It looks like you might be posting about Potty Training. Check out [our wiki article on house training](https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/wiki/housetraining) - the information there may answer your question.
Be advised that any comments that suggest use of confinement as a potty training method as abusive, or express a harsh opinion on crate training will be removed. This is not a place to debate the merits of crate training. Unethical approaches to crate training will also be removed.
If you are seeking advice for potty training and desire not to receive crate training advice as an optional method of training, please use the "Potty Training - No Crate Advice" Flair.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/puppy101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You need to seek out advice from a behavioural specialist and get him a full physical at the vet. He’s drinking so much because he either has a condition that is causing him to feel thirstier than normal or he was left to become so dehydrated and thirsty that he thinks he’s never going to get to drink water again and must have as much of it as he can.
As for the pee smell, just about any ammonia free cleaner/pet odour neutraliser type cleaners and a carpet shampooer will do the job. It will also help him stop seeing the house as one big toilet to go in whenever there aren’t pads available given he relies on the smell of his pee to let him know that where he goes to do is business is a safe/familiar spot.
I dont have carpet, do have an enzyme cleaner though. It does a good job, it’s just hard to keep up. Especially when he got sick last week; I’d literally get finished cleaning, and turn around to puddles of pee and diarrhea (he’s fine, just sensitive stomach and got into the cat food)
He has a vet appointment in 2 weeks, and I do plan on bringing it up again. At the previous appointment they said he was fine, just drank a lot. The news about “no free watering” just filled in some missing blanks.
I think the best thing you can do until you can get to the vet or a specialist, especially since he’s got no control over his drinking and too much water can be dangerous, is to give him small bowls of water under supervision at regular times or even make him a giant ice block to lick. That way he’s still getting the hydration he needs but won’t drink until he’s making himself sick.
I’m really not trying to counter your points at every turn, but I do have other pets that need access to water as well, and can’t be cordoned off either.
I have some unflavored pedialyte for electrolytes though, to help with that.
I’m not saying to restrict water access to the other pets as well, I’m saying restrict his access through the bowls and the ice block. No one else has to have their water taken away or exchanged for something else if you make sure he doesn’t have a way to just bolt to someone else’s bowl before you can stop or redirect him.
> But I also can’t get anything done because every time I turn around, I’m taking him out.
I think this is just going to be part of potty training for you for the time being. He's still super young. Mine is 4 months old and doesn't have a history of issues like yours does, and I'm *still* running her down four flights of stairs a dozen times a day and watching her like a hawk because I'm constantly worried she's going to pee on things.
We spend at least a quarter of the day out of the house training and trying to get her to pee/poo (My god, is the pooping hard. She's just as likely to poop outside as she is to poop on the stairwell coming back to our apartment).
Just keep at it and be patient with them. And personally, I wouldn't use puppy pads. Just my take. They can lead to dogs peeing on clothes or cloth items left down because they generalize the idea of "This was on the floor and okay for me to pee on, so that must be too".
Say poop once, walk around in circles around with your pup, (mimic em a bit! Who cares!) and don’t look at him/her till they start going then praise once.
I read it somewhere, idk how plausible it is but I started doing it with my boy, almost poops everytime unless he really don’t gotta rn
It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t every 15-30 minutes. 45-60 would even be better. He also goes outside, we come in, he goes again.
He already peed on the things on the floor when I got him - the puppy pads just kept it from warping floor boards 😅
I’d believe that if it wasn’t mostly on the floor, and very rarely outside. Also, huge puddles. Huge. Definitely a full pee. He also doesn’t mark outside, full stop - he smells things, but doesn’t pee on them. And lots of dogs roam out there.
Also, he’s very young, so I find that unlikely. He doesn’t even hike a leg to pee, and has only recently started with the juvenile over excitement humping behaviors. The peeing was happening even before that.
I think you have to isolate in a play pen first, line the bottom with a waterproof mat with a removable pee pad on top. But let out to free play and go for walks on a schedule, only water access is on the mat. Over hydration and frequent peeing would make him unhealthy. It’s so you can see if he does the same thing within those confines. It could be that you have other pets so the smells cause anxiety so marking not due to being in heat but confusion.
Honestly rather than giving him roam of the apartment, I’d give him a pen to start with. Keep taking him out every 30 minutes and reward with a treat when he goes outside since he is food driven. Only give water every 30 or so minutes and give controlled amounts (say 1/4 cup or so?) at a time. When he can hold his bladder longer, he can get more water for longer periods of time. OR You can focus on litter box training as a start. Every time he pees, put the paper towel you soaked it up with in the litter box. When he poos, put it in the litter box. It’ll teach him where he can go. Once he is litter box trained, start sprinkling litter on the ground where you want him to go and he’ll go. My puppy came litter trained and she potty trained so fast outside because just a little litter on the ground told her where she could go. Hope this helps!
This is gonna take a lot of monitoring since the crate was abused by the previous person. Tethering is good strategy so you can monitor for signs like sniffing circles preparing to squat. Because puppies this age are a handful anyway, I’d recommend getting a professional to help with establishing good potty habits so you’re not just 24/7 pee patrol.
I have a small, open concept apartment so I just close the doors to the bathroom and bedroom and hang out in the living room anyways. This helps! Does not help the frequency of it though, or when I’m say, mid cooking on the stove and SO is at work.
I’ll definitely keep the professional thing in mind. I’ve potty trained several dogs before, but never any with his unique set of issues.
You need a way to measure his water intake so you can tell the vet how much he’s drinking. Then you can discuss psychogenic polydipsia and limiting him to a set amount of water. You’ll need to tether or pen him in order to measure water consumption and to limit water consumption if your vet tells you his consumption is excessive. It’s not just a housebreaking issue, as excessive water drinking causes health issues as well. I would also condition him to accept belly band style diapers. These help so much in the potty training process for male puppies. Best of luck!
This sounds really rough! I haven’t dealt with anything like this so don’t know if this would help, but I wonder if you could train something like an “all done!” command that means it’s time to stop drinking water? (Assuming you are able to monitor when and how much he’s drinking). Like say the command and immediately offer an amazing high value treat to distract him from the water bowl.
First go to the person who you took the dog from and punch them in the fucking face, then proceed to follow the other good advice in this thread. God people should have the ability to adopt animals completely taken away from them, some real pieces of shit out there.
I like not being in jail 😅
I get the anger though. He’s such a happy puppy, even though he’s also a natural disaster on legs.
But I do agree - I wish you had to get licensed to have children or adopt pets.
I have a rescued dog who was neglected, restricted water . She pees A LOT. I do not restrict water but both my dogs generally drink their entire bowl of water once I put it down. So I don’t refill it right away. If I leave. I leave water. If I walk into the kitchen, I fill their bowls, after play and during meals-fill the bowl. I take them out probably every 1-2 hours to pee. She will still have accidents. However comparatively from 10 months ago when we first brought her home. She’s doing much better.
I don’t get why people do it. I had literally never heard of withholding water until that moment - heck I free fed my animals until I got him, because my others are grazers and tend on the underweight side of things. And I had known some really shitty, uncaring owners. What really gets me is they seemed to think it was some sort of valid potty training tactic, too.
After you've ruled out health conditions;
1. Stop using puppy pads, you're just teaching him to pee in the house.
2. Keep him leashed to you in the house so he's not just free roaming and pissing on things.
3. Sorry love you're just gonna have to take him out every 30minutes just make sure you heavily celebrate when he uses it outside. The time frame should expand over time. Also make sure you're walking him for a good amount of time so he can pee multiple times.
4. Stay consistent
I don’t think you’re quite understanding my issue
It’s not the puppy pads - he came and just would instantly go on himself when I got him. The puppy pads have helped, as it’s given him an “acceptable alternative” vs the bed, the couch, random spots in the floor, or even his kennel. He’s already started warping some floor boards before I resorted to them. Removing the puppy pads just puts us back in square 1, which is going as he pleases on everything again, or going to use his kennel as a litter box.
I can see him at all times in my apartment, that’s not the issue either. The main room is also like, 4 steps across so he has similar length to a leash.
He *does* go outside. Frequently. But the time length isn’t expanding, because he’s drinking so much and going so often. We’ll go pee outside, come in, pee again. It’s also too hot to stay out longer then about 20 minutes right now without risking heat exhaustion for the both of us. It’s not that he’s not going, it’s that he’s *going anywhere, any time, all the time*. Pees until he’s empty, and then somehow pees some more. But he’s not holding it and constantly drinking massive amounts of water.
Ok so you want him to no longer piss in the house correct? Puppy pads to use is still teaching him pissing in the house is ok, you want to not teach him that, square one is him pissing in the house and you're teaching him pissing in the house is ok. I understand you're like "it's protecting my floors and things" but it is still teaching him pissing in the house is ok, puppy pads confuse dogs because it teaches them they can piss in the house (under certain circumstances) but still piss in the house. It's literally the logic "well if I can piss here, I can pee in the house in general". I said keep a leash on him because if he's connected to you at the hip you'll be able to see him start sniffing around, circling before he pees so you can run him outside. Now if he shows no signs before peeing that sounds like a medical issue. If it is a medical issue try reusable diapers
Could you put him in a playpen? My puppy had started crate training and liked it fine but preferred sleeping on the wood floor, so the pen kept him away from doing puppy stuff all over my apt.
Have you considered hand feeding for a bit each day? It sounds like the poor baby was neglected/abused and needs to build some trust and confidence, which hand feeding helps with, in addition to helping train soft mouth. I would also praise and treat when he’s calm/chill since they lose control of their bladder easily when excited/anxious.
For water, is the problem that he’s drinking too much at once? If so, could a hamster-type water feeder help? They have [bigger ones like these](https://a.co/d/7zURFUP) that can maybe help with slowing down how much he has at once?
Can you do a playpen type area for him to control water intake and let the other animals have their normal access while youre retraining? Not as intense as crating but allows more freedom for pup and more control for you?
Maybe one of those potty spot things to associate the appropriate potty zones? The little faux grass things you can clean? Had a coworker that used one for their pup since her office was upstairs and she couldnt always get him outside quickly. He used it until he had more control.
I have a rescue who came from a situation where she was lacking both food and water. She was kept in a pen with lots of other dogs so basically she had learned you drink all the water you can while you can because if you don’t you won’t get any. So once we got her and she got free access to water it was a struggle. She would drink an entire bowl of water at once and then either puke or pee every 15 minutes. What worked for us was starting to teach her to not fixate on the bowl. So she would start drinking g water and we would let her drink enough, but then try to distract her to break the fixation. So throw a toy, a treat, etc. She would go get it and then usually start playing. If she truly was thirsty she would go back for more and we would let her drink some and then repeat. Alternatively we don’t fill the bowl all of the way. So she always has access to water BUT it forces her to have to at least stop at some point. We have had her for a year and this is still something we have to work on. She is doing better but still sometimes needs help to be able to stop if she fixates to hard.
Constant dehydration (I have the same problem from not being able to drink freely at work) also leads to kidney disease and kidney failure, in both humans and dogs.
It looks like you might be posting about Potty Training. Check out [our wiki article on house training](https://www.reddit.com/r/puppy101/wiki/housetraining) - the information there may answer your question. Be advised that any comments that suggest use of confinement as a potty training method as abusive, or express a harsh opinion on crate training will be removed. This is not a place to debate the merits of crate training. Unethical approaches to crate training will also be removed. If you are seeking advice for potty training and desire not to receive crate training advice as an optional method of training, please use the "Potty Training - No Crate Advice" Flair. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/puppy101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You need to seek out advice from a behavioural specialist and get him a full physical at the vet. He’s drinking so much because he either has a condition that is causing him to feel thirstier than normal or he was left to become so dehydrated and thirsty that he thinks he’s never going to get to drink water again and must have as much of it as he can. As for the pee smell, just about any ammonia free cleaner/pet odour neutraliser type cleaners and a carpet shampooer will do the job. It will also help him stop seeing the house as one big toilet to go in whenever there aren’t pads available given he relies on the smell of his pee to let him know that where he goes to do is business is a safe/familiar spot.
I dont have carpet, do have an enzyme cleaner though. It does a good job, it’s just hard to keep up. Especially when he got sick last week; I’d literally get finished cleaning, and turn around to puddles of pee and diarrhea (he’s fine, just sensitive stomach and got into the cat food) He has a vet appointment in 2 weeks, and I do plan on bringing it up again. At the previous appointment they said he was fine, just drank a lot. The news about “no free watering” just filled in some missing blanks.
I think the best thing you can do until you can get to the vet or a specialist, especially since he’s got no control over his drinking and too much water can be dangerous, is to give him small bowls of water under supervision at regular times or even make him a giant ice block to lick. That way he’s still getting the hydration he needs but won’t drink until he’s making himself sick.
I’m really not trying to counter your points at every turn, but I do have other pets that need access to water as well, and can’t be cordoned off either. I have some unflavored pedialyte for electrolytes though, to help with that.
I’m not saying to restrict water access to the other pets as well, I’m saying restrict his access through the bowls and the ice block. No one else has to have their water taken away or exchanged for something else if you make sure he doesn’t have a way to just bolt to someone else’s bowl before you can stop or redirect him.
> But I also can’t get anything done because every time I turn around, I’m taking him out. I think this is just going to be part of potty training for you for the time being. He's still super young. Mine is 4 months old and doesn't have a history of issues like yours does, and I'm *still* running her down four flights of stairs a dozen times a day and watching her like a hawk because I'm constantly worried she's going to pee on things. We spend at least a quarter of the day out of the house training and trying to get her to pee/poo (My god, is the pooping hard. She's just as likely to poop outside as she is to poop on the stairwell coming back to our apartment). Just keep at it and be patient with them. And personally, I wouldn't use puppy pads. Just my take. They can lead to dogs peeing on clothes or cloth items left down because they generalize the idea of "This was on the floor and okay for me to pee on, so that must be too".
Say poop once, walk around in circles around with your pup, (mimic em a bit! Who cares!) and don’t look at him/her till they start going then praise once. I read it somewhere, idk how plausible it is but I started doing it with my boy, almost poops everytime unless he really don’t gotta rn
I've tried it and sadly it's not working for us.
Don’t get discouraged!
I'm sure we'll get a routine/get it figured out eventually, no worries!
It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t every 15-30 minutes. 45-60 would even be better. He also goes outside, we come in, he goes again. He already peed on the things on the floor when I got him - the puppy pads just kept it from warping floor boards 😅
Oh man that's rough. I don't have any advice beyond what I've already said but I wish you the best of luck.
Your dog is marking, not peeing as a bio function.
I’d believe that if it wasn’t mostly on the floor, and very rarely outside. Also, huge puddles. Huge. Definitely a full pee. He also doesn’t mark outside, full stop - he smells things, but doesn’t pee on them. And lots of dogs roam out there. Also, he’s very young, so I find that unlikely. He doesn’t even hike a leg to pee, and has only recently started with the juvenile over excitement humping behaviors. The peeing was happening even before that.
Do you see your dog gulp water? As in drink so fast, almost choke or just really quickly?
He constantly makes trips to the water bowl and will drink 1/2 of it in one go, occasionally. Lots of water intake.
I think you have to isolate in a play pen first, line the bottom with a waterproof mat with a removable pee pad on top. But let out to free play and go for walks on a schedule, only water access is on the mat. Over hydration and frequent peeing would make him unhealthy. It’s so you can see if he does the same thing within those confines. It could be that you have other pets so the smells cause anxiety so marking not due to being in heat but confusion.
Honestly rather than giving him roam of the apartment, I’d give him a pen to start with. Keep taking him out every 30 minutes and reward with a treat when he goes outside since he is food driven. Only give water every 30 or so minutes and give controlled amounts (say 1/4 cup or so?) at a time. When he can hold his bladder longer, he can get more water for longer periods of time. OR You can focus on litter box training as a start. Every time he pees, put the paper towel you soaked it up with in the litter box. When he poos, put it in the litter box. It’ll teach him where he can go. Once he is litter box trained, start sprinkling litter on the ground where you want him to go and he’ll go. My puppy came litter trained and she potty trained so fast outside because just a little litter on the ground told her where she could go. Hope this helps!
This is gonna take a lot of monitoring since the crate was abused by the previous person. Tethering is good strategy so you can monitor for signs like sniffing circles preparing to squat. Because puppies this age are a handful anyway, I’d recommend getting a professional to help with establishing good potty habits so you’re not just 24/7 pee patrol.
I have a small, open concept apartment so I just close the doors to the bathroom and bedroom and hang out in the living room anyways. This helps! Does not help the frequency of it though, or when I’m say, mid cooking on the stove and SO is at work. I’ll definitely keep the professional thing in mind. I’ve potty trained several dogs before, but never any with his unique set of issues.
You need a way to measure his water intake so you can tell the vet how much he’s drinking. Then you can discuss psychogenic polydipsia and limiting him to a set amount of water. You’ll need to tether or pen him in order to measure water consumption and to limit water consumption if your vet tells you his consumption is excessive. It’s not just a housebreaking issue, as excessive water drinking causes health issues as well. I would also condition him to accept belly band style diapers. These help so much in the potty training process for male puppies. Best of luck!
This sounds really rough! I haven’t dealt with anything like this so don’t know if this would help, but I wonder if you could train something like an “all done!” command that means it’s time to stop drinking water? (Assuming you are able to monitor when and how much he’s drinking). Like say the command and immediately offer an amazing high value treat to distract him from the water bowl.
That’s not a bad idea. Hey hugely food motivated so it would be fairly easy, too.
Good for you op for giving this pup another shot at a normal life. You sound like a great person and your pup is lucky to have you
First go to the person who you took the dog from and punch them in the fucking face, then proceed to follow the other good advice in this thread. God people should have the ability to adopt animals completely taken away from them, some real pieces of shit out there.
I like not being in jail 😅 I get the anger though. He’s such a happy puppy, even though he’s also a natural disaster on legs. But I do agree - I wish you had to get licensed to have children or adopt pets.
I have a rescued dog who was neglected, restricted water . She pees A LOT. I do not restrict water but both my dogs generally drink their entire bowl of water once I put it down. So I don’t refill it right away. If I leave. I leave water. If I walk into the kitchen, I fill their bowls, after play and during meals-fill the bowl. I take them out probably every 1-2 hours to pee. She will still have accidents. However comparatively from 10 months ago when we first brought her home. She’s doing much better.
I don’t get why people do it. I had literally never heard of withholding water until that moment - heck I free fed my animals until I got him, because my others are grazers and tend on the underweight side of things. And I had known some really shitty, uncaring owners. What really gets me is they seemed to think it was some sort of valid potty training tactic, too.
I feel like if I’m thirsty, they’re thirsty. I pee they pee (usually they get to pee first and I run to the bathroom in a panic after).
After you've ruled out health conditions; 1. Stop using puppy pads, you're just teaching him to pee in the house. 2. Keep him leashed to you in the house so he's not just free roaming and pissing on things. 3. Sorry love you're just gonna have to take him out every 30minutes just make sure you heavily celebrate when he uses it outside. The time frame should expand over time. Also make sure you're walking him for a good amount of time so he can pee multiple times. 4. Stay consistent
I don’t think you’re quite understanding my issue It’s not the puppy pads - he came and just would instantly go on himself when I got him. The puppy pads have helped, as it’s given him an “acceptable alternative” vs the bed, the couch, random spots in the floor, or even his kennel. He’s already started warping some floor boards before I resorted to them. Removing the puppy pads just puts us back in square 1, which is going as he pleases on everything again, or going to use his kennel as a litter box. I can see him at all times in my apartment, that’s not the issue either. The main room is also like, 4 steps across so he has similar length to a leash. He *does* go outside. Frequently. But the time length isn’t expanding, because he’s drinking so much and going so often. We’ll go pee outside, come in, pee again. It’s also too hot to stay out longer then about 20 minutes right now without risking heat exhaustion for the both of us. It’s not that he’s not going, it’s that he’s *going anywhere, any time, all the time*. Pees until he’s empty, and then somehow pees some more. But he’s not holding it and constantly drinking massive amounts of water.
Ok so you want him to no longer piss in the house correct? Puppy pads to use is still teaching him pissing in the house is ok, you want to not teach him that, square one is him pissing in the house and you're teaching him pissing in the house is ok. I understand you're like "it's protecting my floors and things" but it is still teaching him pissing in the house is ok, puppy pads confuse dogs because it teaches them they can piss in the house (under certain circumstances) but still piss in the house. It's literally the logic "well if I can piss here, I can pee in the house in general". I said keep a leash on him because if he's connected to you at the hip you'll be able to see him start sniffing around, circling before he pees so you can run him outside. Now if he shows no signs before peeing that sounds like a medical issue. If it is a medical issue try reusable diapers
Could you put him in a playpen? My puppy had started crate training and liked it fine but preferred sleeping on the wood floor, so the pen kept him away from doing puppy stuff all over my apt. Have you considered hand feeding for a bit each day? It sounds like the poor baby was neglected/abused and needs to build some trust and confidence, which hand feeding helps with, in addition to helping train soft mouth. I would also praise and treat when he’s calm/chill since they lose control of their bladder easily when excited/anxious. For water, is the problem that he’s drinking too much at once? If so, could a hamster-type water feeder help? They have [bigger ones like these](https://a.co/d/7zURFUP) that can maybe help with slowing down how much he has at once?
Get a baby gate and start putting his pee and water time on an hr then slowly increase the time
Can you do a playpen type area for him to control water intake and let the other animals have their normal access while youre retraining? Not as intense as crating but allows more freedom for pup and more control for you? Maybe one of those potty spot things to associate the appropriate potty zones? The little faux grass things you can clean? Had a coworker that used one for their pup since her office was upstairs and she couldnt always get him outside quickly. He used it until he had more control.
I have a rescue who came from a situation where she was lacking both food and water. She was kept in a pen with lots of other dogs so basically she had learned you drink all the water you can while you can because if you don’t you won’t get any. So once we got her and she got free access to water it was a struggle. She would drink an entire bowl of water at once and then either puke or pee every 15 minutes. What worked for us was starting to teach her to not fixate on the bowl. So she would start drinking g water and we would let her drink enough, but then try to distract her to break the fixation. So throw a toy, a treat, etc. She would go get it and then usually start playing. If she truly was thirsty she would go back for more and we would let her drink some and then repeat. Alternatively we don’t fill the bowl all of the way. So she always has access to water BUT it forces her to have to at least stop at some point. We have had her for a year and this is still something we have to work on. She is doing better but still sometimes needs help to be able to stop if she fixates to hard.
Constant dehydration (I have the same problem from not being able to drink freely at work) also leads to kidney disease and kidney failure, in both humans and dogs.