Goes out 6-7 times an hour

I guess I need to tell the whole story. My son is in Special Forces. He just got back from Iraq and is messed up, PTSD. A couple weeks after he was back he went to a breeder and got the pup 6 weeks old. He should not have a pet and when he could not train her in a week he started to abuse her.
He lives with his girlfriend so we do not see him much.
We heard the dog broke its leg and we feel he did it. She was 8 weeks old when that happened. We knew he was hurting her so we went to see him and he was abusing her. We made him give her to us. We got her 3 weeks ago. She will be 5 months old in a week.
He would leave her outside in below freezing temps when she was 7 weeks old. He would throw her around and we had to get her from him.
In the 3 weeks we had her she only had 3 accidents in the house. She is so smart and loving and a great pet.
As I stated she can hold it in the crate both night and day and when she is loose and sleeping or laying around she has held it for a couple hours.

Her leg never healed straight so she gimps. The vet told us not to work her hard or play hard as it makes her gimp worse. I take her for walks several times a week and play with her in the house but do not overdo it.
This is all the vet said we should do as far as exercise.
She has other medical issues too. She has had diarrhea the entire time we had her. She has been on canned ID bland food the entire time and 2-3 types of medicines and Imodium. This is another reason why we take her when she lets us know.
She does not have a UTI. The vet has not found the intestinal issue yet. She has been wormed for parasites, antibiotics for any viruses, and other stuff but no fix yet.

All that aside if she can hold it in the crate, and when lying around the house she can hold it other times. I know she has been dealt a raw hand from my sons abuse but I feel this issue is not medical. Of course I am not a vet but it just does not seem to be.
She gets plenty of attention for sure. I work 50% from home and I crate her every morning for 3-4 hours so I can work. You have to watch her like a hawk because she is into everything.

She is ok with her crate. We leave it open all day and she will go in from time to time and sleep in it when she wants too.
She does have a biting issue and I have tried everything. I find that the crate time out is the best for her. When she gets playing hard and starts to bite I tell her no bite and say you need a time out. She goes into the crate herself. I leave her in for 5-10 minutes and let her out. She is very smart. She forgets the next day but I hope in time she will break out of that habit as she gets older.

I need to find an answer to this out all the time thing. I think she gets plenty of attention so it seems odd she would do it for that reason but again I am not an expert.

I know my wife cant take it anymore and I am losing my nerve too. I hope someone here could offer help because I want this all to end well.

Thanks

Hi cybor462,

I am sorry to hear about your son's problems. I am glad that you saved the puppy though. It sounds like she got abused so badly when she was very young.

I understand it is a lot of work to keep up with her toilet problems, both taking her out so often and cleaning after her. But can you think of this way?

The poor puppy had to go through the terrible time since she was only 6 wks old up to 16 wks old! That also includes she got her leg broken and left out in a freezing temperature! From 6wks to 16wks are the most critical time for puppies to be with his mom and siblings to develop his confidence and socialization. Your son has psychological problems himself so it is not totally his fault but please try to make up for the time the puppy lost. I am sure she is traumatized. She suffered 10 wks without any help. I am afraid your son abused her when she had an accident inside the house that's why she tries hard to go outside. She is not comfortable being loose inside because she is afraid she might make a mistake again. She must be totally confused. Peeing inside the house is not such a big deal when you think about the hardship she went through.

I foster dogs, stranger dogs, right from shelters and most of them pee and poo inside the house since they are not potty trained. I get upset and sometimes I even cry if the problem goes on and on. Then, I think this way. They are not intentionally doing this to make me upset. They just don't know what they are supposed to do. It takes a lot of time and patience but no dogs will keep wetting the floor forever unless they are too old or have medical problems.

Please, please be patient with the puppy. She has only been living for less than 5 months and most of the 5 months were hell for her. Once she understands the routine, she will be just fine. Some dogs takes longer than others, especially your puppy that has got a trauma about potty.

Hi cybor462,

Thank you so much for your reply and the picture of Lucy. She is adorable!

I am sincerely sorry for your son. What a terrible thing to happen to your beloved child! I am a mother of 3 children so I feel for you. It is much bigger concern for you than Lucy's problem. I really hope somehow he and you guys will find help so that he would be treated as soon as possible. He is still a young man and this is just not fair. I am very sad to think about him. I hate wars!

Well, this is a dog training site so let me give you suggestions on Lucy's problem:

1) I would keep her in a contained area to start with. This area can be easily cleaned so that you and your wife won't have to get too upset if she makes a mistake. I would suggest a laundry room or kitchen.

2) I would set a time for her to go outside to realease her, starting once every 2 hours. This is like giving her a toilet training all over again, just like a little puppy. I don't know if you are mostly home or working during the day but let's do this training on the weekend so that you can be home all day long.

3) When you first let her out right after she wakes up, watch her where she likes to go potty. Praise and give her a treat! Make a big deal out of it. Then, next hour you take her out to the same spot, and give her a command (it's OK if she doesn't understand the command. I would say to my foster dogs "Go shi-shi") and if she actually releases, make a big deal in a very happy voice, like a "Good Girl! Lucy!". Repeat this every time. Other times she will stay in the kitchen or the utility room, or wherever you decide to have her.

4) When she is in the room, keep her busy somehow, with chew toys or throwing ball for her. Maybe a Kong might be good. You can also do your own things, like doing dishes or laundry, or read, etc.

5) If she makes a mistake. Just clean it not making a big deal. A lot of praises and treats when she does a good thing, such as peeing outside.

Please see how it goes. Keep a journal so that how good/bad she does on the potty schedule. Let us know how she does.

Again, I am so sorry for what has happened to your son. I wish him the best.

3)

Never thought of those potty papers or mats. Not a real good idea in my mind unless you are in a high rise and you just can't take them out.
We do not mind taking her out it just prevents us from any kind of life having to stand guard and take her out all the time so many times an hour.
This dog is very smart and I think if there is a way to train her to hold it I would rather do that over just allowing her to use a pre-determined place in the house. Like I said I think those have a place but they should not be used just for convenience.

I fear the other posters view of abuse during training may have been the cause. As with any bad habits, issues, bad experiences they can be overcome. We just need to find the way to make it happen.

I do not want anyone to think I know anything about this topic, I do not but I am having a hard time understanding how allowing her to go in the kitchen would correct this trouble. Would that just confuse her? She knows to go to the door when she has to go, ignoring her or not allowing her to get to the door to let us know and then forcing her to go on the floor just seems a bit weird to me. Again I am not saying I know about this but that seems almost backwards from what we want to achieve.

Please if I am wrong please explain it to me so we can get the pup on the road to a happy life!

Thanks

kjd...please do not take my comment the wrong way. I really appreciate your suggestions about this issue. My trouble is not really knowing much about training dogs. I kinda am a common sense person and that does not always make for a good mix in these cases.

You are a great help to me just by bringing up ideas.

I did see the potty patch on TV. Again I feel that is for someone who for whatever reason can't take their pet out. I think it would be confusing to a pet to be allowed to go in the house on a fake grass pad or carpet and then at times outside. I think they know the difference between in and out. A little fake grass I do not feel is enough to fool them into thinking they are outside.

We can and do take her out when needed but we just need some part of our lives back. All we ask is for a little compromise which at this point seems will need to be through some type of training. At this point I do not know what that would be.

I hope I can hear suggestions from others here and also you as I can see most have a much better grasp of the training thing than I do.

Hi kjd and cybor462,

I also watched the video and wondered what if they poo on it???

Anyway, sorry for the confusion. What I had in my mind is to see if Lucy can hold 2 hrs at the time and during those 2 hrs keep her busy so that she can even forget about going potty.

The reason why I suggested starting the program on the weekend was to take a comprehensive journal. Other days if you have to go for errands, etc. you can put her in her crate for a few hours at a time.

My goal is to make your house as comfortable and safe place as her crate for Lucy. Lucy doesn't soil her crate because that is a place she feels safe and comfortable. If you start with a smaller area like a laundry room (you can leave her crate in there with the crate door open) and extend the area as she becomes successful not to soil, pretty soon she will find your whole house as a happy place. I am sure you will be able to help her get over the trauma of being abused. Good luck

Just wanted to update all here that has been a great help. Lucy is now going on 6 months old. Since we got her she was 9 lbs. underweight and malnourished. She had major issues from trauma, broken leg, and intestinal issues.
I am happy to share that she is now at her ideal weight, we got her intestinal issues under control by limiting snacks to a certain type and found that Taste of The Wild Salmon which is a single protein food works wonders. It was discovered that the other foods were made with multiple protein sources and that is mainly her trouble.
She no longer needs to go out 10 times an hour. She now goes hours and is very positive to let us know she has to go. She will go to the door and if we do not notice it she will come and sit right in front of us staring at us. If we still make no effort to notice her she will give us her paw and nudge up with her nose and worst case bark at us.
We rarely have it go that far but a few times I was napping and she was forced to go to those extremes.

She is settled in and is just one of the family. Thanks to this program I learned many valuable tactics for training and found that training will be a life long endeavor. The only issue we are still dealing with is a slight bit of separation anxiety. She has bonded to me and not only follows me everywhere but will sit/lay at the door until I return. She also waits for me to tell her it is OK to eat her food when fed. I used the alpha method which has worked but maybe a bit too well.
A couple times I put the food bowl down and left and my wife said she would not eat. Hours later when I came back I told her to eat her dinner and she rushed over to the bowl and ate it. This has happened on several occasions.

I am not happy with it and will need to work on it to get that fixed.

All in all I think we are well on our way to a long and healthy relationship with our Husky.

Thanks All

Jim

Hi Jim,

I am very pleased to hear that Lucy has settled in and is now being attached to you! Congratulations on obtaining her trust!

Now that she is so attached to you, I understand that she has developed a separation anxiety. When dogs that have been abused or neglected regain trust to human family, they either become protective against other people or dogs or show anxiety when left out. Either case proves that the owner has become valuable to the dog so I think it is a good sign.

However, you would like to correct that before it gets out of control.

What I would suggest is to help her gain confidence herself by doing two things:

1) Continuous obedience training - joining a training class is better since Lucy will be interacting with other dog owners and their dogs, which will help a lot for development of her social skills

2) Creating occasions that she is being by herself for a short time in a daily basis - instead of letting her follow you everywhere in the house, I would tell her to "wait" in a separate room, or outside of the room you are in for a few minutes. Come back to her, praise her and give her a treat. Repeat this many times a day. Then, go out for a short errands leaving her behind every day. The purpose here is to let her realize:

- you will always be back to her. All she has to do is wait for you
- the home is a safe place so she doesn't need to be afraid of being by herself (if you want to crate train her it might be good. I don't use crates for my dogs but people say that crate is very handy)

Everything is a routine for dogs. Once she gets used to it, it becomes not a big deal for her. Baby steps are always easier for her to take so please take your time. She has come this far so the last thing you want to do is to overwhelm her.

Good luck

Hi All I am back. First I want to again thank all for the help and support. When things get difficult help from others is always a welcome addition.

I wanted to update on Lucy. We have a few setbacks and I am unsure what to do.

I won't go over all the issues they are in the posts here.

What has happened; since the weather is finally getting nice I wanted to have Lucy have a chance to be outdoors. As you recall she has a problem leg that was broken and has healed crooked and twisted. Just walking causes it to be a problem for her and she gimps all the time. We had our vet look at it and he said it healed but has fused out of align as it should be. He said a specialist is in order with a price tag of 3-5k. We cant do it so we are trying find another way. I will make a post of it later on.

For now I just want all to know we are having a problem getting Lucy exercise as everything causes her leg to be an issue and then she cant put weight on it.

I have an old handball court we built many years ago. It has not been used for ever so I decided to make it a kennel. It is 30 ft long by 16 ft wide. Is a concrete pad, with a 10 ft high block wall on one end and the rest is 10 ft high chain link fence.

I put a large dog house in it, all kinds of toys, even a swimming pool. A small wading pool. I put an overhang for shade although in the summer the trees provide shade all day.

I have it so when I have to go away for a few hours I can put her in it so she has fresh air and does not have to worry about having a place to relieve herself.

So far the longest she has been in it is 4 hours max. She has only been in it maybe a dozen times in the last 2 months. I hoped it would also help with exercise.

I also have a 30 ft cable in the grass yard so she can have another place to play. The only problem with it is the neighbor has 3 Mastiffs and when Lucy is out they go nuts. When Lucy goes near our 6 ft privacy fence they try to go through it and even start attacking each other. I will not let her on the cable unless we are there.

That is another way for her to get some exercise.

The purpose of all this info is to see if that might be the reason Lucy has started to forget her house training and is now going in the house.

It started a few weeks ago. We have not crated her at night for the last couple months now. At night we take her water at 10pm. She goes out between 10:30 and 11 and that is it for the night. It has worked great. My wife gets up at 4:30 for work so she takes her out then. Lucy always goes out, does both things and runs in and goes back to her comfy doggy bed we have at the foot of our bed. She goes back to sleep until 7:30 or so when I get up and again take her out.

Last week I was awakened at 3:30 (not sure how I heard anything) but she was walking back into the our bedroom. I looked at her and she got back into her bed. My wife got up as normal to take her out at 4:30 but by the time my wife got the leash and coat on Lucy had already went in the other room.

This was real odd. Since that she has done it even during the day without giving us any warning. Yes we did use the smell remover when we cleaned it. This room is an out of the way room we do not use and it is at the other end of the house.

Do you think it is because she has been in the kennel where so can go anytime? I was told as long as the dog is not put out in it all day every day that should not happen.

Can anyone help?

Thanks for the suggestions. I can't say I know what has happened although we thought it was over until the other day she did it again. I had just had her out during the day. She urinated but that was it. Her eating habits also changed about when this all started.
I left her out at least 15 minutes because she would normally do both in the morning around 8am. When I saw she did not make an effort to go I brought her in.
I was downstairs working for maybe 20 minutes when she came downstairs and came up to me with her ears back and stared at me. I knew something was wrong so I went upstairs to look and she went in that same room both things.

I can't say i know what is going on with her. I think the reason she is not eating( she always ate her breakfast at 8am and supper at 5pm) now she will not eat until 2pm and wants to eat supper at 10pm.

We are just waiting her out. I give her the food from 8-9 and take it up and supper from 5-6 thats it for the day.

That has not worked.

The other day I knew she needed to exercise bad but with her leg I can't stand her suffering when we do, but I thought a short walk. a block. Well we went out at 8:30am after waiting to see if she would eat (she did not) so we started out and went a half block and she started hopping holding her leg off the ground. We went home and she ran and ate her food. I think that is the trouble. She does not exercise so she does not have the urge to eat.

I think this eating issue has her bowel movements messed up too.

We were told to have the leg taken but I can't. To think of that happening when it can be fixed is wrong. We are still trying to get her leg fixed and when I know there is nothing we can do MAYBE I would think about that but I really do not think I could do it.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Hi Jim (and cc: kjd),

I understand very well that you want to keep Lucy's leg. I also understand what kjd is saying, especially now that Angel (my foster dog) is doing just so fine. I am going to paste some of the messages I got from Angel's mom here so that you will see how well 3 legged dogs can do. She works at a vet.

>dated Sept 8, 2009 (before she adopted Angel)
I think like you I have some concerns as to whether the leg really needs to be removed. I am hoping it will be x-rayed before the surgery if it hasn’t already. That said I have never seen a dog that has not done well after the surgery.

>dated Sept 12, 2009 (2days after the amputation)
I just wanted to tell you how happy we are that Angel is part of our family. She is such a sweet dog and is doing very well. You can see huge improvements every day. She only cried once last night and it was because she needed to go outside. It is getting harder to keep her quiet because she feels pretty good and wants to move around more than she should.

>dated Sept 14, 2009
Angel is doing very well. It is hard to keep her from running around too much. She is so sweet and her whole body wags and wiggles when we come home from being away for a little while. She certainly does love to eat, it makes me wonder if she was homeless with no food at some point. Emma is frustrated because they can’t play yet but they are doing fine together. The cats are staying upstairs for the most part and sneaking down to glare at her from a distance. She joined Emma in chasing them the first day she was here so they have made their minds up about her.

>dated Sept 15, 2009
Angels incision looks great. She still wears the e-collar at all times or she would lick it. She takes a ½ a tramadol(pain) pill and ½ a rimadyl(anti inflammatory) twice a day. I would imagine you would miss her, she is a joy to be with. I took her to work yesterday and she spent the day in a run. She was well behaved and quiet. I took her out at lunch, we were both outside and in the front reception area and she behaved very well. Emma seemed glad to see her when we got home.

>dated Sept 19, 2009
Angel is doing well and is starting to play a lot. I am going to take the e-collar off for a little while this afternoon to see how she does.

>dated Sept 23, 2009 (2 wks after the surgery)
I took Angel to a local park where dogs can run off leash today. She had a
wonderful time playing with 5-6 other dogs. She had no trouble keeping up.
Some people didn't even realize she had 3 legs at first and were quite
surprised. I found we need to work on come. Since she is very food
motivated it helped that I had my treat bag. Mark and I have remaked at how flawlessly she has fit into our family. She can now go up the stairs and
without the e-collar she goes right in her crate at night and sleeps quietly
the whole night through. She always seems happy to see Emma in the morning. I am very happy that it all worked out so we could have her.

Jim, I am not saying Lucy should have an amputation. I just want to reassure you that amputation for dogs is not as awful as it sounds or looks so I don't want you to exclude it as an option if the vet recommends it. As kjd said dogs can adjust very well. Same things can be said for blindness. My dog Max became blind and very hard of hearing as he got old but he could still get around well with his sense of smell and other instincts. Hope you will find a solution that is good for both Lucy and you.