Welcome
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- We have a gorgeous 12wk Husky called Smudge.
Great Name
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- The problem we are having is he seems to be donig really well with his housetraining and we know his signs but whenever my wife leaves him alone he wees on the floor and has even been known to poo on the floor.
Your real problem here is the little tike is only 3 months old. There are a lot of puppies who just pick it up really fast and never have accidents, but for the most part they are going to happen a lot when a pup is developing and unsupervised.
It sounds like you guys are doing most things right so If you just keep at it it should go away in do time.... You really are on the right path.
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- When we first got him we confined him to the bathroom, where we had a cage, with a bed in it, his water and was able to go in the shower base with a pet mat. During the day we would let him out and he roams the house with us.
This sounds like a pretty decent sized cage. Generally when crate / crate training if you want to limit or avoid as much "accidents" as you can you want to remove mobility.
A crate should be large enough for your pup to stretch out in comfortably and turn around without problem but really no bigger then that. A normal pup won't "eliminate" where they sleep, and this form of crate training can help them learn to hold their bladders a lot more.
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- We now have a PetLoo and he is using it quite well, as well as going outside when we take him out. When he goes outside we give him a better reward (treats and playing) compared to when he goes on the petloo.
We actually know a golden that was trained to use a "Litter box" its entire life. It would even use one outside.
It depends what you want your end goal to be. If Smudge will always use a litter box inside or pee pads then that it fine, however if you want Smudge to be trained only to pee outside as an adult when he can hold it that long you might be prolonging the process.
Often times litter box or pee pad training can add an extra time to the whole process and starting right away with only outside elimination can go a long way in saving you time and accidents later on when/if you plan on removing the petloo.
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- He then ripped shreds out of the bed that was in his crate, so naturally that went and has not been replaced as when we give him a new one he just tries to rip it to shreds.
I've never placed a bed in a crate with my pups. I know they would only end up destroying them.
A soft blanket is the only thing that lines their crate if I crate them for a day. It is able to be moved and pushed into a corner if they find it too hot instead of not being able to escape it and resort to destroying it.
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- We have since shut the door to the bathroom and moved his water into the kitchen, we are trying to use the crate as a time out area for him for when he acts up
Crates should never be used as a negative location. You want your crate to be available to you for any EMERGENCY that should arise. If for what ever reason you should really need to crate Smudge and he sees it as a negative place it would put a lot of added stress on him. A lot of us work very hard, and advocate, doing everything you can to make crating a positive experience.
He might also fight you one day you really need him to be in there because it is BAD... I would work on it remaining a positive experience and some place he can go to "escape" and relax if he really needed to.
Find some place else for time outs.... My 2 hate Baths, so we use our bathtub as our punishment location. They know when they are bad and a simple point and a stern TIME OUT and they sulk into it.
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- The problem began after this, whenever we put him in the crate he will poo and wee in it and then bark until its cleaned up.
Now that this area, or his crate, is a negative place he is acting out when he is inside of it. He knows you'll come eventually and clean it and interact with him which gets him out of his punishment.
IT could be slightly stress related or it could just be acting out.
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- So i guess the two problems we have are, how can we stop him going in the crate? and how can we stop him going in front of the bathroom?
If it were me and my pups:
I would reduce the size of the Crate and retrain so they saw it as a positive location.
I would move my time out location to elsewhere in the house or find a new form of punishment.
I would Crate when ever I left the house and clean up any accidents they had within until they got it.
I would remove all pee pads and litter boxes from the house and instead focus on just outdoor training to limit accidents in the house itself. During this time I would probably have my pup umbilicaled to me so I could see if they ever were trying to sneak away to eliminate and let them out before they did in the proper place.
Placing them outside after every meal, and at 3 months, every 3 hours give or take.
Limiting the chances for accidents and being proactive stop 90% of the problems.
That is just what I would do and what is practical for our lifestyle. You know what works best for you, and as long as you stay consistent anything can work
Just keep at it, relate to Smudge and convey when he is wrong, and build off that.
Hope it helps,
~Chris~
