It's Friday!Follow

Fighting off some kind of bug here too. Birthday party for my cousin's husband and my nephew this Saturday. Visiting with family. Same old same old. And I'll be staring at my house and garage again wondering when I'm going to clean, organize and declutter.

But we did adopt a Great Dane last weekend who is a total love bug and he's been fun to play with.

Thanks. Unfortunately, he still is not fully housebroken. He won't go while we're in the house, but he'll have a couple of accidents while we're gone. We have a full steam cleaner, but we'll be buying one that's easy to carry this weekend.

Anyone have tips on getting a dog fully housebroken?

Edited, Dec 14th 2007 1:12pm by Thumbelyna

I'm gonna enjoy a quiet weekend, getting some Christmas cards out, some gift shopping, hitting the gym, walking the dogs, get in some EQ2 or maybe visit LOTRO if I have time, and try to pick up The Bourne Ultimatum to watch this weekend.

We had our company Christmas party (luncheon) with booze and food on Thursday, which was cool because I'm off every Friday.



How old is he? Pics please! I'll assume he is a young puppy. Welcome to puppy parenthood! I hope you have puppy proofed your home!

As to the housebreaking:

My first thought is if this only happens when you are out, then you should put up a puppy pen (you can get one at PetSmart) in the kitchen (or some other area where accidents are easier to clean as opposed to carpeted surfaces). A pen allows him more room and roaming than a crate. The other plus to this is it curtails any destructive behavior that can take place in the house while you are gone due to separation anxiety or boredom.

Another alternative is pet/baby gates. That's what I have - keeps the dogs in the kitchen (with access to doggy door, and the connected family room.

You probably are familiar with "crating" but I only recommend that during the night so he can be in his lair/safe place. Just don't leave him crated all day or anything.

It's really a matter of watching him constantly - it's a pain, but it's necessary. Look for signs of him sniffing, whining, or looking at any door. Puppies don't have the strongest bladders, so you have to really be on top of the situation. Take him out immediately, even be ready to run him outside in the middle of the night.

Praise him for when he does his business outside. Don't scold or punish him if he does have an accident inside (not saying you do this). Just get him out as quickly as possible.

Couple of options:

Do you have a fenced in yard? If so, I can't recommend enough a doggy door. I have one that fits into my sliding glass door that leads to the backyard. Basically it sits in the door frame between the door and the edge of the door frame. It's pretty simple to get the dog to come in and out of it (treats always help).

If you have a solid wood back door, then it's a matter of if you want to install a doggy door and costs more, but it's well worth the investment.

Not only is it great for the dog to be able to burn off some energy out in the back yard throughout the day, it saves any destruction to stuff inside your house due to pent up energy/anxiety/boredom. I can get away with only having to walk the dogs in the evening on my work days because they get enough exercise in the back yard when they use the doggy door.

Couple of things to keep in mind about doggy doors and the dog in the backyard during the day - is he a barker? Do you have a lot of neighbors with dogs that bark? If so, it shouldn't be a problem. The other concern is the safety for your dog - keeping your back yard gate locked so that neighborhood kids don't let your pup out of the yard or worse case, dog thieves who take dogs for dog fighting purposes. Unfortunately, it does happen now and then.

If you don't have a fenced back yard, walk him in the mornings and evenings every night. If you can walk him in the middle of the day or have someone do this for you, even better.

Also, limit his drinking water before going to bed. Do you crate him or have him in a pen at night? That's the usual recommendation. Just be sure to take him straight outside in the mornings.

Regarding your steam cleaning - When I first brought Snorre, Jr. home (my basset hound), he had a lot of accidents upstairs in the hallway and pretty much every bedroom. I used my Spot Bot (hand held mini steam cleaner) and my full-size steam cleaner. I used the typical urine stain remover products. While the stains initially went away, they unfortunately came back due to the urine being so deeply soaked into the carpet pad. Bad urine rising!

I ended up calling a professional steam cleaner and he had the better equipment to really do a solid deep-soak cleaning to get rid of about 98% of the stains. The ones that didn't go away fully were due to the various cleansers I tried to use. It was well worth the cost (about $430 total) to do the job.

Another puppy tip - socialize, socialize, socialize - especially a big dog like a Great Dane. Find your nearest dog park (California has awesome dog parks) and try to get him to one at least a couple of times a month. It's a great way for him to get used to other dogs of all sizes as well as meeting other people/kids.

Finally, is he a chewer? I can't recommend enough Grannick's Bitter Apple spray (PetSmart, Petco). Spray on items you don't want chewed on and it should keep your dog from chewing those items. Good luck!

Augh, I hate Fridays in the city. Last Friday I had my work car towed during my last stop and had to walk out to the impound lot (while it started snowing) and fork out some money to get it back. Today I got rear-ended by some jackhole on the FDR then got off on the Triborough Bridge exit instead of eighty-somethingth street, spent two hours at a customer's doing what turned out to be unnecessary work which should have taken fifteen minutes. And got home at 8:30.