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Permalink Reply by Beth on April 16, 2014 at 1:33pm

Keep him on a leash. Whenever he goes to lift his leg, give him a verbal correction and tug the leash a bit to interrupt him. You'll need to be diligent and then keep him crated whenever you can't watch him.

Also use an enzyme cleaner to clean any spots. Basically you need to retrain him that going in the house is not acceptable, so be consistent but it may take some time. Any time he manages to sneak away to mark just reinforces in his head that this is ok, so you must watch him constantly and confine him when he can't be watched.

Can I ask your reasons for keeping him intact?

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Permalink Reply by Dana & Andi on May 2, 2014 at 8:12pm

We like to keep our pets intact unless it's the last straw. Nobody in a human family wants to live in a castrated crated zoo so why should a family pet be an exception?

I can't seem to reply to ALL so I hope all can view? I'll correct myself when I mentioned the word "Ration" as far as his water intake. We'd never do that. We were just trying to find a cycle as far as water delivery to him to possibly stop his indoor marking.

I must say that we've taken everyone's input but just minor changes and our little dude was back to outdoor peeing as usual. Maybe we're lucky or maybe he understands English but can't speak it? Maybe it was a new home phase?

The enzyme cleaners work great too! Thanks Beth. Thanks for the tips from everyone.  

Everyone's help has been much appreciated. 

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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on April 16, 2014 at 4:27pm

When you have a problem like yours, you attack it on all fronts at the same time and you hope SOMETHING works (usually the combination of things you do, coupled with the disciplined, consistent implementation on the part of the humans, so make sure your wife is on board with all this ).

Your biggest problem is that he's been peeing in your house for 1.5 years!  Dogs are creatures of habit.  The best time to neuter and train him would have been when you first adopted him.  Water under the bridge, so to speak.

Now here you are.  How to proceed?  Immediately make an appointment to neuter him, that will give you a slight edge and you can use all the help you can get. "Slight" because his habits are now pretty well set and you have odor all around your home.  Dogs can smell parts per billion, so if you think it's clean, think again.

You need to buy a few supplies, rubber gloves, paper towels and a good enzyme cleaner such as Nature's Miracle which you can buy in the gallon size.  The biggest necessity will be a portable black light.  Urine residue will show up under black light, in a darkened room works best.   Once you have the black light, you need to check all over the house (floors, furniture, any place he may have lifted his leg) and clean everything thoroughly according to product directions.  When the dog is back from the Vet, he needs to be confined and housebroken.   Keep him in one room, or leashed, or crated Think of him as an 8 wk.old puppy and act accordingly, taking him out every hour or so to begin with, increasing time only as you have NO ACCIDENTS.  Plan for close supervision for about 6 months.  It takes a couple of months after the neutering for the male hormones that encourage marking to work their way out of his system, but it will assist the end process to have neutered him.  Without neutering, your chances of success, under the circumstances are minimal.

If the cleaning sounds like too much work for you, pay a professional  outfit that treats carpeting/furniture for pet urine.  They do a good job and use the same system I described.  You can ask them what they plan to do, just to make sure.

I'm assuming he's "marking" and does not have a urinary infection, which is not common in male dogs.  This can be ascertained when you speak with your Vet.  If he did have an infection, this should be treated as well as doing all the above mentioned ( neutering, cleaning and re-training).  Good luck with the process.

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Permalink Reply by Jane on April 16, 2014 at 4:57pm

Assuming this has been going on for a long time and is not a recent development, I second all of Beth's suggestions.

Sounds to me like he was never really properly trained when he came to live with you, and it's now just a habit. Marking has nothing to do with the amount of water he's drinking or the urge to urinate really, so I wouldn't limit his water. I'd also say 3 times a day is a very limited amount of potty breaks, even for an adult dog. Neutering could really only help at this point, but the differences may be minimal since he's been doing it for so long. Neutering does not change their personality though.

In the mean time you could get a belly band for him.

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Permalink Reply by Anna Morelli on April 16, 2014 at 10:32pm

Jane is right: limiting his water is useless. Indeed it can endanger his health.

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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on April 16, 2014 at 5:32pm

Getting him neutered should put an end to this.

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Permalink Reply by Linda on April 16, 2014 at 6:18pm

I also have to agree with Beth and Jane.  Having him neutered won't change his personality and unless you intend to breed him there is no reason not to have him neutered. 

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Permalink Reply by Diane on April 17, 2014 at 12:24am

We had this same problem when we first adopted Chewey... Not sure if he was just not properly potty trained or what. We did the keep him on a leash exercise for 2-3 weeks and that seemed to do the trick, at least in our house. He was neutered right before we adopted him so don't know what impact that had.

I do know that he's still not entirely bullet proof in other people's houses if they have dogs. We figured that out when he pee'ed on my nephew's present under the Xmas tree (which we didn't figure out until Xmas morning). Oops :-). We still all laugh about that one (fortunately). I haven't totally figured out how to break him of that (besides keeping him on a leash), although it seems to help if I take him around the yard first and let him sniff/mark out there before going inside.

Good luck!

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