Hey everyone, I was looking to gain some insight into a strange behavior my puppy has started doing when playing with her Smarter Toys IQ Treat Ball. Some nights I will feed Ellie her dinner through the ball which usually takes 2 sessions since I can only fit 1/2 cup of food in the ball each time. It typically varies from which session but she will be rolling the ball around with plenty of food left, stop abruptly, and pee. Then, she continues to roll the ball. This isn't a house braking issue as she asks to go out even when we are playing fetch or tug of war. She will just stop the game and go to the door. Is she getting too excited over the ball or frustrated? I know Huskies are smart and I think I caught on to her because when she pees, I typically clean it up and then give her the rest of the food out of her bowl because I was afraid she's going to pee again. Has this happened to anyone else? She's almost 6 months old. Could this just be a puppy phase? She also doesn't have any over-excitement issues when we come home. This is strictly when she's playing with the ball. We were very confused the other night since we just took her out to pee before giving her dinner. Thanks for the help.

It sounds like she is pretty smart! I'm thinking initially it may have been over excitement and an "oops" in the house, but by cleaning it up and feeding her food from her dish- you inadvertently rewarded the behavior... which means she's more likely to repeat it I'd start from scratch. Take her outside and make sure she goes potty- reward her outside with something super yummy she doesn't usually get, like a special treat or cheese. Make sure you give it to her outside! This will make it super clear where her business is supposed to be done- think of it as a nice reminder Then once she went potty and you rewarded her- bring her inside and give her the treat ball.. If she usually has it for 20 minutes and then pees, give it to her for 5-10 and then take a break, give a treat and tell her shes a good girl. Keep doing that until the food is gone- and build up the duration at which she has the ball each time. If she does have an accident, tell her no and take her outside immediately. She gets no reward (ie, toys/food/attention) for going potty in the house. It may take a lot in the beginning- but she will get it! You just need to recondition her not to potty when the toy is out. lol Good luck!

Thanks for the advice Rig. I'll start with the short intervals and see how she does. If she does pee, once we take her out and bring her back in, does she get the ball again? We try and feed her dinner every so often out of it so I can't hold back from feeding her but I don't want to reward the behavior. Perhaps, we should stick to treats inside the ball and start feeding her dinner once she stops having accidents.

I would make sure she is being rewarded outside for going potty. If she has an accident ( and there's two of you-) One of you take her out, and the other clean up the mess. If she finishes outside, reward her. If she doesn't no big deal. When you bring her back in, I wouldn't give her the ball right away. Let her calm down a little it first- maybe even wait until she heads for another room, then you can call her to you and reward her for coming by giving her the ball- killing two birds with one stone on that one lol. Keep me posted! And feel free to PM if you run into trouble- I don't always get the notifications on here haha

So I recently switched to the Kong Wobbler to see if something more stationary helped her. She did fine with treats but then I decided to try her dinner out of it. No more than 5 minutes into it, she peed on the floor. She wasn't any more active with the Wobbler than eating out of her bowl. Could her food be going through her that quickly? I find that hard to believe because other nights she will eat from her bowl and then hop back onto the couch and go to sleep. We feed her Blue Wilderness Chicken Puppy. Another strange thing was that when I told her no and tried startling her, she continued to pee as if it was involuntary. I left her alone for 15 minutes with no attention but she knew she did something bad. I then put the toy back down and she was very hesitant to touch it but she eventually went back to it after a few kernels of food popped out. She had no issues from there on out. We recently went out for potty which she asked for and had a long pee as if she had been holding it for hours. Odd since her mess on the floor was a lot.