Hello all! I'm new here. Our 5 month old puppy just recently developed a habit of peeing on her own doggy bed while outside of her crate.

We've been crate training Red since we got her about 3 months ago. It's still a work in progress but she's been able to hold her poop/pee until we take her out of her crate. Afterwards, she gets her free time for a little while before she goes back into her crate or we take her out again for another potty break if we're able to extend her free time. We have only been lining her crate with light blankets/towels and she hasn't eliminated on them while being crated. We got her a doggy bed a little over a month ago and she usually lays on the bed when she's devouring a treat. Other than than, she likes to lay only on the hardwood/tile flooring when she's just chilling out. But in the last two weeks, she seems to have taken up the habit of peeing on her bed. Unless she's peeing while laying down or sitting, we are never able to catch her while she's doing it. She's done this 3 times so far. Right now, we have resorted to taking away her dog bed. Getting tired of trying to stuff it in the wash everytime. We're giving her back the sofa cushion for now since we started her off on that before she got the dog bed. So we're really not sure what's going on. We're wondering if she just gets so comfortable on the bed that she decides that she's too lazy to get up and ring the bell to let us know she needs to potty? Or maybe we are still letting her have her free time for too long?

In case anyone is wondering about the bells, we're also trying to train her to ring the string of bells by our front door to indicate she needs to go potty. She's not vocal at all when it comes time to go to the bathroom. She uses the bells only occassionally so she's still working on getting the hang of it. She rang the bell 3 nights in a row to go poop and once on another night to go pee...lol yes I've been counting.

If she isn't peeing on the sofa cushion and is only doing it to the bed, I would put a towel or whatever she usually lays on without urinating on top of the bed and see if that helps. Will the bed fit in her crate? You may also try putting it in her crate for a time so she is forced to live in close quarters with it. She's less likely to pee on it if she only has it as an option to lay on and no way to get away from it. Welcome to the forum.

Also - are you using an enzyme product so that the scent is gone? I hear that helps.

And...I'm not sure if I really believe this but 2 experiences: Son's cat was really reallly annoyed when he brought Archer home. So much so that one afternoon she pee'd on son's bed while staring down the dog. DIL said it could only be described as a hate crime. Second...we had Siberian many, many years ago and used to work at a summer camp. Our first trip there with Sasha, we arrived, set up our bed with our bedding from home then went out to dinner with all our friends.,..leaving Sasha alone in the cabin. Went to bed that night...yup, soaking wet with dog urine Another "I hate you, you left me alone in this new place and your bedding is the only thing that smells like you so I'm going to piss all over it." Yeah, I know dogs don't "think" like that. You decide.

So - did new dog bed displace the old favored sleeping pad?

Thanks for the replies!
I did forget to mention that she did pee on the couch once around the same time she started with the dog bed. Placing a towel over won't really help in this case since she pees like a race horse....no lie. She soaks right through the bed. I'll give it a try with placing the bed in the crate tonight since it's about the right size. Wish me luck!
Also, I have been using an enzyme additive to Red's laundry but it doesn't deter her from peeing on the dog bed. She didn't have a sleeping pad to begin with since I had figured towels and blankies in the crate would suffice. She took to the dog bed immediately when we finallh got her one and never once made a mess in it till about 2 weeks ago so I found it strange that she was acting up only about a month into using it. I guess she likes to keep mom and dad on their toes! I hear the same about dogs not being capable of revenge since it's a human trait, but I could swear Red has it! She went bonkers once when a new person was visiting and she peed in her crate like the speed of Niagara Falls and then splashed it all over herself and around the surrounding floor.

How long did it take eveyone to crate train their puppy (considering if you followed the rules of crate training strictly)?

Not a puppy but my other dog had crate training and house breaking figured out in a couple days, but each is different and he was an adult dog that had never been in a house prior to us having him. Mostly the thought behind the towel is if she won't pee on the towel in her crate, placing that same towel she won't pee on over the top of the bed might give her the illusion that she doesn't need to pee on the bed same as she already has down that she doesn't need to pee on the towel. If you were wanting to save the foam pillow within from constant washing I would take the fabric cover off and put the pillow in a trash bag, then put the fabric cover back on the newly wrapped foam. That's assuming you can remove just the cover. Some beds you can, others you can't. It might at least save you some time. did anything change two weeks ago? Routine different? Many young dogs urinate out of excitement and will grow out of that. When she peed when a visitor came over I imagine that was more over excitement. Peeing on the bed seems more a ploy for attention to me.

OIC - I get it now (with the towel). I will have to try that tonight and keep an eye on her in the coming weeks to see how she does. As far as trash bagging the bed, I’m not sure that I can remove the cover with the way it’s sewn but I’ll check. These are brilliant ideas, mucho gracias! I’ve got a lot to learn with these tricks seeing as I’m a first time dog owner. My husband has had huskies growing up but they were always outdoors and he never had to do crate training or had issues with peeing. However, we can’t do the same with ours since we live in an area where coyotes are plentiful.
As far as routine, I cannot pin point anything that has changed. We did have our neighbor watch her at his house for several days but he said that Red was fine and he had no issues with her. This peeing on the bed business started before he watched her and continued after we got her back. I think you’re right about her doing this for attention though. Funny thing is, she gets extremely jealous if she sees my husband or I hugging each other and has to wedge herself between us. She's a nut but we love her.

If she likes to lay on the hardwood/tile and only sits on the bed when chewing a treat, it doesn't really seem like the bed is necessary anyway, so why keep using it?
If you want her to have a place, try putting a "bed" or something else down in a different spot. The bed is probably marked by scent but it could also be that the actual place in the house that the bed was is also a cue to eliminate when she is there.

Hi joemama474. All valid points. Initially, she was getting up on the couch all the time and we wanted to stop that behavior so we got her the dog bed instead. We figured she could still enjoy her treat on a soft and cushiony surface that wasn’t the couch   . When we first got her and was in the initial stages of crate training, she had peed/pooped in different locations on the house flooring. She didn’t always go to the same spot…in fact I can’t really think of a spot where she hasn’t gone potty on. So because of that, I am not 100% confident that this is scent or location driven. I’ve placed the bed in different locations and she has still managed to pee on it on 3 occasions. Right now it’s only been those 3 times on the bed and once on the couch (which by the way, she is completely banned from the couch now cause I can’t throw that in the washing machine). Other than that, she has been consistently eliminating outside each time we take her out or she will ring the bell when she feels that she wants to go. This is still in the early stages so I don’t know if the behavior will absolutely continue since we just started to ban her from the objects she pees on. As of right now, I’ll give the towel trick a try and see if that works. If it does not, then I might just take away the bed until she’s a bit older and in better control of her bladder. We just wanted nip this in the butt early and see if there was an alternative solution to this instead of taking away the objects that she loves....cause we all know those sad puppy eyes they give us humans.

Fair enough. Did she jump on the couch when no one was on it, or when someone was sitting on it? And did the bed actually curb the behavior of jumping on the couch? With our dog, it is more about wanting company than actually being on a cushioned surface, so he only tries to jump on the nice couch to join us (which we do not tolerate and make him jump off unless we specifically invite him on). Otherwise he jumps on a couch in our front room because he likes to pull himself up and stare out the window (like watching TV, sometimes for 1-2 hours, you can't even distract him while he is doing it). So, I guess what I'm saying is that if your dog is only jumping on the couch when you are sitting on it, then she probably just wants attention and a bed won't actually solve the problem. If not, then I don't know that is about, but it sounds like a better option to stop using THAT bed at least, if any bed at all, especially if it didn't solve the problem you set out to solve...

There isn’t a specific reason for why she jumps on the couch. She does it when we’re playing with her, when someone is sitting on the couch, when no one is sitting on the couch, when she’s having a treat, when she chooses to walk away from us when we’re trying to get her to come to us (to name a few). The bed alone did not actually curb her from jumping on the couch though. I found out awhile back that she has an aversion to plastic juice bottles. Ever since we banned her from the couch, we have been placing a bottle on the couch and she now avoids trying to jump on it. She’ll stay on the floor or go to her bed instead. Before she was banned, she would only stay on the couch for several minutes at a time before jumping off again (regardless of whether or not someone was occupying the couch). The towel that we used to keep in her crate has now been on her bed for the last 2 nights and so far she hasn’t taken a golden shower on it (yet!)...wish us luck!

TwisterII wrote:

Mostly the thought behind the towel is if she won't pee on the towel in her crate, placing that same towel she won't pee on over the top of the bed might give her the illusion that she doesn't need to pee on the bed same as she already has down that she doesn't need to pee on the towel.

Jenn, thanks for this tip. So far as of today, she still has not wet her doggie bed outside of the crate. Forgot to mention I put old blankets as well as towels in her crate. Both have been a success so far.

Glad to hear it is working. Any time not cleaning up puppy pie is time well spent. After a while you should be able to start taking blankets off the bed. The smell and hominess will eventually be established and she shouldn't feel the need to Lee on it.

Yup. Dog pee smell is the worst and most difficult to get out unless you use a laundry additive (an extra expense I'd like to give up one day). One day, when she's not banned from the couch anymore, I'll do this towel/blanket method again.