I have a Silky Terrier that will be 2 on January 1. He is neutered. He has always had a problem with peeing the house - yet, I can't figure out why. He has no medical condition that causes it. We've checked.

At night, he sleeps in a crate and has never had an accident in it. So I know he can go a number of hours without a problem. As soon as we awaken, we let him and our older second dog out. The same process is followed when we leave and return home. When we are home, we let them both out about every three hours.

Unfortunately, we never catch him doing it so we can't scold him. We always come across the spot later on, usually when it's dried up. It's almost like he hides it or something. He does this usually on our carpeting (4 different rooms, not just one) and sometimes on the linoleum kitchen floor. A few days ago we have started confining him to the kitchen. If we are watching tv in the evening we allow him in the living room, but only if a family member keeps him on their lap. We've tried this before, and he's gone a week or so without an accident, but as soon as he's allowed house roaming, it starts over again.

I talked to a dog trainer who pretty much said it's the dog and that's that, although, he did not see or interact with the dog.

Does anyone have anything we can try with him?

get a good enzyme cleaner - a neutralizer - you can even use white vinegar & water & drown the spots. use a black light to find each one. he smells much better than we do & smells the spots which make him think it is ok.

this may not be a urination problem at all as I suspect he is marking because of the other dog. it is a dominance issue. is the other dog submissive to him?

if you do see him peeing - do not scold him. that will only make him afraid to pee in front of you & he will hide to do it.

you & your husband must establish yourselves as the pack leaders - the alpha dog. google NILIF for help there

when you have him in with the family, having him on your lap all the time is just asking for trouble, try just leashing him to one of you

The second dog is a golden retriever / german shepard mix and I guess I would say he is submissive to the terrier. The terrier can even take food from the second dog, and the second dog lets him.

I will try the cleaning mix you suggested and the black light, along with leashing him to one of us. Unfortunately, if I can't get him to stop, we are going to have to get rid of him. He's ruining the carpets in every room. Other then the urinating problem, he's a good little dog.

They also have sprays and powders now called pet repellants. They're supposed to keep animals from peeing in those areas. My mom tried it once with cats and it seemed to work well. You might want to try one of them after cleaning the carpets also.

have you talked to your vet about this problem? has he been checked for a UTI? perhaps a low dose of female hormones might help? but do check out the NILIF training

unfortunately his future is pretty bleak if you "get rid of him". not many people would take him with this problem.

I mentioned in my original post that we have checked for any medical problems. that may be causing this. He checked out okay.

I will work with him a little more and check into the training to see if it will help to stop this problem.

Thanks for your input.

you said that your other dog is submissive to him. have you actually seen him have an accident? are you sure it's not the other dog being bullied by your terrior? my mom has 2 rat terriors and one picks on the other until he sometimes makes him have an accident.