6 month old regressed. not using pads!

[nursedebbie]

hi everyone...molly is 6 months old. she is the love of our lives. she has been somewhat trained to use the potty pads. the past month or so she is having more and more accidents.

we sleep with her every night. (she has stairs to get in and out of bed with a pad near by.) she recently started pooping by a chair in the bedroom which is appr. 10 feet from the bed.

i have pads in several areas of the house now.but
she is missing about 50% of the time.

i'm thinking i have to confine her once again (in our blocked off living room) and give her less freedom. this is so discouraging. she was doing so good. am i thinking along the right lines?

[Morkie4]

I sleep with mine and there are stairs but only the Yorkie will use them. So I have a couple of questions for you to ponder.

Have you made any changes in your schedule? Have you had any changes in your life that have involved her? Any furniture moved around? What time is your last feeding? When is your last potty time outside before going to bed or is she strictly a pee pad trained gal? Any changes to her food? Is it just poo that you are having issues with her? Is it only happening at night???? If you removed the stairs, would she jump off he bed???

I'm just trying to hit all the reasons for a possible change since she was doing so good. Take a few minutes and try to think of anything that might have changed that could have upset her. If you can't think of anything, then you may have to pump up your retraining of her to pee pad using.

[JiJi's Mom]

My girls started doing that too. I think they want to see how far they can sneak.
I don't put pads everywhere, I have an area for them pick out and every time I see them sniffing the wrong area I say NO-NO and they run to their spot. I then praise them and give them belly rubs. When JiJa pee on my bed she wasn't allowed on it the next night and so far she hasn't pee on the bed again. I'm not a trainer or dog expert but it has work on my girls.
Also, I don't know if your screaming at her if you are she might think pooing is bad and she's probably hiding to poo(i read that somewhere). I would probably confine her only if I wasn't able to keep an eye on her. Good Luck!!

[missmo]

Hey, I have a 5 and a half month old Morkie who started doing the exact same thing! We go to puppy school and I brought it up with my trainer who told me that it could be her age. When they get to be around 6 months and havn't get been neutered/spayed they may start territorial marking. They are essentially in their teenage years. She said that the best thing to do is to just keep reinforcing the potty trainning and things will most likely improve as they get on in age.

[Morkie Mommie]

I have brother and sister Morkies. My little boy, Sammy, was the best using the pads. All of a sudden his sister is doing fine and he is doing terrible! The problem is he makes most of his mistakes when I am home with him. When I am at work he does fine. He has gone on my bed 3 times now (with me in it) in the last couple of weeks with his pad near the bed. He has even gone on 2 doggy beds I have for them in the living room with pads near! He seems to want to make all of his mistakes right in front of me! I am beside myself as to what to do! I am trying just to praise when he does good and not correct him harshly when he does bad. Hopefully, this will pass with time.

[Morkie4]

I have brother and sister Morkies. My little boy, Sammy, was the best using the pads. All of a sudden his sister is doing fine and he is doing terrible! The problem is he makes most of his mistakes when I am home with him. When I am at work he does fine. He has gone on my bed 3 times now (with me in it) in the last couple of weeks with his pad near the bed. He has even gone on 2 doggy beds I have for them in the living room with pads near! He seems to want to make all of his mistakes right in front of me! I am beside myself as to what to do! I am trying just to praise when he does good and not correct him harshly when he does bad. Hopefully, this will pass with time.

Oh boy! Well, guess you may need to start putting him in an x-pen with a pee pad and try to limit his movement until he gets the hang of it again. Not sure why he would regress to peeing in inappropriate places but if you don't get every bit of scent out of the item is has peed on, it could be the odor is attracting him to that area. I would not be putting him on my bed until I was certain he is "over" thise random peeing in places he should not. Correction is necessary when you catch him "IN THE ACT" because it really isn't effective any other time. Also "REWARDS" for when he does it where he is suppose to will go a long way in getting him to go where you want him to. Sorry to hear about the problem but hope it get resolved soon! :)

[Morkie Mommie]

Thank-you for your response.

I just don't get it! He is going in new places where there is no scent like on my bed and on his beds. I do catch him in the act because he only goes in front of me. One night I was so angry that I secluded him in a crate (I don't use a crate, but have one for traveling with both dogs in the car) for about 30 minutes and he went in the crate! He is such a sweet baby otherwise. I took him to the vet for very expensive lab tests to see if had a urinary infection and everything was OK. This is so very depressing!

[bellaratamalt]

I would definitely start restricting his freedom. Usually if I have potty accidents, I can easily blame it on myself, for letting them have the freedom to pee where they aren't supposed to!!

Hopefully your pups can get back on track! I know it's frustrating, believe me I know!

[Morkie Mommie]

Thanks Stacey!

I have thought about restricting their freedom but, what I can not figure out is why this behavior does not occur when I leave them alone? They both chew up newspapers and such (my fault when I don't puppy proof my apt.) when I am gone but Sammy only seems to do his really "dirty deeds" right in front of me after I come home! So very frustrating! I am spending much time on the Internet searching for answers.