Training
Good morning
I have an 8 week old bull terrier. He is doing a great job peeing and pooping on his potty mat. LEO spends the day in the restroom while I'm at work. I leave a pee pad and toys for him to play with. I used to leave him in the crate with a pee pad in it but he would just tear the paper up and leave all his pee and poop all over the crate. So I figured I would put him in the restroom which gives him waaaay more space for him to play so he won't make a mess. Unfortunately that was not the case. I got home to a messy restroom with pee and poop all over the place. Can anyone recommend a better way to approach this issue? Thanks you.
I have an 8 week old bull terrier. He is doing a great job peeing and pooping on his potty mat. LEO spends the day in the restroom while I'm at work. I leave a pee pad and toys for him to play with. I used to leave him in the crate with a pee pad in it but he would just tear the paper up and leave all his pee and poop all over the crate. So I figured I would put him in the restroom which gives him waaaay more space for him to play so he won't make a mess. Unfortunately that was not the case. I got home to a messy restroom with pee and poop all over the place. Can anyone recommend a better way to approach this issue? Thanks you.
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Comments
It's a fair decision to not let him spend the day in his own pee and poop in his crate and leave him a little more space in the bathroom.
For now he's just a baby. And he will probably pee and poop erratically and tear up potty pads for quite a while in the given situation.
I understand that not everyone has the ability to be home 24/7. But as Phil so eloquently put it, this breed is not typical, they are higher maintenance but no breed surpasses the reward.
You paid more for the breed, invest in it or your asking for problems down the line.
Not to mention little Leo is probably miserable alone all day
I would follow chooba's advice. When my dog was very young, she went to daycare every time I had to work. Now that she is older, I have switched to a dog walking service, or a "sitter", who comes to see her in the middle of my shift so she can have a quick walk and a potty break.
Bull Terriers are not special in the regard that as puppies they need attention. All puppies need attention. I wouldn't suggest leaving a Bull Terrier pup alone for 10 hours as I wouldn't recommend leaving a poodle home for 10 hours. It's just not fair to the dog, especially when they are young. I do not believe you made a mistake getting a dog, but look into options for someone to take care of Leo when you are away.
If this had been a question in a forum for mom’s about a recently adopted human baby and the new parent would be asking for some advice on how to teach the baby to walk and use the toilet as quickly as possible, because it is alone at home all day and the parent needs to find a way of not having to change dirty diapers all the time, I would not want to imagine the rage rumbling against this person immediately. And youth welfare service would probably be already informed.
But when it’s about an animal, suddenly it is wrong to tell a person that he/she is making a huge mistake?
Sorry, I don’t get it.
And as for helping:
Doggie daycare was a suggestion that came to my mind first, too. For at least all I know the problem being that most doggie daycares do not accept pups under 16 weeks of age (with a completed round of vaccinations) for obvious reasons:
They would not want to take over responsibility for any acquired diseases a puppy with insufficient protection could pick up in an environment with other dogs.
I can only hope that in the area of the owner, there are daycares who do accept puppies of this young age.
Other than that I honestly can’t think of any possible external help here. I don’t see any easy fix or advice to give other than not having acquired the puppy under these circumstances in the first place or the owner making his/ her mind up and making different arrangements, now that due to his/ her NOT thinking BEFORE and planning ahead the puppy and he/ she are in this situation, such as having a relative/ friend/ dog walker come over during the day taking care of and walking the dog, switching work shifts, taking days off or whatever he/ she is able to do to take on his/ her responsibility.
These are some of the worst possible initial circumstances a puppy can grow up in.
When I read the title “training” I first assumed that this owner is already working with his/ her dog and needed some particular advice on how to do the training. But reading the questions in the post to me, frankly, that sounded more like someone, who is just looking for some kind of easy fix for not having to return home to a bathroom peed and pooped all over every night after work. I did not find any signs of regret for the puppy being alone all day without any company during the first most important weeks of its life, or any awareness that these are utterly unfortunate circumstances in general. Nor did I read anything about this being an emergency situation, because the well planned first time of the puppy got threatened by a person who promised to be taking care of it and now stood the owner up or something like that.
I can only assume that this - probably first-time - dog owner may be still a very young person, not fully aware yet of the principles of responsibility. And I hope this awareness will grow quickly.
That dog did surely not just knock at the front door, like: “Hi, here I am, now deal with it!”
This owner made the conscious decision to select this animal and bring it home into his/ her home … and with it the responsibility to take good care of it, consider its needs, thinking ahead and making arrangements to make its life comfortable.
If this is how the relationship starts - with neglect, zero potty training, unsupervised play and no attention during the day - how will this go on and where will it end, especially with such a challenging personality as the Bull Terrier's?
Pets are not only in this world to wait at home for us to cuddle and please our eyes or to help us amaze other people (“uh, what a cute puppy!”), whenever we wish for it.
You’ve said it yourself, Quinnofhearts: They have needs and require attention, especially puppies. And I can’t see anything wrong with pointing that out to an owner, who does not seem to be a bit aware of it.
From all I read from the initial post, this owner needs to acquire a lot of dog knowledge and a sense of responsibility. Because otherwise this relationship here will probably become one of those that later initiates posts like:
“My dog is chasing her tail and licking and biting her entire body all day, what can I do?”, “My dog is growling at my fiancé, what can I do?”, “My dog is chewing up my couch and destroying things all day, what can I do?”
And we all know where many of these stories end.
For the sake of that dog, I can only truly hope that my impression of the entire situation is wrong!
The fact of the matter is, this isn't a forum about human children. At a certain point, dogs can be alone, and sometimes, yes, even puppies have to be alone. Not everyone has the luxury to stay at home all the time with their pets, and those pets who DO have those owners are VERY lucky. But those of us who work outside the home still need to take steps to have their dogs well taken care of, and that's why I suggest daycare or dogwalkers. Dogwalking services would probably be better suited to such a young puppy, but this owner could eventually move on to daycares when the puppy was old enough. Mentioning different services is part of informing this new owner about what steps he can take to take care of his dog. "helping"
Youth has nothing to do with it. 17 year olds can be lazy and 54 year olds can be lazy. I was 21 when I got my first bull terrier, and I took it very seriously. It had nothing to do with age, it had to do with me and my views on responsibilities and animals. For all we know, this probably is this guy's first bull terrier, and probably first dog, and he needs guidance, not to be yelled at. So please save your shock/jealousy as you know full well that I am not a casual Bull Terrier owner.
If the first remark in my last post did not stress this, let me put it in other words:
I am fully aware of and appreciate that you are a caring and proficient dog/ EBT owner - never doubted that for a second.
That’s actually why it startled me so much what - let me put it this way - I read from your post.
If youth has nothing to do with not having a proper sense of responsibility yet, well then that’s even one excuse less in favor of the thread opener, if he/ she indeed is young.
By the way, I have never doubted that doggie daycare or dog walkers are great options for people, who are out of the house for work during the day. Thank heaven that there are such things, because otherwise a lot of responsible people would probably not be able to own a dog at all or go on vacations.
But THIS is a (probably now about nine weeks old) puppy - and most daycares will just NOT ACCEPT IT.
And the owner could have known that, had he cared about it for one minute, BEFORE he/ she acquired a puppy while knowing that he/ she also will be out of the house for work all day.
Sticking to the example of kids - their lives have stages, too. And you are absolutely right, at some point they can indeed be alone for longer periods of time, as dogs can be without problems or anyone suffering. But the first life stage is the one when we just cannot leave our babies (human or animal) alone for longer periods of time. And it is self-evident that we just would not do it with our children. If we can’t be present ourselves, we would make arrangements in time to make sure our babies are safe and being taken care of at all times.
And that’s all I am saying about the dog: If someone makes the conscious decision to take a baby dog into his/her home, he/she is also taking on the darn responsibility to make sure IN ADVANCE that this puppy will not spend even one day of it’s young life being all on its own completely alone for hours and peed und pooped all over itself.
That’s just downright careless!
As for rudeness. I myself honestly felt addressed by your remark about rudeness and especially the implied “lack of will to help”.
Apparently I got that wrong. But then again here I am finding myself also thinking that sometimes maybe some clear and definite words are exactly what’s necessary to wake some people up.
I am by far not a promoter of rude conversations on the internet. Also I do not want to make Phil the center of this discussion, because that’s not the topic here.
So all I have to say is that - while I consider myself a polite and helpful person - I often have to curb myself to not write exactly what I am thinking. And while I may not share the exact same words, in a way I can understand it when people, who usually act very helpful, friendly and patient, are loosing their calm after reading such stories over and over, knowing how miserable the poor creatures behind them are in that very moment.
I can accept that this time our opinions on this are just as different as can be. That happens. I can live with it and had my time to become “unshocked” already.
@erikashea
This puppy is only a few weeks old yet. It needs potty training. The moment it will start to avoid peeing and pooping all over the crate will be when it recognizes this crate as its home/ territory. So far not a lot has happened to help the puppy realize what home means. That’s why it’s pooping everywhere. It just does not know better.