AboutPatti Expertise To date, I've owned 7 dogs, all of which have lived into old age.
Having cared for them in all stages of life, I feel I can offer sound advice to other pet owners, and people considering getting a dog.
I am knowledgeable about the AKC (American Kennel Club) dog breeds, training and exercise, caring for sick and elderly pets, feeding, as well as many holistic treatments pets can benefit from.
My only request is that you write me using standard English and punctuation.
Experience My life experience in this field is more like "on the job training" rather than an actual degree in animal welfare. You may benefit from my experiences over the past 30 years.
Aside from the dogs I've owned, I'm also involved in "breed rescue" and have fostered several dogs, all of which have been adopted to wonderful "forever homes".
I find helping people who want a dog very rewarding.
hi im needing some advice.... my friend recently brought a boxer puppy his now 9 weeks and all was going well with the puppy,ie training etc but the last 2 days the dog seems to be just playing his owner up cause i had the puppy for few hours today and was brilliant, the puppy does his toilets on training pads and was playfull and eat and drank..... now when i took him home to his owner he immidiately urined on floor and soiled the carpet which he has never done till the last few days????... we cleaned but dog just sat and done it all over again
my friend is at wits end and i dont know what to say? and i know once there past this bit it will be so much fun
so dont want the worst to happen and puppy to go
please help
Answer Hi Erica,
If your friend is at her wit's end with a 9 week old puppy that isn't housetrained yet, then she really has very unrealistic expectations as to what house training is, or how long it can take!
At 9 weeks old, this puppy doesn't even have bowel or bladder control yet. That doesn't happen until about 4 months of age, and even then it's very unreliable.
If the puppy was "good" while it was visiting you, and didn't have a single accident and hit his training pads without fail, then that is what's odd, and all purely coincidence.
It's not at all unusual for a puppy to take 6 months or longer before it's house trained, and a full year isn't out of the question.
Tell your friend that her puppy can't have the run of her home, until it's reliably house trained. Until then, when she can't be watching it like a hawk, the puppy needs to be either crated or contained someplace with the help of a child gate or two. The other thing that's essential to housebreaking is to give the puppy frequent opportunities to go to the bathroom outside, (perhaps as often as 8 or 9 times a day at this age) and cleaning up accidents with an enzymatic cleaner, such as Nature's Miracle, so the puppy isn't attracted back to soil again.
Accidents are rarely the puppy's fault. More often than not, the accident occurred because the puppy wasn't being supervised or it wasn't taken outside in time. Never scold or punish a puppy for house training accidents, as it can lead to much more complex problems which are difficult to resolve.
