House training an older dog: how he learns it after all

First rule out that it is physical

Start at the vet, not at the training. A bladder infection, worms or something else physical can look exactly the same: a dog who cannot hold it indoors. You can spend weeks training something that a course of medication would have fixed.

That goes double if it suddenly started in a dog who could do it before. A dog who has always done it probably never learned it, and then you start at the beginning.

And while you are at it, look at the food

Pay attention to how often he has to poo. Three or four times a day or more, or in the middle of the night: then there is a fair chance his food does not suit him. Whatever is not digested has to come out again, so the more of that there is, the more often he has to go.

Different food can solve that, and it saves you a lot of nights straight away. Talk it through with your vet, because the cause can sit somewhere else too.

Assume he never learned it

Even if the previous owner said he did. A dog who spent his life in a kennel learned that you pee where you stand, because there was nowhere else. A dog who has always peed on concrete or on newspaper will look for something like that indoors.

There is another version people do not see coming: the dog who could always walk out into the garden whenever he wanted. He never had to tell anyone he needed to go, and he never learned to hold it for a bit either. Put that dog in a house where the door is shut and he pees indoors. Not out of stubbornness, but because he never had to do anything else.

So you start at the beginning, just like with a puppy. Sometimes it goes faster, because an adult dog can hold it longer and makes connections quicker. But do not count on it. And above all, do not count on him knowing it really, because he does not.

You see it coming, or you are too late

This is the whole job: being there. As long as he is indoors, you want to be able to see him. Not so you can catch him at it, but so you can get him outside before it goes wrong.

Watch for what changes. He walks around restlessly, he sniffs the floor unusually much, he circles, he wanders off to another room. That is your signal. Do not wait to see whether you read it right, just go outside.

If you cannot watch him for a moment, put him in a smaller space or behind a gate somewhere he does not want to pee, or simply take him with you. A dog who roams the house alone for half an hour is learning something you do not want in the meantime.

Fixed moments outside

Besides those signals you go at fixed moments, whether or not he tells you anything. In the first days, every hour is a good measure. On top of that always after waking up, after eating and drinking, and after playing.

That sounds like a lot, and it is. But every time he pees outside is a successful repetition, and that is what you build on. Every time it happens indoors is a repetition you do not want. You win this with numbers, not with patience.

Once it is going well, you stretch it. Two hours, three hours, and in the end just his normal walks.

Then he learns to hold it

Your dog now knows it happens outside. That is the first part, but his bladder is not trained by it yet. He usually lets you know the moment he thinks he needs to go, and that is long before he really needs to. Which is why he sometimes asks every half hour.

In the beginning you go straight away when he asks. Him letting you know is exactly what you want, so you reward it by listening. Once that is solid, you start stretching it.

This is how. The first time he asks, you calmly send him to his place and let him lie there or sleep a bit longer. The second time you do go. Better still is being just ahead of it, so he does not have to ask. Keep rough track of how much time there is in between, because then you see for yourself whether you are really stretching it.

And watch what he does, not only what he asks. A dog who can still settle down calmly does not need to go that badly and can hold it a while longer. A dog who starts circling and sniffing has to go now. That is not the moment to stretch anything, that is the moment to go.

If he keeps asking very often while he is calm otherwise, think back to what you rule out first. Needing to go often is one of the first things you see with a bladder infection.

Always the same spot

Pick one spot, a fixed patch of grass for example, and go there every time. He will start to recognise it as the place where he goes, and that saves him a lot of working out.

Do not make a moment of it beyond that. No playing, no talking much, just that calm "good boy" when it has worked. If he gets completely distracted, bring him back to it for a second, but keep it as boring as you can. It is exactly because there is nothing to be had on that patch of grass that he gets on with what you came for.

And do not go for the walk if he has done nothing. He then learns that not going gets him a walk, and he will start holding it on purpose. Rather head back inside and try again ten minutes later.

Reward at the moment itself

When he pees outside, say a calm "good boy" and give him something nice straight away. Not once you are back indoors, because then you are rewarding walking back in.

What you end up seeing is funny, and it is exactly the sign that it is working: he looks at you while he pees. That is him understanding that this is the moment something arrives.

An accident indoors

If you catch him while he is doing it, interrupt him with a sound, not with your voice as punishment. Just something that makes him stop for a second, and then straight outside.

If it has already happened, take him outside anyway. Probably nothing will come, because it all came out indoors. You do it all the same, because you keep making the same connection: peeing belongs outside.

Then you clean up without saying anything to him, ideally with him out of the room. Use an enzyme cleaner. Ordinary cleaning products take the smell away for you but not for him, and a spot that still smells of pee is an invitation to use it again.

Why you do not punish

Not because punishing is unkind, but because it does not work and it comes back to bite you.

Your dog does not make the connection you mean. He does not understand that you are angry about something from ten minutes ago. What he does learn is that you are sometimes frightening when you come home, or that peeing where you can see him is dangerous. And that last one is the exact opposite of what you want, because then he will do it behind the sofa or in the room you are not in.

That guilty look tells you nothing, by the way. That is not guilt, that is a dog reading from your body that something is coming. VCA puts it the same way: that look most likely means he feels worried, not guilty.

Look at what sits underneath

House training does not stand apart from the rest. A dog who does not feel safe yet, who cannot settle anywhere or who cannot predict his days, holds it in less well. Tension works on the bladder, in dogs just as much as in us.

If you see little progress, do not only look at the schedule but at the basics as well: does he have a place of his own, is there enough rest, and does he roughly know what his day looks like. Often the accidents fade by themselves once that falls into place.

When it is not house training

Sometimes you are training the wrong problem. Watch for these four:

• Marking. Small amounts, often against something vertical, especially in new places or where another dog has been. That is not house training but communication.
• Submissive urination. He pees a little when you greet him, bend over him or speak to him. Coming in more calmly helps there, and a correction certainly does not.
• Excitement urination. Mostly in young dogs, when you come home or visitors arrive. It usually fades as long as you keep the greeting boring.
• Only when you are gone. Then it is probably not about house training but about being alone, and that is where you solve it.

If you recognise one of these four, going outside more often is not the answer. The cause sits somewhere else.

Frequently asked questions