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Episode Transcript
Libby Felts 0:00
Libby, welcome to pod to the rescue, a podcast from summit dog rescue in Boulder, Colorado. I'm Emily, I'm Jenny and I'm Libby. We are all Professional Dog Trainers with multiple certifications in dog training
and behavior
Emily Wolf 0:18
together, we have more than two decades of experience in dog rescue,
Libby Felts 0:23
we want to share everything we've learned along the way with other folks involved in dog rescue, sheltering, fostering and adoption and anyone who just loves dogs.
Emily Wolf 0:32
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with
Libby Felts 0:36
everything that comes next.
Hello listeners, and welcome back to Pod to the rescue. I'm Libby and I'm Emily, and today we are going to talk about a topic that we have somehow escaped disgusting in five seasons of this podcast, and that is potty training.
Emily Wolf 0:56
I can't believe it's been five seasons and we never covered this, and we just realized it, because back in October, we brought in a new rescue dog, and she had a few accidents. And I was like, well, we must have an episode on potty training. And we realized that we did that. So here we are.
Libby Felts 1:15
Yeah, we were, you know, going to send, send our episode on potty training to the the Fosters. And, oops, turns out we have been talking about this on the podcast yet. So, yeah, but it's a huge, important topic in rescue. You know, a lot of times folks who are adopting an adult dog from a rescue site, you know, I don't want to do potty training as a reason why they want to adopt an adult dog, and that's a great reason to adopt an older dog, you know, whether that's an adolescent or an adult, but it's not always so cut and dried as most folks in rescue. If you've been doing this for a little bit, you understand that. So we're going to talk about why that is. We're going to talk about how to potty train a puppy, if you're just starting with, you know, a very young puppy. And then we're going to talk about some pitfalls that you might encounter as you are potty training your puppy or bringing a an adult dog into your home.
Emily Wolf 2:16
Well, great. I'm excited to jump right in.
Libby Felts 2:19
So Emily, let's first talk about expectations, whether you're bringing an adult dog who has who was previously potty trained in a foster home, or maybe the kennel, the shelter said that she didn't mess in her kennel. What is reasonable to expect from a dog in the potty training process,
Emily Wolf 2:41
like an adult dog that I would just be bringing into my house from the shelter kind of situation, right?
Libby Felts 2:46
Yeah, or new foster dog or new boss, right? You know, let's just set some expectations here.
Emily Wolf 2:51
So for me, when I bring a new foster dog into my home, I feel like I just need to start from scratch. Like, first of all, they've been living in a place where they're locked in a concrete cage at least 12 hours, maybe 16 hours at a time, right? Like, if people leave at 6pm from the shelter and get there at 8am that's a really long time to have to hold your pee and poo. Not to get too technical here.
Libby Felts 3:18
So I think we're gonna say, well, let's just get it let's just get it over with. Yeah, I think we're gonna say pee and poop a lot this episode.
Emily Wolf 3:25
Yeah. So, yeah. So just think about it. I mean, I always think about if someone had a lock on my bathroom, and every once in a while they would open that lock and let me go to the bathroom, I would be psycho. I think, like, I like being able to use a bathroom at will, and it's really hard, if you think about it, that dogs really don't have that opportunity. We control their access to elimination.
Libby Felts 3:49
Kim Brophy has pointed out that dogs are the only captive animals who do not have control over their own elimination, right? So even if you think about like animals in a zoo who are captive animals, they can go when they need to go right. Farm animals, they can eliminate whenever they need to eliminate. Cats are generally litter box trained. They have access to their litter box whenever they need it. But dogs are pretty much beholden to us to allow them outside so that they can eliminate and just, yeah. So just, that's a
Emily Wolf 4:30
crazy concept, like, if I date that guy and he was like, you can't go to the bathroom until I wake up in the morning. Yeah. So, yeah and yeah. And my cats just got a gorgeous litter robot, so, you know, like, this thing, every time they go in it, it's, like, pristine and great. So yeah, I mean, every other animal has access to this, except our dogs. So that's where we're staying. Like, where we're starting point is, and, and so I bring in a foster and I'm like, Okay, you're like. Has been turned upside down. Maybe you were potty trained, if you lived in a home, I don't know necessarily, if you ever lived in a home, so I'm just going to go with like, let's take you out a lot. And, you know, I'm really lucky that I have a fenced in backyard, and so I try to have a little potty log, which we're going to talk about, you know, and go out there and spend time with the dog, I don't think in the initial parts, but just opening the door is the way to go. I think you need to physically go outside. You should have a couple of treats in your pocket and let the dog sniff around, let the dog decompress, and hopefully that dog will go potty outside. Sometimes they're so overstimulated outside that they they don't. And if that's something we could talk about, this could be like an eight hour episode. So, you know, try to, just like, have their nervous system relax. Because, just like us, physiologically, very similar. I've been at like, a concert where I run to the bathroom and I want to go to the bathroom really quickly, because I want to get back out to see Bono and I can't pee because I'm so excited and that that's kind of sometimes happens. So you want to make it boring. You want to encourage sniffing, and then hopefully they will pee, bring them back inside. Keep eyeballs on them. That would be my thought. Keep that little potty log. Yep.
Libby Felts 6:17
Something really important to keep in mind is assume nothing. Assume nothing about potty training when you're bringing a new rescue dog into your home, regardless of what a shelter told you, regardless of what the foster home told you, assume nothing. Be prepared to pay attention and accept the fact that there might be some accidents along the way, you know, it's it's just a normal part of the settling in process. Now, what can we do to prevent that is we can manage the environment. I think that's the number one most important thing we can do. If you didn't listen to our previous episode with Dr Susan Friedman, she spoke really wonderfully about how changing the environment changes the behavior, and we as humans are in control of our dog's environment, so we can set up the environment for success. That's kind of our role. And then, you know, over time, you're going to learn how to communicate with one another, right? Your dog's going to learn how to communicate with you. You're going to learn how to read your dog. And hopefully you have a pretty seamless transition. What about time frame setting expectations for time frame? Emily, what do you usually see in adult dogs coming in?
Emily Wolf 7:36
I'd say I've been really lucky. I feel usually, within a week, I have you know, pretty good routine where they're going outside. It does help, I think, if there are other dogs going outside so all the smells are out there, I'm a huge fan of making my house into like a small, teeny microcosm for the new dog, so that they can't just, like, wander upstairs, do a little circle and go to the bathroom when I'm not looking. I also don't have any carpet left in my house, for obvious reasons. You know, I have throw rugs that I can wash if I have to. But I think, you know, having a rug is not that different than grass. So if it's a new dog in my house, I might pull up rugs, I might put some x pens out so the dog is in like a, you know, maybe 20 by 20 kind of situation, instead of having access to the whole house. Because, in general, dogs don't want to go where they have to hang out. And so that's where having a smaller area is really helpful, and it's also easier for us because we're busy. We think we're supervising. We get a text, we look down, and all of a sudden we're like, sniff, sniff. What's that smell? They went into the hallway and pooped on our good rug. So you know, setting them up for success and having that area, and it could be like, if you're in your office, you have the foster dog in your office with you, with the door closed or a baby gate up, and then if you go upstairs to your room, you close the door, because the smaller the area, I think, the better your success rate, and the more you can supervise and have eyeballs on, the better you'll have success.
Libby Felts 9:17
Yeah, absolutely. So for us as humans, again, our role is to manage the environment, to supervise and to be patient, right? Even as an adult, previously potty trained dog coming into our home, you know, I always like to say that dog does not know where the bathroom is in your house, and if they're newly brought into your home, maybe they've just come off transport, maybe they've just left the shelter, right? They're kind of in a state of stress, right? They might be too afraid to ask, right? Or you don't know how to read their body language and what worked to ask their previous person you're not picking up, right?
Emily Wolf 9:57
Yeah, so it's supervision, management. And then giving them lots of opportunities to do it, you know, outside, which is, you know, the ultimate goal.
Libby Felts 10:08
All right, so let's go in depth in how you actually teach a puppy how to potty outside, how you do potty training for a puppy, whether it's an eight week old puppy or maybe a little bit older. I think the big things here are management and then the actual teaching, the training part, right? And those are two separate but very, very important aspects. Your goal here, I think the main goal is to prevent rehearsal of accidents, right? We don't want them to learn to go inside and learn that that's something they can do again, Dr Susan Friedman had a really great explanation of errorless learning, right? And I think it's really interesting to think about how you would potty train a puppy using errorless learning, which is essentially making the right choice the easiest possible choice, and making the wrong choice just really unappealing or really unlikely. So think about ways you could do that. And then the training part, teaching your dog. How do you actually teach your dog that go potty means go potty, right? And then building confidence, once you have put in all of the work and you follow these steps, you're going to have a dog who feels comfortable coming to you and booping you on the leg, or, you know, sitting and wagging their tail, or whatever sign this dog might develop. That means, hey, I gotta go. Can you let me out? And a confident dog who feels safe with you is going to do that.
Emily Wolf 11:44
So let's talk about that management
piece, as in managing their environment when they're indoors, right, so that, yes, as best possible, prevent rehearsal of them going inside. Yep, we use a lot of management techniques that we've discussed in other episodes, such as baby gates X pens, which are basically just folding puppy play pens and then crates.
Libby Felts 12:09
Yeah, so we've taught, I'm sure we've talked about like a puppy apartment or a puppy palace before, but that is, you know, your x pen and your crate, so that your puppy has this area of the house that is, that's kind of where they're sleeping, that's where they're eating, and when you don't have your eyes on them, that puppy is in the Puppy Palace, and you might put down a tarp underneath this. Again, we're going to do our best to prevent accidents entirely. However. We want to make sure that we're protecting our floors. We're preventing that, you know, the smell from from getting into our floors, whether it's carpet or hardwood or whatever it is, because, again, if that smell is lingering, that's going to be a signal to the dog of like, oh, this is the bathroom. Here's the bathroom, right?
Emily Wolf 13:01
Smell is such an important thing, so you definitely want to have a good way to, you know, clean up accidents. And accidents are going to happen. It's just, you know, accepting that when you bring a puppy into your home. So a quick, easy way to clean that up with no fuss, no muss.
Libby Felts 13:16
Yeah, talk about the training, training piece and what not to do, when your dog has an accident? Yeah, yeah. So getting an enzymatic cleaner. The one we really love is eco 88 we are big fans of that, or Nature's Miracle, or something like that. What else would you say about management?
Emily Wolf 13:36
Management so, you know, you can start with like one room in your house with me, it's usually the room closest to the door, which is my living room. I'll pull things away from the big sliding glass door that I have and create the puppy apartment there. But other people might use a gated kitchen or an exercise pen, you know, in their office, and then you can use a crate or fans of crate training, but I like the apartment because it gives a little bit more room for the puppy, like we don't want to just cage our animal. Yeah, yeah. This is not about having a 22 hour a day puppy in a crate situation. This is meant like balancing potty training with that puppy, learning about their world.
Libby Felts 14:24
Totally right? We're not locking the puppy away all hours of the day to prevent accidents. I again, the puppy apartment is great because it still allows them for freedom of movement in their body. But again, we're preventing them access from areas of our house, unless we can actively supervise them. So let's talk about, let's talk about what that looks like. Anything with puppies. I'm always telling my clients active supervision or they're in the Puppy Palace. I love that potty training is an important part of that, right? So if you're. On the phone if you're on a work call, if you're making dinner, if you're
Emily Wolf 15:05
you know, reading emails, yep,
Libby Felts 15:08
whatever is in the palace, puppy is in the palace, and that's safer for the puppy too, right? Not only is it going to prevent accidents in other areas of the house, but it's going to prevent your puppy from chewing on things, getting into other other stuff they shouldn't be into.
Emily Wolf 15:22
And one reason, I don't know if we covered this, is that, you know, they don't want to go in a small space. You know, nobody really wants to sit next to what they just eliminated. So the smaller the space, the more they'll be likely to hold it. But that then puts all the onus on us to give them so many opportunities to go outside, to go to the correct place, be outdoors with our puppy, and reward them when they go.
Libby Felts 15:49
So, yeah. So you know, if your puppy is not in that Puppy Palace, then you have eyeballs on them. They're in the same room as you you're watching for, you know, wandering around, sniffing, circling, that kind of thing, and, and, or, you know that they have just gone outside and they have just gone right? And, yeah, and we're going to talk about this later, but you know that because you wrote it down, or keeping
Emily Wolf 16:13
out, keeping a log, I bet they actually have an app for that at this point.
Libby Felts 16:17
You think so. That'd be interesting. I'm gonna look at it in your notes like, yeah.
Emily Wolf 16:21
You know, 11am puppy went to the bathroom. So then from like 11am to 1120 I might come inside and let the puppy, like, play inside and have access to a larger area than the puppy apartment, but still eyeballs on Yeah.
Libby Felts 16:36
So let's talk a little bit about that schedule. How often do they do they need to go out? What a good routine with a puppy would look like?
Emily Wolf 16:43
Yeah, I would say during waking hours for us, every 30 to
Speaker 1 16:48
60 minutes, we should be taking our puppy outside,
Emily Wolf 16:52
especially when they first have woken up. It's just, hey, sweet pea, let's go outside and right away, because you just woke up, and your body is like, coming back into activity, and the first thing you do is go, Oh, my bladder full. So let's get you outside on the grass. After eating, they have very short little intestinal tracts, so like, they eat and like, seems like, within 15 minutes that poop is coming out. So after eating, after drinking, after playing. Sometimes, don't you find that if they get like, a little bit revved up, then all of a sudden they're gonna have to go, Yeah, it's like that excitement response, right? Excitement response. And I think I like the thinking, if they're awake, assume the clock is ticking, like in between pottying, which is why keeping that log is really a handy thing to do.
Libby Felts 17:39
Yeah, and developmental stage of the puppy has a lot to do with this as well, right? The younger your puppy, the smaller their bladder and the more often they need to eliminate, right? They can't hold it for as long as an older puppy or an adult dog, all right, so especially those eight to 10 week old puppies, definitely every 30 minutes at first, for the first few days, until you really get a sense for their rhythm and routine. Yeah.
Emily Wolf 18:08
So when I have a puppy, I kind of have like, a rhythm in the house, which is like, you've got potty outside, and then, you know, depending on the weather, maybe we'll go back inside. We'll play a little bit. We'll do some training games. Then we'll go back outside and then, and at that point, maybe you know, you've been playing for a while, you've been up for a while. Puppies need, like, 18 hours of sleep a day. So then I'll come back inside and put them back in their puppy apartment and let them take a nap or rest, maybe with something to chew and repeat, it's like having a human baby, which I did have. And yeah. And think about, like, how many diapers a human baby goes through? And then we get these little puppies, and we're like, Oh, my God. They're 13 weeks old and they're still pooping in the house, but humans, like, three years old and they're still pooping in their pants and wearing diapers so you know, like, hello, let's give these animals a break.
Libby Felts 19:04
Yeah, yeah. It's just keeping in mind the developmental stage and the fact that this is, this is an infant of another species, but a puppy is still an infant. Okay, so let's talk about how what we actually do when it's time to go outside. Now, two really important things that you've got to remember, if you have a puppy, you are not just opening that door and sending your puppy out into the fenced yard, closing the door behind them and wandering off to do something else. You've got to go outside with your puppy, and you're going to bring treats in your pocket. Okay? These are the two most important things. If you're not watching your puppy when they're outside, you cannot train them right? Training relies this. Training relies on our reinforce. Enforcement of the puppy doing the right thing, which means we've got to be present. We've got to be watching them. We've got to be paying attention. Okay? And I want to say that's like the number one most important thing. I want to say you've got to go outside with your puppy and you've got to watch and then the other is bringing reinforcers
or treats. Okay? Play,
sure. Play is okay. Praise. It's fine. But giving your puppy a tiny little treat or a couple little pieces of their kibble, they've got to eat anyway. It's the most powerful reinforcer for learning at this stage, 100%
Emily Wolf 20:39
so as soon as you see them wrap it up. You don't want to reward them midstream, because they will quickly stop pooping in order to get their treat. So soon as you see them finished, you go, good job or Yes, and present that food reward to them. Yeah, job well done.
Libby Felts 20:59
Exactly. Have
a little, have a little potty party. When do you Emily, when do you add the cue? When? When they're reliably going outside? And, you know, you know their signs, you know. Okay, he's starting to circle. I know what that means. When do you add the cue, go potty?
Emily Wolf 21:20
So what I do is, when they're actually going I name the behavior. So that's what we say, is like, name the behavior, instead of giving the cue, because they don't know the cue. So if you start saying, Go potty, go potty, they could think that means circling or sniffing. So when they're actually going potty, I will say, go potty. And then they realize over time that, like that is the cue. And then you back that cue up, and you can later say, go potty, and then they go potty, and then you reward them. So see the behavior. Name the behavior as it's behavior, right? Yeah, as it's happening.
Libby Felts 21:57
And that's the beginning stage. And then, like you said over time, you can start saying, Go potty right before right which you know it's going to happen because you've been observing this entire time, yep.
Emily Wolf 22:11
And they start to learn that word, and they're like, oh, okay, she wants me to go potty. And so outside becomes this place where you go potty, and inside, you know, we don't want them to feel like it's wrong to go inside. It's just neutral inside,
Libby Felts 22:25
right? They hopefully, if we
have been really conscientious about observing them and supervising, and if we've been really diligent with our management, they just really haven't had that many opportunities to go inside. And so they just, they don't associate pottying with being inside, right? Yep, the association is, potty is outside. We love to potty outside. Potting outside is great inside. You know, you want your dog to think, why would I potty inside, exactly?
Emily Wolf 22:58
And and one thing to remember is when they do go outside, try to get that reward to them really quickly. I would use that marker word, whichever one you choose, yes, good. And get that reward to them so that they really make that connection between the potting outside and the food reward. And it also is reinforcing to have an empty bladder. So, you know, it's like the power of the of that reinforcement helps build that outdoor behavior, right?
Libby Felts 23:28
You've got multiple, multiple rewards going on there. Yeah, if you wait until your puppy is done pottying, and then you run back in the house, and then you get your cookies, and then you go back outside and then you give your dog the cookies. That's way too late. They have no idea at that point what they're being rewarded for, 100% and then the other the final thing I would add about potty training a puppy is write it down. Keep a Puppy Potty log book, and we have one that we're going to put on our website, so look for that link in our show notes. But basically it is your writing down every time your puppy pees, every time they poop, what time where, whether you reinforced it, whether you put it on cue, and you're also keeping track of any accidents that might happen, whether it's pee, whether it's poop, what time it was, what was going on at the moment? Were they playing? You know, did you forget to take them out on that hour interval? Or, you know, did you have to run an errand then didn't get back in time, or something like that? Right? Keep really good notes so that you start to see patterns. And what will happen is, you'll, you'll, you'll see a pattern emerge, and you'll know, okay, my puppy, at 10 weeks old, needs to go outside every two hours, right? That's kind of their rhythm, and they poop in the morning after breakfast. And they poop mid afternoon, and they poop after dinner, right? And you'll start to understand, and that's how you can slowly, very slowly, and cautiously start to give your puppy a little more freedom.
Emily Wolf 25:14
I think that's that's definitely great to know what you're doing. And when accidents happen, you can go back and look at that log and say, Okay, how can I make this easier? How can I increase my management, like, what it's always on us to figure out what we're doing?
Libby Felts 25:31
Yep, exactly. And then, as you know, as your puppy gets older, as you have a better understanding of their rhythm and their needs, then you can, like I said, slowly, open them up and relax some of that management. Not, not get rid of it entirely, but that might look like, you know, just closing bedroom doors or putting a bar gate, yeah, stairs, so that they're on the same level is you you can hear where the puppy is, but you know, places with carpet that might feel good, like grass, right? You're losing off those rooms when you're not actively supervising. Yeah, I love that. Anything else about puppies that we need to talk about?
Emily Wolf 26:19
I think we should talk a little bit about nighttime. That's always a tough one, because we're saying like, take your puppy out every 30 to 60 minutes, but at night, obviously you're not going to do that, right? Puppies and dogs are social sleepers, so we advocate for you to sleep in the vicinity of your puppy, maybe a crate next to your bed, and if you hear your puppy stirring and whining, get that puppy out, let them go potty, but not with a lot of fanfare in the nighttime, because you don't want them to get stimulated and be like now it's party time. Yeah, you know. And then quietly get them back in their puppy pen or their crate and put them back to sleep, and hopefully you get to sleep for a few more hours. Yeah, and they a young, young puppy. Might have to get up one or two times during the night, but if you're lucky, maybe not. Yeah.
Libby Felts 27:13
And I always recommend that people for nighttime potty trips use a leash, and you're going to go outside. They're going to be on leash. You're not, you know, you're only walking around as much as they need to. You know, do their business. It's not play time. It's not explore time. It's that's, you know, you're doing one thing in these night time, yeah, potty trips, because it's, it is possible for your dog to learn? Like, oh, I can wake up and go outside and play ball at one in the morning. That's what you don't want your dog to learn.
Emily Wolf 27:51
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that party that you might throw at 2pm make it pretty calm and chill at 2am yeah, yeah. Like, good job, little puppy, yeah, there's going back to bed. Tiny little cookie, yeah, yeah.
Libby Felts 28:08
What are your thoughts on pee pads inside the house and using pee pads to potty train puppies?
Emily Wolf 28:15
So, you know, potty training is surface preference, and that's one thing I feel like most people don't know. So whatever they learn to go on is going to be their favorite thing. And I feel like potty pads are great as like what I would call a seat belt, like something easy that you can throw away if you have an accident in that Puppy Palace. But in general, I'm not a fan of them, unless you want to have a dog that enjoys fabrics and soft things, which could be carpet, could be you get out of the shower and you leave your towel on the ground, and your three year old dog feels like that might be a good place to eliminate. So I'm not a fan. If you want to do it, I'm not going to be like, don't do it. It's, you know, and litter boxes are a new thing that I've never used. But for people in apartments, I think if I had my choice between a potty pad for potty pad training or litter box, I would go litter box or another thing that I recommend to a lot of people is just you can actually buy grass and it can be delivered to your house so that you're teaching that surface preference, like, if you're in an apartment and you have a little patio, or even in your bathroom, you could put down a plastic tray with some grass, and then you're working on that surface preference. I think potty pads were something that were really great in the 80s, when people didn't know about the surface preference idea. It can be a problem.
Libby Felts 29:40
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that. I you know at some point you're going to have to teach your puppy how to potty outside, so you might as well start from the beginning, teaching them that's where to go, right? And and they're great as just an extra layer of protection on your floors again, so that you know they don't think that the bathroom is. In the living room, but yeah, I like, I love the solutions of a litter box or grass, especially if you're in an apartment or you have a small dog or for nighttime potty trips, right? So those are all really, really good alternatives. All right, anything else we need to add about potty training puppies, I
Emily Wolf 30:21
would just say, you know, be patient and consistent and realize that you have this baby for such a short period until they're adolescence, and enjoy every minute and don't stress too much about it.
Libby Felts 30:33
Totally okay. Let's talk about bringing home an adult dog. So this would be, what age would you say this all applies to? I mean, an adult is really, like, over three years old, but this could be anywhere from, I
Emily Wolf 30:47
would say, five, six months, something like that, like at a baby, baby,
Libby Felts 30:51
yeah, I agree, yeah.
So an adolescent or an adult dog, and these are dogs who are likely to have been advertised as house trained and potty trained, right? Or, if you're getting them from a shelter, then you'll often see, you know, they keep their kennel clean, or they don't mess in their kennel, right? This is something that a lot of rescues and shelters want to brag about with their dogs, because it makes them more adoptable, which is great, and that's one reason why a lot of folks do adopt shelter and rescue dogs, because they're they don't have to go through all of the the tough potty training with a little puppy. But the environment changes, the behavior changes, and your previously potty trained dog doesn't know where the bathroom is in your house. They're probably too afraid to ask. They're going through a stressful transition. The routine is going to be different, right? The surfaces in the home might be different. Past training may or may not have been super consistent, and then something else that we see often with dogs that we're bringing into Foster is parasites and illnesses, right? So, yeah, sir, that can all cause house training accidents in a dog who was previously house trained. Yeah.
Emily Wolf 32:12
So, you know, there's so many, there's so many things that could be going on if you bring a new dog in and they're not seemingly house trained in your house, it could be that you actually got the story wrong. You know, since we very rarely have accurate stories, we just have kind of stories that people have. You know, what do they call it hearsay, third party. It's usually
Libby Felts 32:34
phone game, right? Yeah. And,
Emily Wolf 32:37
you know, a dog in a shelter has been holding their bladder for at least 12 to 14 hours. So that could be that they had to have, you know, accidents there, so they lost whatever potty training they had, or they have a UTI brewing, or if they're having poop accidents, they have picked up some sort of bacteria or parasite. There's so many reasons why an adult or adolescent dog that you bring into your home could be having accidents.
Libby Felts 33:07
Yeah, I you know on the parasite thing, like Giardia is a big one out here for me. If a previously potty trained dog suddenly poops in the house, like I'm getting a fecal at the vet, like we're we are checking for Giardia immediately. It's just, you know, the dogs who come in to our rescue to Colorado, it seems really common, you know. And then another factor is, like I said, the environment again, so a shelter dog, usually dogs don't like to go to the bathroom, where they sleep. Okay, most dogs don't like to do that, so if they are keeping their kennel clean, part of that could be because it's a small environment, right? They're in a like four by six box, and then they come into your home with multiple bedrooms, and, you know, maybe a basement or a living room or a dining room that isn't used that often, and suddenly they don't have to go where they sleep, and they can go whenever they want, right? Yeah, so the the change in environment is, is a really big one,
Emily Wolf 34:18
and they're learning us just like we're learning them. And so, you know, they don't know, go to the back door, stand there and someone will come. Or maybe they have done that, and we've been on our phone and they're like, well, this person doesn't know that back door thing, so I'll just go poop in the living room, you know? So it's that first couple of days, similar to puppies, make their world a little smaller and keep eyeballs on them. Put up some baby gates. Close off the upstairs bedrooms, and if you have a basement, you know, put a gate over the basement. No need to, like, invite trouble.
Libby Felts 34:52
Yeah, absolutely I for the first couple weeks, definitely close off make their environment smaller. So they don't have access to, you know, that spare bedroom that you never go into, or or whatever it
Emily Wolf 35:07
might be. I think that's important, like slowly removing the guard rails.
Libby Felts 35:13
Especially again, once you you learn this dog, you learn their routine. How often do they potty? When do they potty? How are they going to tell you that they need to go out? Every dog is an individual, and they might, they might tell you be or try to tell you in different ways. So that's a recommendation. If you're adopting a dog from a foster, ask that foster, how do, how does the dog let you know they need to potty? And get really specific, okay, they just, oh, they come tell me. Well, how do they come tell you? Do they initiate play? Do they give you a nose boop? Do they whine, you know? Do they spin in a circle and you know? And then also know that the dog coming into your home might be a little shut down and might not give you those exact same behaviors, right? So until you learn your dog's communication, and your dog feels safe enough to communicate with you, absolutely, really structured. No free room. Close off those extra rooms
Emily Wolf 36:14
and have have a little journal where you write it down, just like you would with a puppy. We just had a husky in the rescue, and she had been in the shelter and then in like a boarding facility, and when she got to her foster home, she peed and pooped in the house, and they were pretty bummed. They had a pretty open concept home, and so it became kind of code red, because they were like, We were not prepared for this. And we're like, oh, I guess we should really explain to people that this is pretty darn common. And long story short, we preventatively, you know, had the journal, and it was, like, every 45 minutes, she got an opportunity to go outside, peer poop. And then, you know, over time, that expanded to an hour, and then, you know, an hour and a half. And now we're still doing she's been in her forever home, but I think they let her out every two hours, just because she's only been there a month, and they want to set her up for success.
Libby Felts 37:12
Yeah, something else to add about kind of keeping this routine and the frequent trips outside is just like a puppy, you still want to reinforce for going outside, like you still have to bring the cookies, which means you still have to go outside with the dog and watch the dog. We're still, we're still trying to shape a new behavior, which means we do need to reinforce for it,
Emily Wolf 37:35
like we say, like, you know, train the dog in front of you, not the one you have in your head. Like we don't know what their previous learning history was. So we're shaping a totally the behavior that we want, which is going outside.
Libby Felts 37:49
Yep. Okay, Emily, so a question we get a lot in rescue and foster circles is, I brought this dog home and they have not peed or pooped in 24 hours. What is going on and how can I help them?
Emily Wolf 38:10
I think that happens so often, just they're so shut down, they're so stressed. Very often they won't eat either I've had dogs not eat or drink and not go to the bathroom. I would say, what can we do to help them? I'd love your thoughts too, but my thought would be, keep it mellow, go outside with them, you know, maybe do some if they'll eat, do some scatter feeds in one section of the yard and then go in the other part of the yard to try to go potty. If you have a yard, it's tough. This is a tough one, and this one is solved by like, time and letting them decompress.
Libby Felts 38:45
Yeah, I totally agree. I you know if, if the dog has been off food and water because they're stressed, they're probably not going to go to the bathroom, right? So check that first, and I would say, give them time. Give them plenty of opportunities. If you're really starting to get worried. This is my completely unhinged dog potty training tip. But if there is a way that you can safely and legally spread your own urine, oh, I've done it where you want the dog to Body Works like a charm. Works like a charm for every foster dog I've had, and that can be a really quick and effective way to tell the dog, hey, this is where the bathroom is.
Emily Wolf 39:36
Tips You didn't think you'd be getting today.
I just want to say that for me, the whole potty training conversation, I know that as humans, we're like so like, we need our dogs to not have accidents in the house, and it's definitely a great goal, but this is an animal going through probably really intense trauma. So for me, my number one. Goal is always safety and trust, and so if that dog is not going potty in the backyard, I know, you know, I just want you to feel safe with me, and I'm not going to like go to extreme measures that make the dog feel less safe and less uncomfortable to try to get that behavior outside. And I've had a lot of dogs who go outside, they're so overstimulated by the smells, the sounds, then they come inside. This happens with puppies all the time too. And then they go potty, because I think it's a little more relaxing inside, like we go out with our agenda, we come back inside, we're like, damn, the dog didn't go. And then, you know, phone call comes in, we get on the phone, or we look at something, and the good dog goes because the pressure is off. I think we put a lot of pressure on dogs to get it right. And honestly, I've had probably 500 dogs in and out of my house. I've never had one leave that was not body trained. This is not a super hard behavior to get, so try to reduce the pressure on yourself and your dog would be a couple of accidents, unless you have, like, rugs imported from all over the world, and you can roll those up, roll those up, roll those up. Yeah, until then you trust this dog, yeah, just it's, this is not the end of the world.
Libby Felts 41:18
Yeah, I think actually, that's a really good point, and I'm glad you brought it up. Like, what's going on with the dog? Or with the dog or the especially puppy, who you'll take them outside, they're out there for 15 minutes, they don't go, and then they come back in inside and go. And I think you're right. Oftentimes it is kind of an overstimulation kind of thing. So if you you know, during these potty trips, make yourself boring, it's not play time, it's, you know, it's not training time, it's potty time. And if there's any way you can go to a more boring environment for the potty break, right? If your front yard is really busy but your backyard is quieter, or if your side yard is the quiet spot, or if one side of your fence has a dog barking but the other side doesn't right, try to brainstorm ways you can make it the least stimulating possible.
Emily Wolf 42:12
Yeah. And I think taking your phone out there and checking your text is actually the time to do it so you're not just being like, when are you pottying? I'm looking. I'm watching. I'm right.
Libby Felts 42:20
You got one. You're watching the dog from the corner of from your eye, but you're not,
Emily Wolf 42:26
yeah, because you're ready when they're done. As soon as they're finished, you're like, Okay, good job. And give them a treat. Then the other thing, huge tip, is, soon as they go, you don't want to just bring them inside, but they will learn quickly, like, Oh, my time outside ends as soon as I go potty. So after they go you want to give them a treat and then reward them with, like, a little bit of free sniffing time or a little game, whatever is appealing to them, just a little more time outside and then bring them inside.
Libby Felts 42:58
Yeah, totally, very important. We never want dogs to learn that if I potty, then my freedom is gone, or good times are over, or something like that.
Emily Wolf 43:10
I try to remember that, like your average dog now coming into a suburban or urban home, they're inside at least 22 hours a day. So for most dogs, it's extremely rewarding to have a little bit of time in, like a backyard. It might not be as great if, like, you're in a busy front yard or walking along a little patch on a busy road, and then your dog might want to get back inside. But depending on the dog, you want to make sure that they have some time between pottying to do a little sniffing and decompressing, if it seems like that's what that dog would enjoy.
Libby Felts 43:43
Yeah, totally agree.
Emily Wolf 43:46
So let's talk about what to do
Libby Felts 43:49
when accidents happen inside. All right, there are a lot of myths about what you should do when your dog has an accident inside. Some of them are old school. Some of them, I wish were more old school, but people still repeat this advice all the time. So what are we not doing?
Emily Wolf 44:10
Oh my gosh. So truth be told, because I'm old. When I first got my first puppy, people were like, stick their nose in it. That was and I did circa, like, 1991
Libby Felts 44:26
right? That was, like, the prevailing
Emily Wolf 44:27
wisdom, yeah, I look back and I am just cringe inside to think that I did that. How horrifying for an animal whose entire sense is, you know, like their number one sense is olfactory like, who does that and how much trust was lost there when I did that? So don't do that. Yeah. We do not want to punish our little baby animals or our adult animals for having accidents in the house.
Libby Felts 44:55
Yeah, yeah. Punishment is not the way to go, because what happens is. Is usually, if you're discovering that accident, it is after the fact, right? You and you don't know how long ago that happened, whether it was 30 seconds, 30 minutes or three hours, that dog is not going to associate the act of pottying inside with the punishment. So instead, they're just going to be confused. They're going to be more scared of you, and the connection they're going to make is okay, potty and humans together. That's a bad thing. So I better hide if I need to potty, I better go somewhere else, right? So then
Emily Wolf 45:39
sneak off to potty. How many adult dogs who've come in and you turn your back and they sneak off to potty? We also have seen quite a few times in the rescue dogs who will never potty on leash because being attached to someone after you have been like beaten or put your nose in it or hit with a newspaper. You don't want to potty around two legged fur less beings. So when they then you move to a new location and you have to be on a leash, or you take your dog on a road trip, they will not potty in front of you. Is a very high likelihood.
Libby Felts 46:14
Yeah, so those are kind of some of the risks of punishment. You know, we've talked about on the podcast before that punishment can increase anxiety in our dogs, stress and again, it's, it's, it's not going to fix the problem of teaching them where you want them to go, right? Yeah, not only is it ineffective because they're not understanding the punishment the way you are, but also it's not actually teaching them. So if you catch an accident way after the fact, just clean it up. Just clean it up. Make a note of it and adjust your training plan accordingly, right? Oh, okay, you know what? Oh, yeah, it has been four hours, and that's too long, so I need to make sure that we're doing every two hours, and like Emily mentioned earlier, cleaning up with an enzymatic cleaner, so that you're really getting all of those pheromones
Emily Wolf 47:09
out and closing off that area, like, if it's a rug in your son's room, put a baby gate up that your son can go over but the dog can't, or keep the door closed.
Libby Felts 47:20
Yeah, and then. But if you, if you catch your dog getting ready to potty or starting to potty, what do you do in that situation?
Emily Wolf 47:29
Emily, so I keep it really mellow. I'm like, Oops, okay, come on, let's go outside. You know, like, just like you would a toddler, you know, you wouldn't say to your toddler, like, Oh, don't potty on the floor. You'd be like, Come on, quick. Let's get to the bathroom really, really quickly. So that's what I do. Sometimes, if it's a little puppy, I might pick them up just and carry them outside. It depends an adult dog, I'll just be like, let's go. Come on, quick, quick, quick, and then wait for them to go outside. Sometimes, also, back to your the smell conversation. You can take poop from inside, you know, and put it out there. You can also take a paper towel, clean up an accident inside and squeeze it out outside. So just transferring those smells. I also, when I have a dog who is learning I'm not meticulous about poop cleanup, like, let it. Let a few poops collect so that they're like, Oh, yeah. This is it. This is the bathroom. I mean, think about us. We have bathroom signs everywhere to help us locate the bathroom. But Right,
Libby Felts 48:31
yeah, letting, let's tell them, yeah, letting a poop sit in the backyard for a couple days is it's not going to heart harm anything, and it's going to help them remember, like, oh yeah, this is, this is the spot, yeah?
Emily Wolf 48:45
Unless they have, like, hook or whip worms, sure. Like, use your own best judgment, don't, yeah, you know. But in general, so let's talk
Libby Felts 48:53
about medical considerations quickly, speaking of worms. So when do we need to talk to a vet?
Emily Wolf 49:01
Yeah, I think, if you're, we with fresha, the dog, we had to you UTI screenings and one vehicle, because we were like, just ruling out, like, is this a medical issue that's happening? And, yeah, if you're, you know, if you're struggling a little bit, I would, I would rule that out. But, you know, within two months, she was house trained.
Libby Felts 49:25
Yeah, I would say diarrhea is it definitely can be because of anxiety, but I would always rule get a fecal just rule out parasites. You're going to have a much easier time with potty training if your dog is healthy, and your dog needs to be healthy regardless, right? So, but definitely, if you notice sudden diarrhea that came on really quickly, absolutely immediate vet visit,
Emily Wolf 49:51
super smelly, mucusy, bloody, yeah,
Libby Felts 49:55
anything like that. If, if all of a sudden they regress really rapidly, like everything. Was going great, and then suddenly, right they regress, and they're having multiple accidents in the house every every day. That's reason for a vet visit. Really frequent urination, especially if it's just like a little bit at a time that's a sign of a UTI or straining they can't quite get it out, or if they're excessively thirsty, right? Those are all signs that something medical could be going on, and your dog needs to see a vet,
Emily Wolf 50:29
and it's so common because these dogs are transporting all over or they're sitting for 14 hours in a concrete kennel, and they really don't want to soil in their kennel and sleep next to it. So you know, you just don't know what's happened. You're kind of starting with, like, You're a detective when you get a new dog and you're trying to put all the puzzle pieces together. Like, yeah, is this behavioral? Is this the stress of the change? Is this all of those? Is it medical? And how do I just support them and help them through this, because in a few months, this transition period will start to dissipate.
Libby Felts 51:04
Yeah, one thing I want to add about this that we didn't cover yet. I can't believe we didn't, but there are a lot of dogs, especially in rescue, who have either never lived inside a house or have never been outside of a house, right? Okay, so a few specific examples. I'm thinking, here in Colorado, we get a lot of res dogs, and a lot of them have never lived inside a house, right? So just remember that this is completely new concept to them, right? And that puppy, or that adult dog, has had the freedom to potty wherever and whenever they needed to, and they don't. They don't understand that inside the house is not the place. On the flip side, we often see dogs from hoarding cases, or this is really common with puppy mill dogs, who have had no choice but to go in their teeny, tiny, little kennel for their entire life.
Emily Wolf 52:09
Oh, it's terrible. I had a puppy mill girl. She had two sisters. And you know, it's different strokes for different folks. But the sisters, the people, were like, This was 15 years ago. Not as much information, but they were convinced they were going to do crate training to teach their new fees to not go in the house. And I got her a crate. She didn't like it. She'd been living in a cage for seven years. I'm like, Okay, forget the kennel for you. And she it took six months. So that was the hardest, and I ended up keeping her because I just thought, yeah, don't, don't, don't change anything for this girl. But she, you know, started to learn that living in a clean space was nice. And so I noticed that she kept a clean area where we would all be, and then it would be like closer to the door or in the corners. Of course, we had wood floors. I have to say, we're so lucky. And then and I would clean, clean, clean. And then, you know? And of course, we went out every half hour, every half hour, and then the accidents got less and less. And then sometime they just stopped happening. And she was house trained for the rest of her life, and she lived another six years. She was the oldest Newfoundland in the world. But anyway, yeah, so I mean just patience and acceptance and compassion.
Libby Felts 53:32
Yeah, there are
dogs for whom this is even though coming into a foster or adoptive home is the best thing that's ever happened to them. It's also turned their life upside down. It's turned their entire world upside down. So those are things to keep in mind. You might need a little extra patience when it comes to those dogs. Okay? And let's talk about marking as well, because marking is a little different from actually having a pee accident inside the house. And I've had male dogs who walk in the door and immediately lift a leg on the first piece of furniture that they see. So welcome home, right? So what's going on there?
Emily Wolf 54:18
Yeah, that's always fun and gross. And I've had a few dogs who came in who marked, I have to say I think they were either newly neutered or not neutered. Was that your experience? Libby, yep. Okay, and that's just scent marking, and it's, I guess, in a lot of ways, just a continuation of potty training like we don't do that in the house. I have found that those dogs mark when they first come to your house, or if another male has been in the house to visit, but they don't walk in every day, and mark so one and bird. Killer, Guthrie, he had to, like, lift his leg in every new like, he went to a adopter, lifted his leg. We were like, Oh no, I hope they take him, and they did, and he never did it again. So for that, like a good enzymatic cleaner, the marking is lifting their leg usually, like you see them literally pick a space, yep.
Libby Felts 55:21
And it's usually going to be a vertical surface, like, yeah. And they're going for like,
Emily Wolf 55:26
yeah, kind of like a fire hydrant, but they'll find, like, leg of a couch, or, for me, I'm looking at it right now, the hallway wall was Guthrie's spot, yeah, that, yeah, and it was gross, yeah.
Libby Felts 55:39
So that's another reason why, if you're fostering and you're gonna have multiple dogs coming in and out of your home throughout the years, like, use that enzymatic cleaner religiously, that's gonna be your best friend. Eco 88 eco 88 we love that one. And you know, another tip for that is like, yes, boy, dogs seem to have an endless reservoir of P they want some more. But if you can, you know, take this dog on a nice, long walk and try to encourage them to empty their bladder before coming into your home, or before you're bringing them to a potential adopters home, or something like that. That's also really helpful, yeah.
Emily Wolf 56:21
And I think this is really related, usually to stress or a territorial situation, and it would make sense, I'm sure. Now, Guthrie does not pee in everyone's plate house that he goes into, right?
Libby Felts 56:32
Yeah. I mean, that's, we call it P mail for a reason, right? Because this is one way dogs communicate. It's like, oh, hey, my name is Guthrie. What's up,
guys? This is what I smell like.
Here's my news feed, right? Here's learn everything about me. Since dogs learn about their world through their nose, and they communicate that way, it's just, you know, again, that's one of those natural dog behaviors that is up to us to manage, to set our dogs up for success.
Emily Wolf 57:01
Well, I love that we covered potty training finally in season six, yep. And I hope this is useful information to people bringing home new dogs, and to think about before you bring home a dog, because you can be caught off guard if you're bringing home a five year old dog, and all of a sudden you start having accidents.
Libby Felts 57:20
Absolutely it's important to have your expectations set realistically and be prepared to use that management, use that training, use that you know, repetition and positive reinforcement when they get it right. All of that is crucial to success, even if this dog is previously potty trained
Emily Wolf 57:44
and managing like expectations. And also, I would say, you know, our job isn't to, like control them and have them living in a small little cage or, like, not exploring. It's to help them succeed overall. So you know, having that balance between some freedom and agency, which will help them feel safer, and also having eyeballs on them and helping them prevent, have preventing having accidents. Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a dance of making decisions in the moment based on how they're doing.
Libby Felts 58:19
Listeners, we would love to hear from you if this was helpful. If you have more questions about potty training, we can jump on an Instagram Live and answer your questions or tell us your stories. Do you have any dogs who took six months to potty train because they were a Mill Dog Rescue? Or, you know, any amazing success stories? And I want to know if you've ever used my tip when bringing your foster time home. I can't be the only one.
Emily Wolf 58:47
And if there's any topics that you think we've missed, like this one, that you'd like to hear us cover, please, yeah, send us a message on Instagram, or if you don't do social media, send us an email. Summit dog [email protected]
Libby Felts 59:04
All right, listeners, we will talk next time. Thanks for listening.
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate review and share with a friend. It helps us achieve our mission of helping more rescue dogs and their people. Pod to the rescue is hosted by Emily wolf of brilliant pup behavior, Jenny faffman of elevated dog training, and Libby Felts of Boulder dog see our websites linked in the show notes for consults, thanks to Mike pesci for our original music. The show is produced and edited by me Libby of Boulder dog Media For show notes and transcripts. Head to pod to the rescue.com. Let us know what you think of this episode on social media. We are at pod to the rescue on Instagram and Facebook, and we love connecting with listeners. We'll catch you next time on pod to the rescue. Oh, and tell your dogs we said, hi. You.
Emily Wolf 1:00:08
Maybe we should call this podcast episode. Shit happens. Yeah.