgot' to close it. I also have a puppy cam though, because I don't trust the little bugger ha ha. I know you're pretty savvy so I'm assuming you leave lots of stuff for her to do, but I always have a rotation of a few things that I give to Diz that will keep him busy for 15-30 min when I leave, and its always something he otherwise never gets. This week its homemade pupcicles (frozen beef broth with kibble in it). Do you have a laptop and a smart phone? If so, you can set up a free ustream account and use the laptop camera to stream and check it on your phone. It would probably help you diagnose the issue a bit better if you could watch her. It would also help you figure out if its a time thing, or anxiety. If its time related, as in, it always happens 1 hour after you leave, you can just start slowly stretching the time she's left alone.

Sorry for the late reply, but i wanted to add that i also think it's anxiety. Gus was like this too. And it was Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend for us, and we had to leave him at home for 3 nights in a row for 4-5hrs each time! No pee the first night, then pee the 2nd and 3rd night

We use Skype as our puppy spy cam. You can set up a laptop with a Skype account that automatically picks up. Then install the skype app on your phone (with a different account). I think that might save your internet usage a bit. But it doesn't record.

Let us know how your investigation goes

well i get that it might be anxiety but what will monitoring her do for me? i mean if i leave her out and watch what shes doing what should i be watching for? are there specific signs that would say "anxiety pee" vs. "not potty trained pee"? and then if i see specific signs of anxiety is there a way to ease that so i can eventually leave her out?

She doesnt have accidents in her kennel so its only when i leave her out in a room while im gone that she will go in it. Its crazy too because ill take her out and she'll go and then ill leave for half hour and she will pee in the room i leave her in. ugh

Monitoring will help you know whether it's a potty training issue, or an anxiety issue. Both of these, in my opinion, have different approaches on how to deal.

For anxiety, I would be watching for any pacing, scratching at the door, panting, whining. Just watch to see if she is stressed out. If it is that, then I would try what Jen suggested above, especially the part where she leaves the crate unlocked. Is that an option for you to put the crate inside the gated area?