Hello,

My first post here. Just stumbled across this site and looks like a lot of knowledgeable people here with good advice, so sorry my first post is a little on the negative side.

We adopted an approx 3 yo husky back in November (Desman) and he is a fine dog with one major drawback...he pees in the crate (and occasionally poops but usually only if he is sick). He has some occasional housetraining issues outside of the crate, but has generally improved in this regard over time with discipline/ positive reinforcement. He has the occasional accident but 95% of them occur in the crate. This happens every single time whether it's the workday (7 + hours - I know that's a long time) or even just an hour if we briefly go out at night. I would say our main challenge is the inability to discipline him because we don't "catch him in the act" when he goes in the crate. He does seem to respond well to discipline/scolding because the times we've actually caught him in the house he generally doesn't repeat the mistake again, at least for a while. We don't think it's medical because he's fine all night and can hold it 8 hrs + while we're asleep (we don't crate him at night and don't need to). Although, this dog seems to get sick an awful lot with periodic diarhea, but his fecal tests came back negative and he may have a picky/sensitive stomach. And, not be gross, but his farts can be absolutely deadly and literally stink up the entire house at times. We switched his diet from Purina One to Natural Balance Synergy and noticed improvement with the farting/ diarrhea after 2 weeks, but yesterday he regressed and threw up really bad twice after getting out of the crate and had the diarrhea again. This has led us to suspect that he could be pooping in the crate and eating it and making him sick, but we're just not sure. He is neutered, however unfortunately he was an adult when he was fixed, and from what I've read these problems can be common with dogs fixed later in life. We've tried most of the normal "positive reinforcement" crate techniques with him, however he has shown no improvement at all in the 5 months we've had him and has actually gotten worse.

I should point out that we have experience with the breed and have another 13 year old husky that was also adopted, and we've had none of these problems with him. He had some issues of his own earlier on with separation anxiety but through routine/ positive reinforcement we got him crate trained and eventually to the point where we gave him free run of the house while we're out with no repercussions whatsoever. We still leave the older one out while we crate the new one. We think separation anxiety is the root of the problem with the new dog, but he does at least have the other dog around for companionship, even though he is an old man and free to move around. He doesn't get particularly anxious about going in the crate but isn't crazy about it either....he alternates between going in willingly or resisting it all together depending on the day.

Any advice at all would be most welcome, and if there's any other details I could provide let me know. Help!

are you SURE he's peeing in the crate, or could it just be a LOT of drool? I only ask because we adopted an adult husky as well, and when we would crate him to go somewhere for the first few months he would freak out and drool TONS. He would also get stress diarhea from being crated. (He had seperation anxiety issues that we're mostly worked through almost one year later.)

Your biggest suggestion about the diahrea/gas is going to be changing food to something grainfree. I'm not an expert in any of these things though.

Nope, it's definitely pee, no doubt about it. I do think the diarrhea could be stress related from separation anxiety.

From your description, I would say that the issue seems almost entirely diet related. Although Natural Balance Synergy is a highly rated food containing mostly protein and good quality ingredients, it does include grain and huskies are notorious for not being able to handle grains. The gas and the bathroom issues seem very telling.

A general rule of thumb is that a new food takes about 2-3 weeks to truly settle into their systems and start showing if they are working or not. For example, a while back we switched Koda to Innova Evo which is a HIGHLY rated food and grain free. He did amazing on it at first (stools firmed up and he did great) but after about 2.5 weeks he went soft again. The food was just too rich for him. So even the best quality foods won't always agree with our animals.

I would try putting him on some boiled chicken and scrambled eggs for about a week or two (raw food shows its effects almost immediately unlike kibble). See if that helps the issue. If it does, I would switch him to something grain free and see how he does.

Lastly, it's worth mentioning your cleaning methods. Do you use an enzyme cleaner when you clean his crate after his messes? At this point, it's possible that the crate still has traces of his pee and therefore, he thinks it's okay for him to go there. Make sure you're using a good enzyme cleaner like Nature's Miracle to thoroughly clean the area.

Thanks, didn't consider the grain aspect but it makes sense. He typically has a loose stool even when he's not sick with diarrhea, so it could be too much grain/fibre. I guess we lucked out with our other husky because he can eat anything without a problem and we get solid poops from him every time even at 13+ yo.

Yes we use Nature's Miracle and clean the crate with it every day. Even still, he soils the crate daily so I'm not sure we're getting rid of the pee smell entirely, even with the enzyme cleaner....there's no question that he thinks its ok to pee in the crate but will think twice about it anywhere else indoors. How do we discipline a dog whose bad behavior occurs when we're not there?