Hello everyone,

Here is the situation. We recently adopted from a shelter our 2nd husky Raven, our first, Rex, is 4 years old. She is a sweet pup that gets along great with her big brother. Her first week or so home she had pretty bad diarrhea (probably stress-all test were neg.) and had some accidents in her crate at night, but she is now having mostly normal poops. Raven is currently 16 weeks old. When we are home she is doing pretty good with the potty training, still accidents here and there but to be expected. The problem we are experiencing is 9/10 times we leave her home alone she poops, and steps in it and gets it EVERYWHERE. We were putting her in her crate when we left (she does fine in crate at night for most part), but she absolutely hates the crate when alone, never settling down and pacing the entire time(we have a camera so we can see what she is up to). So after talking to some people, including our vet, we locked her in a pretty decent size bathroom. Still didn't like it and still smeared the poop everywhere. Now we are considering leaving her out and blocking access to rooms we don't want her in, at least this way she wouldn't smear the poop everywhere-hopefully. Any advice is appreciated. Is this a sign of separation anxiety? Would leaving her out, where she could play/hang with Rex be better.

Also she wakes us up at least twice a night to go pee/poop still. Should she be making it through the night yet? We take her out about 10:30, then bedtime.

Last question-Raven and Rex play very rough. I know this is typical husky play, but Rex tends to like to grab her by the neck a lot. He is not clamping down hard at all, but at times Raven will let out a little cry.

Last thing, yes we do take her out right before we leave to go potty, sometimes she goes, sometimes not. doesn't seem to matter as she has done it even though she pooped right before we left.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Tim

I'll answer part of this, take a stab at part and leave the rest of it for someone else.

A puppy should be able to hold its urine one hour for each month of age - a 16 week old (4 months) would be expected, everything else being normal, to be able to hold its urine for 4 hours, so a trip outside during the night would be expected.

Normal play, as you know, is rough!! That Raven "will let out a little cry" says that Rex is being a little rough on her - but I wouldn't be overly concerned, they're just learning how to play together and sometimes "accidents happen."

Feces, feces everywhere!!!! Your last question hits the nail right on the head - yep, it's a sign of separation anxiety. I have one female (out of my three) who will leave me a wet spot in the kitchen if I let her stay out while I'm gone. (( I'm less inclined to call this separation anxiety, more inclined to call it spite but that's a discussion already done elsewhere )) In her case, even with the other two loose, she's "put up" while I'm gone. She'll talk at me as I'm going out but as I've told her more than once, "Tough!" At Ravens young age, it would be well worth the time invested to help her settle - normally that's done by crating the dog, going out for a few seconds (to start) and over a month or so building it up so that she'll settle no matter how long your gone (within reason, of course.)