[maudlinblithe]

I asked this question at Yahoo answers only to be told I was a cruel person, as bad as the person I rescued my dog from. So, I am trying to get help one last time before I quit asking.


DOG:
Gracie: 3 1/2 year old purebred Newfoundland dog. Kennel raised. Breeder dog. Was not taken care of by previous owners ( she came from a puppy mill that was shut down).

Gracie was forced to live in her filth for her entire life. When I got her, her fur was dread locks filled with urine and feces. In August she still had the previous winters fur matted all the way down to her skin! I had to shave all of her underside and took the tedious time to groom the rest out. It took forever!

This dog also had an ear hematoma and needed surgery. I paid for that.
I love this dog!

Since this dog had to live in her own filth, she has no problem peeing and pooping in my house anywhere on the floor. When I leave, she has a LARGE crate, only big enough for her to turn around in, and she will poop and pee in there too. I keep NO blankets in the crate with her.

At first I fed her twice a day because she is underweight. But coming home from work to clean poop and pee off the wall, the crate pan, surrounding floor, and bathing a huge long haired dog every day is getting OLD!

heres the current schedule:

I leave for work at 10:30 am. I get home from work by 6:30 pm. (NOTE: my small dog who is 1 3/4 years old doesnt poop or pee in this time frame) to find poo and pee in gracies crate. I feed her AT 7:00 pm. This is currently the ONLY feeding she gets. I take her out at night time to poop. she poops. we go to bed. she poops in the middle of the night in the crate. She poops again in the morning. then she poops again in her crate while I am at work.

(note: my 1 3/4 year old dog doesnt poop in her crate during my work schedule. and yes, it is roughly 8 hours a day. but people crate their dogs for longer than this while they are at work. so please dont yell at me for this)

Basically, off of one meal, this dog poops giant piles 3-4 time a day!

I am not feeding her the cheapest food either: she eats ONLY Diamond Naturals for large dogs. it's pricey.

Her poop is very soft, but not runny for the most part. It was been runny twice in the month I have had her.


how can I get this dog to NOT go in her crate? If I cant get her to stop going in the crate, I doubt I can potty train her at all. She simply doesnt care if she lays/sits/steps in it and drags it around. She doesnt care if she poops on my carpet three feet away from where she is sleeping.

ALSO: this dog is so HAPPY she is inside my house, that i have to physically FORCE her into the crate and have to FORCE her out the back door to go potty. She is CONSTANTlY by my side licking me to death. If I move three feet, she follows three feet.

She doesnt want to go outside, even on a leash, because she fears she will be out there forever.

The first step is getting her to not go in the crate, but how? NOTE: I do not put blankets or towels in the crate with her either.

should I switch to feeding her in the morning? I doubt that would work cause she poops 3-4 times anyways. AND! I am not giving her a ton of food either, only what the label says.

A friend suggested that cottage cheese may help firm her poo up, and that maybe she would have to go less often?

I dont want any of my dogs to be "outside dogs." I want my dogs to be in the house with me.

PLEASE DONT YELL AT ME!

one lady said I was as bad as the puppy mill for crating her when i went to work and again at night. she said I am not giving her a better life, this dog who has been nothing but pampered since the time i brought her home! LOL, it took me TWO weeks to groom this dog. I did sections daily. that hair stunk so bad and was matted so tight that this dog had skin infections!

******DUH! my question was, how can I crate train her... and then potty train her... (a dog who doesnt mind living in her own filth)... so I dont have to crate her at night!!!

(note: I dont crate my other two dogs at night. why? they are potty trained and WONT poop on my floor in the middle of the night! BUT YES! for the time being, I crate Gracie at night time, because if I dont, she poops and pees all over in my new house!

further more, I cant section off my kitchen or utility room. the kitchen, dining room, and two living rooms are all a big open connected space. the utility room is way too small.

SO! can someone please HELP me and not tell me that I am a horrible person for trying to SAVE this dog from a life of going in and out of the pound. Not many people that I know of would have already put this much money into a dog thats ruining their brand new home, desperate to save her from living outside forever.

[Lara's mom]

First of all, whoever told you that you were a horrible person for saving that dog is an idiot. Having said that, I am a complete failure at crate training so, you'll have to wait for some members who know more about it than I do to get your question answered.

Remember though that this is not the dogs fault. She has spent her life living in really bad conditions so, to her it is natural. She doesn't know any different. Teaching her differently is going to take a lot of time and patience.

Also, every dogs ability to "hold it" is different. Both of mine have to go out four times a day. Eight hours may just be too long. Have you considered hiring a dog walker to come in around lunch time and let the dog out? It may help to some extent.

Just a suggestion: Rice cooked in chicken stock fed over a 24 hour period works wonders for loose stools.

[mightymite]

I completely understand your plight - I see a similar problem that many of my pet training clients face housebreaking pet shop puppies who were born out of puppy mills and then lives in crates at the pet shops, once a dog is patterned to go in their crate, it makes housebreaking an uphill battle and crate training becomes quite useless. My suggestion is to get rid of the crate and try something else your dog has not yet been exposed to. One option, is to set up an exercise pen area on a tiled or wooden floor. Give your dog a bed or pad on one side and leave the rest floor. You'll need to take time off from work to make this work- but it will be well worth it. Basically, commit a week's worth of vacation time to the cause (hopefully the time is available to you!). Your going to basically have to set up a vigil around this penned off area. Put your dog on a feeding and watering schedule where he does not have access to these inport items outside of the schedule. You are to give your dog food and water at the same times every day and then immediatly remove these items (don't worry - this is just for a week, after that, your dog can have access to water whenever). I would say - water three times a day, food no more than twice (I do understand that your dog is emaciated, so you will have to sacrifice weight gain temperarily to get the housebreaking in order.) take your dog outside before feeding and wait him out. if you are familiar with clicker training, have a clicker and a hot dog bit with you. Wait and wait and wait. DO NOT come back inside unitl your dog has done at least 1 and hopeful 2 as well. Click your clicker the moment your dog squats. When he is finished give him the hotdog bit and tell him he is awesome. Bring him inside and put him in his pen. Feed him. 10 -15 minutes later, go back outside again, repeat with the clicker. Most dogs will at least pee. Come back in side. 2 hours later, go outside again and click for any peeing or pooping. Your day will be broken down into these 2 hour segments plus the 20 minutes before and after feeding and watering. If your dog makes a mistake in the penned up area, do not scold the dog, but hopefully you will be watching (remember what I said about the vigil?), if you are watching, immedialty use what dog trainers call a "no reward marker" - I use a "ooppsie" and bring your dog outside and see if you can get him to finish his business outside, then reward. Clean up the mess with an enzymatic cleaner like Simple Solution, Nature's Miracle or Get Serious! You want to remove the scent entirely so that your dog is not trained to go on your floor. If you keep this up for a week, and stay consistant (and i know this is going to be hard for you - just stick with it), you'll break the chain of going in the sleeping quarters. I am sad to say though, that a crate will probably always mean "bathroom" to your dog.

[maudlinblithe]

I knew I bought that clicker for some reason. I'm gonna have to read up more on that.

[Lara's mom]

I must agree with the above post. If the dog has spent a lot of time locked in a crate and had no option but to use it as a bathroom, the crate will always represent a bathroom.

[Lunareclipse]

I agree. Get rid of the crate. In most situations, crate training would be a great thing. But in this case, it's not helping with house training, since her bathroom was a crate at the breeders. I have saint bernards. Due to the size of the crates and how much room they would take up, I did not crate train them. Buster, my saint puppy, was tied to my leg for the first threee days before he got the hang that going in the house is a really bad thing. Your dog might take a little longer. If you have to go to work, I would suggest that you take a Friday and a Monday off so you can be with your dog 24/7 for a few days and watch her all the time. I tied Buster to my ankle when I was busy doing something. When I saw him sniffing around, I would drop everything I was doing and immediatly take him out. As he was going pee, I would say go pee. And as he was going poo, I would say go poo. Eventually he learned to pee and poo on command. And by doing that I related going pee and poo to doing it OUTSIDE. If I saw him sniffing inside the house, I would say "No! Outside!" And take him out. We had Buster house trained in 3 days without a crate and he hasn't even had an accident.

[evanhog]

First of all i would like to appreciate you for saving the dog. since you itself told it is used to sleeping in her own filth it will take time for her to forget that habit. so give her time in the mean time slowly try to train by taking her out as soon as she finishes her night feed.