Help! Bathroom trouble

[AikosDad]

Hi everyone,

I am seeking advice about a problem we are experiencing with our 13 month old BC, Aiko. We live in a rural area on a piece of land about 3,200 sqm. We normally keep Aiko outside and at first we fenced off about 300 sqm area just for her, complete with a covered area for her dog house. The idea was to keep her there most of the time. But now she is free to roam the entire land and we don't want her to relieve herself around our vegetable garden or other off-limits areas. So, we tried to train her to go potty only in her 300 sqm garden and we were successful to a certain extent. But now, every once in a while she picks a spot outside her garden to go potty. This behaviour usually lasts a day or two, we try to deter her by spraying vinegar in that area and encourage her to go in her garden. I would appreciate any ideas to help us solve this problem. Thanks very much.

[D'Elle]

Hi and welcome to the forum. Personally, I would fence off the garden and other areas you don't want her to go. The simplest solution to an issue like this is to make it impossible for the dog to go there.

But if you cannot or don't want to, you could continue with the training, whatever you have been doing, if it is having some effect. What method are you using apart from the vinegar? I ask because someone here might have an idea for a more effective way to do it. I don't know why you want to keep her outside most of the time; I'd never do that with a dog myself. You no doubt have your reasons. But if you had her indoors more of the time, that might help.

[Journey]

I can only suggest you fence off the areas you *don't want her in*. All dogs will generally pick a spot and use it continually if it is kept clean. Could it be *her* garden wasn't clean and she didn't want to go in that area?

[AikosDad]

D'Elle, Journey, thank you for your comments.

19 hours ago, D'Elle said:

What method are you using apart from the vinegar?

Vinegar is the only solution we could find to keep her away from areas where we don't want her to use, which by the way doesn't work all the time.

When she was a puppy and living indoors, we potty trained her using pads. We later used the pads outside to get her to use a certain area and praised and rewarded her when she did so. After a some time we removed the pads and all was fine for a while. Now, whenever she starts using off-limits areas, we try to get her to relieve herself in the designated area by taking her there after she eats and use praise and rewards when she goes.

 

12 hours ago, Journey said:

I can only suggest you fence off the areas you *don't want her in*. All dogs will generally pick a spot and use it continually if it is kept clean. Could it be *her* garden wasn't clean and she didn't want to go in that area?

We clean her garden daily and it is big enough so she can always find a clean spot. So, I don't think that's the reason why she doesn't want to go there.

[D'Elle]

Really the best solution is to fence off the areas where you don't want her to go. 

[urge to herd]

You  might do some research (recent, the last couple years) on dogs using urine/feces as markers. It's possible that Aiko, (I'm assuming that's her name) is marking and over-marking what she believes is her territory.

As far as keeping her area 'clean', believe me, unless you're digging out say, 4 inches down and at least 4-5 inches across, you're not getting all the urine. A dog's ability to scent is at least hundreds of times stronger than a human's. Do a little research on it, you'll find estimates ranging from 1000x stronger to 100,000 times stronger. Your ideas of what she can scent at what concentration are way too low.

As D'Elle says ^^^, the only thing that's going to keep her from going relieving herself where you don't want her to is to fence her out. The current methods you're using are not working. Try something else.

Ruth & Gibbs