Potty training can be difficult for many dogs and puppies, but today we'll explore the unique challenges of "Dirty Dogs" and how to start addressing them!
What is a Dirty Dog?
To keep things simple you should check out our blog post on "Dirty Dogs" where we help you understand that your dog's potty training dilemma is not an unknown phenomenon but is something that is well established. Dirty Dogs are fairly uncommon and most often your potty training struggles are just part of the normal puppy raising process.
In rare instances, a dog might start urinating and/or defecating in particularly inappropriate places like their crate, kennel, or even their bed. What distinguishes a "dirty dog" from typical potty training mishaps is the dog's refusal to relieve themselves in suitable locations, such as outside on the grass or during walks. Learn more here!
A dog that is considered a dirty dog may refuse to go potty outside, and may intentionally hold everything in until they can return to their crate or kennel to relieve themselves. This pattern can quickly become extremely stressful for any owner who would have to continuously clean a dirty kennel and often a dirty dog as well.
These dogs feel so comfortable creating a potty mess in their living space that many will even sit or lay down comfortably in their mess without any distress. This is the quintessential sign of a dirty dog.
Why Do Some Dogs Become Dirty Dogs?
When we want to resolve the issue of Dirty Dogs, we cannot just apply a "one-size-fits-all" solution to remedy the situation because all dogs can be a bit different. Dogs may have different reasons or situations that have led them to this condition. So it is always important to look critically at your dog, their background, their genetics, their routine, and their health to develop a truly effective treatment plan.
Health
When we are really struggling with potty training a dog who defies all of our usual potty training tips and tricks, the first step we want to take is to make sure that there is no medical condition causing the accidents. Here are a few of the most common medical reasons for potty accidents.
Urinary Tract Infections (UTI)
The most common medical condition responsible to potty accidents is a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). UTIs are more common in female dogs, but can still occur in male dogs as well. A simple urine test can be administered by your doctor to rule out any infections in the urinary tract that may make it difficult for your dog to hold their urine. UTIs can cause very frequent urination and urgency making it challenging for your dog to hold it in over night or even for a few hours during the day.
Digestive / Intestinal Distress
Intestinal Distress is simply when your pup has an upset stomach that can cause loose stool and diarhea. Similarly to UTIs, digestive conditions and intestinal distress can make it very difficult for dogs to hold their bowel movements over long periods of time.
Intestinal and digestive issues can be caused by any number of things including:
Parasites
Communicable Conditions
Sudden Change in Diet
Too Many Treats
Food Sensitivities
Ingesting Foreign Objects
Poison or Toxins
In most cases, intestinal distress will clear up on its own by maintaining their normal diet, limiting special treats, and providing plenty of water.
If the condition continues for more than a few days, or you see a large amount of blood in their bowel movements or urine you should make an appointment with your vet at their earliest availability(an occassional drop or two of blood is nothing to be overly alarmed about, but you should continue to monitor). In severe cases, you may consider an emergency vet for exceptional amounts of blood or if your dog refuses to eat or drink for an extended period, if their abdomin begins to feel stiff or rigid, or if they begin to show neurological symptoms or trouble breathing.
Anatomical Anamolies
When all of the blood and urine tests come back as normal and your dog is still having accidents, it doesn't hurt to rule out some of the rare anatomical anomolies that could be contributing to your dog's incontinence.
Ectopic Ureter - When the tube that normally connects your dog's kidneys to their bladder, actually bypasses the bladder and connects directly to the urethra causing urine to essentially continuously leak without the dog knowing and without the bladder being able to control the flow.
Spinal Injury / Neurological Condition
Certain spinal cord injuries or nerve damage in your dog's hindquarters can lead to a loss of control over the muscles responsible for urine and bowel movements. In other cases, it might simply prevent your dog from sensing the need to relieve themselves. Although these conditions are less common than the previously mentioned health issues, they should still be considered when identifying the reasons behind your dog's potty training difficulties.
Longterm Effects of Temporary Conditions
If your dog is having accidents as a result of a health condition, this does not inherently deem them to be what we would consider a "Dirty Dog". However, what can happen is if this condition persists for a long period of time, it can acctually establish the potty accident pattern for your dog and can in rare cases lead to the Dirty Dog Condition.
Genetics
Surprisingly, nearly all of our dogs' actions have some genetic basis, including potty training. Numerous case studies have shown dogs exhibiting unique or peculiar behaviors, only to find that their mother or father displayed the same behaviors.
The genetic aspect can influence a dog's tendency to become a messy dog, so it's crucial to thoroughly research the right breeder and inquire about the parents of a potential dog, including their potty training habits. In many instances of messy dogs, it is regrettably a combination of genetic and environmental factors that create a particularly challenging situation to handle and resolve. Even in the most exceptional cases, you might do everything right to instill good potty training habits in your dog, yet there remains a possibility that the dog may still soil their crate.
Even if your dog's parents had the Dirty Dog Syndrome or condition, it doesn't necessarily mean your dog is destined to have it too. However, being aware that they might have been dirty dogs can assist you in establishing a successful routine to aid your dog's potty training journey.
History / Background
Whether you got your dog as a puppy from a breeder at 7 weeks old or if you adopted them as an adult from a shelter or rescue when they were 4 or 5 years old, knowing your dog's previous lifestyle can help identify why they may be struggling with potty training.
Puppies are normally kept in and raised in whelping areas for the first several areas of their lives before they begin to learn to go potty outside. Even with the breeder's best effort, it is unrealistic to expect a puppy under 10 weeks old to be completely potty trained. But, when you receive your puppy, you can ask your breeder about where and how they were living before you brought them home, to help use that information to guide your potty training efforts.
Often adult dogs that you find in shelters may not have any background information or history about where they came from or how they were living. Also, with good intentions, shelters and rescues may try to explain problem behaviors with sob stories about living in poor conditions or being abused or neglected. While having an accurate history can help, it is also important to remember that many problem behaviors can also be a product a genetics more than how they were raised. Potty training included.
The Treatment Plan
Create a Healthy Potty Routine
If you suspect you have a "Dirty Dog," it likely means you've had your dog for some time and are having difficulty resolving potty training problems within your current routine. The dog's past and background prior to meeting you can still significantly influence their behavior, but it's crucial now to concentrate on your established routine and identify necessary changes to help your dog succeed.
A Normal Potty Training Routine starts in an appropriately sized crate or the kennel. The kennel should be just large enough for your dog to comfortably stand up, turn around, and lay down. The intent is if your dog has an accident in the crate, that they will not be able to avoid it.
First thing in the morning, you should be taking your dog outside to go potty on leash. After your dog successfully goes potty they should receive some type of reward like food, a treat, or a toy along with maybe a short play session or a walk. It is important that while waiting for your dog to potty they should be on the leash and you should not be moving from the designated potty area.
After your dog goes potty and you have a little bit of play or exercise to stretch you and your dog's legs, we recommend a training session, or its time to go back into the kennel. Your dog should be in their kennel between each potty break until they are fully potty trained. You will slowly transition away from having them in the kennel throughout the day as they become more reliable going potty outside.
During potty training, you should keep track of how long your dog is in the kennel between each potty break. If your dog is brand new to you and you are just starting potty training, or if they are still having particular difficulties, then we highly recommended very frequently potty breaks. Ideally, frequent potty breaks would be on a schedule about once every hour throughout the day. We would also recommend at least 2 potty breaks during the night. When pottying your dog this frequently, you can keep your play and training sessions very short.
As your dog begins to become familiar with the routine and becomes reliable with their potty training, you can begin to add more time between potty breaks, and longer times out of the kennel with you after each successful potty event. While your dog is out with you, it is important that you continue to supervise and keep your dog on leash until they are fully potty trained to deny them the opportunities to have accidents.
Modifying the Routine for Your Dog
The aforementioned potty training routine should work for the vast majority of potty training dogs. However, dogs that continue to have accidents, even within the structure of that routine will likely need some modifications.
Like we discussed previously, knowing your dog's previous potty training and life experiences can begin to give us a clue as to what we can change about the routine to help our dogs.
A key indicator of substantial potty training problems is if they often relieve themselves in the crate or kennel. In a standard potty training routine, your dog should ideally be either in the crate or outside in the designated potty area, meaning any accidents would typically happen in the crate. Therefore, we need to determine why they are using the crate as a potty area and consider ways to alter our dog's motivation to do so.
Potty Accidents Should Gain No Benefits
We must be critical of our dog's routine and see if there are times or ways that our dog can see the benefit of going potty in their kennel, or if there are reasons not to go potty while they are outside.
Have You Been Unintentionally Rewarding Potty Accidents?
You may think to yourself that it makes no sense for you dog to pee or poo in the same place where they live, rest, sleep, and often eat. However, for some dogs, they have discovered that by having accidents in their kennel, they can actually achieve beneficial rewards.
Obviously, when your dog has an accident you cannot just let them sit in their own mess. It is unhealthy for them, can cause skin irritation, and can even go as far as to cause long term illness. So, as soon as you notice that your dog has had an accident, you likely let your dog out of the kennel and give the crate and your dog a good thurough cleaning.
Let's break it down...
So your dog is in the kennel, and expects to be in the kennel for a while. Suddenly, they have a potty accident and now they get to come out of the kennel.
Your dog may see the benefit of making a mess in their kennel when you immediately take your dog out as soon as you see the mess. What better motivation for your dog to go potty in their kennel than to get time outside of their kennel!
Solution 1: Ideally, the first solution that we recommend is a second kennel. This kennel will be used as a holding kennel that your dog will stay in while you clean their primary kennel. You should keep this kennel close to their primary kennel so you can quickly transfer your dog from the dirty kennel to the holding kennel without a lot of time for your dog to enjoy the freedom of being out of the kennel in-between. Also your dog should be able to see you cleaning their primary kennel. (Some believe that your dog can understand that you are cleaning up their mess, but we aren't going to count on that)
For added effect you can use a slightly smaller kennel for your holding kennel. Your dog will only be in the kennel for a short time so its okay if its just a little cramped or uncomfortable. The goal is for your dog to view this as a negative consequence for going potty in their kennel.
If your dog got themselves dirty in the process, you should clean up your dog after they have spent about 15 mintues in the holding kennel, (approximately the time it takes to clean the primary kennel). This way they are not bringing more mess back into their now-clean kennel.
Solution 2: Put your dog on a short leash and keep them close to you while you clean their kennel. They may still get some enjoyment of being on the leash with you rather than being in the kennel, but they at least will not be able to enjoy complete freedom. Make sure that after you've cleaned the kennel, that you also clean up your dog if needed before putting them back into their kennel. They should not receive any training, treats, attention, or rewards during this process and should immediately go back into their kennel for at least another 15-20 minutes before getting their next potty/training opportunity.
Solution 3: Clean the kennel with your dog still inside of it. We recommend that you use just simple water and paper towels to clean the majority of the mess while your dog is inside the kennel. You can start by using the paper towels to collect any solid pieces of poop, and soak up any urine in the kennel. You can then use a wet piece of paper towel to wipe down the floor of the kennel. Meanwhile your dog is still inside the kennel. You be afraid to gently bump into your dogs paws while cleaning and gently move them out of the way from one side of the kennel to the other.
This should be comparable to your mom vacuuming your room while your trying to watch TV or play video games. It is a bit intrusive, and pretty annoying, but not harmful. And had you kept your room clean you wouldn't have needed to deal with it!
Be careful not to use any harsh or harmful cleaning solutions while your dog is still in the kennel. You will take time to really clean the kennel the next time your dog comes out.
This process can be a bit awkward for you and for your dog as you wipe down the kennel and your dog while they are still inside their kennel. You may even use a spray bottel to apply more water to the kennel floor and walls while you clean. You should not intentionally be spraying your dog but they may feel the spritz on their paws as you clean. Most dogs do not enjoy spray bottles. Again, we are just looking to lightly annoy our dogs.
The goal for all of these solutions is to teach our dog that going potty in your kennel does not get you any benefits!
Have You Been Unintentionally Punishing Your Dog For Going Potty Outside?
Especially for our really young dogs, getting to go outside and see new sights and smell all of the new smells can be really fun, exciting, and downright distracting, especially when we really just want them to go potty.
Young dogs as well as older dogs may take a decent amount of time to decide to go potty in a new yard or outdoor potty area. The first few potty breaks may take quite a while, but it is imperative that you not only remain patient with your dog, but also be prepared to continue to spend some time with them outside after they have gone potty.
Let's Break It Down...
You and your dog are outside, enjoying the scenery and fresh air, and they decide to relieve themselves and suddenly you bring them inside and put them in their kennel.
You dog will likely figure out pretty quickly that if they go potty then that means that they are going to go back into their kennel. Your dog may begin to hold it in longer and longer in an attempt to stay outside.
What can also quickly happen is that, unbeknownst to you, your dog is just holding it in, while you may think that you've been outside so long without your dog going potty that they must not need to go. So you put them back into their kennel where now the urgency causes them to have an accident.
Not Always One and Done
You may be outside with your dog, waiting for quite a while for them to go potty, and finally they decide to pee. You likely are relieved that they have finally gone to the bathroom and you may be in a hurry to get them back inside so that you can get to work. Be careful because they may also need to go number 2 as well.
Unlike most humans, dogs don't normally urinate and defecate in the same event and may need to make two different potty attempts to get it all out before they are ready to spend some time in the kennel or in the house.
That is why we always recommend spending at least a few more minutes outside with your dog after they have either peed or pooped. You should spend this time with your dog moving around either on a short brisk walk around the yard or during a fun short play session. If you choose a play session, you should finish with a short period of standing still again to again encourage your dog to potty anything that still needs to come out.
Regardless of your dog's routine and potty habits, it is always in your best interest to stay outside with your dog for at least a short while after your dog has going potty at least once. The more familiar you become with your dog's body language and the more familiar they become with the routine the easier it will be to create an efficient potty break.
Change of Scenery
Dirty Dogs often essentially learn that their crate is their own private bathroom. When they enter their crate they may feel the urge to go potty because that is where may have pottied many times before. A simple change you may want to try is a different type of crate. The unfamiliarity of the crate may help prevent the desire to potty. (Don't get rid of your old crate, because you may need it later)
You may even want to move the crate to a completely different area of the home to really change the habit. Sometimes familiar locations and routines can actually trigger the problem behavior to occur. So, we still want to have a crate routine, but we can change at least the way it looks and smells to help our dog begin to break the habit of going potty in the crate.
Drastic Times Call for Drastic Measures
Potty training can sometimes baffle owners because dogs should naturally prefer to not potty where they live, sleep, or eat. However, sometimes the confinement of the crate or the kennel can alter their body's natural rhythm and create unwanted routines.
Most dogs will naturally prefer to go potty on grass rather than your tile floor or the plastic floor of their crate. Because of this, sometimes we can provide the opportunity to freely make that decision for themselves.
A type of playpen set up that includes an open crate as well as a grassy potty area can allow your dog to make better potty decisions on their own. These can be set up outdoors or indoors depending on the weather and climate. Your dog will likely be spending much of their time in this setup, including over night. So make sure that if the setup is outside that you are able to protect your dog from the sun during the day and the cold at night.
The below setup was one that we have used with several severe Dirty Dog cases and was very successful. We are always very cautious with leaving dogs in this type of setup overnight, so we installed security cameras to monitor the dog and still used frequent potty breaks outside of the run for training. This specific setup worked great during the warm sping and summer months, but would not be suitable for cold weather.
An indoor playpen setup may work just as well, except you will need to create a type of grassy litter box for your dog to use that you will need to keep clean or replace as needed.
However, if our longterm goal is for our dog to go potty outdoors, any potty area that is indoors may be counterintuitive. Additionally, it is best to limit their space to choose either their sleeping area, or an appropriate potty area. Your dog may still choose to potty outside of their kennel, but perhaps not use the intended litter box.
Don't be tempted to just put potty pads or other absorbant material in your dog's crate or kennel to make cleanup easier. It may actually make it more suitable for your dog to continue to potty in their kennel.
Beware of Potty Pads
You may think its convenient to use the popular "Puppy Pads" or "Potty Pads" to help manage your dog's accidents inside the home. However, you should understand that most puppy pads have scent added to them that actually encourage your dog to go potty on them. This may sound convenient to teach your dog to potty on them rather than other more inappropriate places, however, you dog may have been able to hold it in until they smelled that odor. The odor may have encouraged them to potty when they didn't actually need to.
Additionally, using potty pads inside the home, or worse, inside the kennel, can actually create the habit or routine of going potty in those inappropriate places. You want to make every effort to teach your dog that the best and only place to potty is outdoors on the grass or other plants.
Teaching a "Go Potty" Command
Once your dog is reliably and predictably going potty in your designated potty area, it can be very simple to teach them a "go potty" command. Up to this point, you should be always rewarding your dog with some food, yummy treat, or their favorite toy every time they successfully go potty outside in the potty area.
You should be fairly familiar with how long it takes your dog to decide to go potty once you get outside as well as their body language that basically says "I'm about to potty."
If you can begin to identify their tell-tale signs that they are about to potty, this is the prime opportunity to tell them to "go potty!" After they have gone potty, you should always reward them and let them know they did a great job! Don't forget to spend a bit more time with them outside in case they need to go potty again, as well as letting them know that just because they went potty doesn't mean that outside time is over.
Sensitive Dogs in Bad Weather
Note: In times of inclimate weather, you should still require your dog to potty outside. You can likely tell when your dog is having a bad experience because of the weather. Some dogs do not like being outside in the cold or rain.
In these cases, you can actually use going inside after they go potty as part of their reward. Be sure to have some fun training or play inside after your dog has gone potty to make sure they enjoy their reward before going back into the kennel. In these cases, you can actually teach your dog that the faster you go potty, the faster we can go inside!
When the Snow Covers the Grass
If you have spent all of this time teaching your dog to potty on the grass, and then suddenly you get the first snowfall of the season, it can be confusing for your dog when they may have never needed to potty on snow before.
If you are expecting to get enough snow to cover the grass, you can put down either a piece of plywood or a tarp that will allow you to easily uncover a grassy area for your dog to potty.
If you are still struggling with your dog's potty training and are pretty certain that you have a "Dirty Dog" don't worry, you are not alone. Rehabilitating dirty dogs and teach them to appropriately potty outdoors may be one of the most challenging struggles for nearly any professional dog trainer.
When in doubt, don't be afraid to reach out to a professional dog trainer! Don't forget to check out the rest of our helpful blog posts and listen to our Podcast: The Dog Dialectic!
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