Hi all! My Zoey is about 5 months old now and potty training has been very up and down. We have a 8 year old german shepherd that took to training so quickly and was hoping the pup would follow and learn from her. She seemed to at the beginning but shes having more and more accidents. Little background, she sleeps in her crate and is crated when we are not home. Typical day is my wife gets up for work around 4 am and lets her out. I get up around 7 am for work and let her out. My daughter is home all day with her (thanks covid). She lets her out throughout the day, my wife gets home around 2 pm and shes fed and given water. She is let out every 15 minutes after that (or if she starts sniffing around) till she goes. She is fed and watered a second time around 6 and same procedure after. Shes let out a final time to go around 9 when we go to bed. Problem is at night, some nights she barks to want out every 2-3 hours and sometimes has already gone in her crate. Sometimes when my wife goes to let her out she went in her crate and never barked. This morning she went in her crate, wife cleaned it and let her out. When I went to let her out she had gone in her crate again. This isnt an every night deal, she will go a couple nights dry then have multiple days of accidents. She hardly has accidents in the house. Got her a smaller crate because the one she had was way to big, didn't help. Put some toys in there, no difference. Shes rewarded for going outside but its getting ridiculous. What are we doing wrong or what can we try?
Have you checked in with your vet on this issue? There are potential physical causes that should be ruled out before addressing this as a behavioral issue.
Leave the water out for to drink when she wants. If you only give her water at certain times she might drink too much because she's really thirsty and pick the water up a few hours before bedtime
