Recent Kennel Accidents

Discussion in 'Labrador Puppies' started by Bodhi's Mom, May 20, 2019.

  1. Bodhi's Mom

    Bodhi's Mom Registered Users

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    Apr 16, 2019
    Messages:
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    Hi Everyone,

    Bodhi is 3 months old now; almost 14 weeks this week. He is pretty well potty-trained, as far as letting us know by going to stand at the door. He has had a handful of potty accidents in the house, mostly when we haven’t been paying attention, nothing major.

    Lately, really these last few weeks, he has been having potty accidents during the day while in the crate. My husband and I both work. Our schedule looks like this:

    5:45/6:00 am: Bodhi wakes up and potties
    6:30 am: Breakfast!
    6:45/7:00 am: Morning walk where he poops
    7:15 am: Returns from his walk and takes a big drink
    7:30-8:00 am: Bodhi is let out one more time to potty before we head to the office
    11:30 am/12:00pm: One of us comes home to let him out,
    *KENNEL IS DRY*
    We take a short walk and play in the yard or house.
    12:15/12:30 pm: He usually takes a big drink after the walk
    1:00 pm: One last potty before heading back to work.
    4:00-5:00 pm: We return home.
    *WET KENNEL*

    The max he is kept in the kennel is 4 to 4-1/2 hours. The wet towel at the end of the day is a recent thing. I don’t understand why he is wetting the towel between lunch and when we return home. We haven’t really changed anything. I don’t want to reduce his water amount as he really only has 3 big drinks a day: Morning, noon, and evening. Is it possible that this is an adjustment phase or have we done something wrong? Sometimes my husband will work from home so there might be inconsistent in-kennel time and breaks.

    Just today 5/20, I made a point to make a trip home at 3:00, instead of waiting until 4:45/5:00 and let him out. The towel was damp! I am so, so frustrated… It's hard because he did not do this for the first 3-4 weeks with us.

    He has his last round of puppy vaccinations next week. We will bring this up then, too.
     
  2. 5labs

    5labs Registered Users

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    North Yorkshire
    Are you feeding him dry food? I tend to find that dry food tends to make them have large drinks in one go for which they need a wee shortly after. Wet foods (I feed raw) tend to reduce the big drinks and resulting big wee's.
    There is also the possiblity that he is stressed with being left which could make him more inclined to wee.
    How big is his 'kennel'? Normally I'd say it should be as small as possible to he can't move away from his bed to wee, but if he's being left for hours on end in there then obviously that's not an option.
     
  3. Jo Laurens

    Jo Laurens Registered Users

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    The problem is that the more the dog does this, the more you wear down their natural dislike of lying in their wee - to the point where they really don't care about doing this and will just wee and lie in it - and then you lose a lot of the usefulness of the crate, because it can no longer be used to help them to hold on and as a place to put the pup and know they won't toilet.

    It just sounds to me like he has a big drink at lunch time and then can't hold on until you get home.

    I would suggest you arrange for a pet sitter to come in about 1 hour after you've left in the afternoon, to take him out, play with him and interact with him... Doing this for a few weeks should break the habit by preventing it for long enough...
     
    Kim Tsuruta and Edp like this.
  4. jbg

    jbg Registered Users

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    Chicago, IL
    Hi, At about that same age, our Maggie was peeing a LOT!! I was home with her but thought maybe she had an infection or something. Our vet checked her and actually told me that she was "over hydrating" She told me that at that age, puppies don't really know how much they need to drink and that I should monitor her intake. She should have 1 oz of water per pound. I figured out what that should look like in a day and I found that as many times as she wanted a drink, I needed to keep her intake to about 4 oz's at a time. Anyway, I thought that might help because maybe your pups "big drinks" could be held down a bit which would help between the times out during the day. Maggie is now 6 months and I have stopped regulating. she drinks what she wants when she wants and is going longer periods in between pees. HTHs
     
    Kim Tsuruta likes this.
  5. Bodhi's Mom

    Bodhi's Mom Registered Users

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    Thank you all for replying! I really appreciate being able to connect like this. I told my boss that I'll need to split my lunch into sessions -- one at noon and then at 3:00 again for a quicker/shorter potty break. I did that yesterday and come home (at 3:00) to a dry kennel. Bodhi was sleepy but complied with the quick potty and back off to work I went. My husband and I came home around 5:00 to another dry crate. And thank you for the callout on the amount of water intake, @jbg . We measured out 20 oz. of water and will spread that reasonably throughout the day. You're all so helpful, thank you!
     
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