How can I train my stubborn, 3 year old, adopted chihuahua?

Question

My mother gave me "Baby", a 3 year old chihuahua, for christmas, and i love her and everything, but its been hard to train her. I walk her very often, and she usually eliminates outdoors, but sometimes she comes back inside and still continues eliminating on our rug. On top of that, she eats her own feces. At the adoption center we were told the dog was rescued from an abusive and neglectful breeder, and most of her life she's been in a cage, so it's a easier to understand that behavior, but the smell of her urine has consumed my rug, and my mother is now threatening to return my dog to the shelter. i've done everything but crate training because i think that would just be plain cruel considering her past. But can anyone give me suggestions as to what i can do about this? how i can effectively train her or products you reccomend i use to train her?

i have tried puppy pee pads already
i was told to try ammonia. didnt work

let me specify, i was told to use ammonia on the puppy pee pads so that she'd pee there.
i have done a thorough cleansing of my house twice this month already, i have passed the rug doctor on every inch of rug in my house, and nothing.
dog training lessons are gonna tell me what i know already: consistency, assertiveness and patience

i already know the "praise" thing. i konw the assertiveness.
i know about cage training.
i have tried everything except the dog whisperer

actually i have a doggy crate.. SHE HATES IT! i put her in it once, and she cried and whimpered for hours!!!! i felt so bad i had to take her out. i don't want her to associate me "mommy" as another evil, abusive, annd neglectful owner

i also would like to make it clear that i LOVE my dog. she knows that i love her, and that i'm her owner. i am VERY consistent with her training. recently she has been better, i guess something finally 'clicked' but i feel she is still urinating in the house NOW in different places than before...

BTW thanks for the help everybody

and 2nd CRATE TRAINING is out of the question for me. i find it painful for her, and it hurts me (guilt) to see her that way

Answer 1

Don't use ammonia, because it smells like urine to the dog. Use vinegar or the special pet stain cleaners, instead.

For eating feces, ask the Vet, and if there is no medical problem, then switch food. Don't give any people food, and don't give any wet food, just provide dry food, like Purina. She may not eat it, but persist for a couple of days, because she won't starve.

Since she was mistreated, I suggest starting from the beginning in the same way that you would house train a young puppy:

1. Watch her very carefully when you are home and take her outside after she drinks, eats, or sniffs around. Keep her outside for 5 minutes, then come back in.... but keep careful watch. Always take her to the exact same spot outside for her toilet, and clean up solid waste every few days.

2. When you can't watch her, put her in a crate. It is only cruel, if you keep her in the crate all the time. You want to try to let her out about every four hours, but she is old enough that she can handle 8 hours, if you are diligent in walking her before and after meals, and before and after leaving for work/school.
Also, a crate is less cruel then returning her to the shelter.

3. If you don't use a crate, then confine her in a room, like the bathroom or kitchen that you can cover with newspaper.

4. Put food, water, toys, and bedding in one corner. When you come back after a few hours, take her outside for a walk. Then clean up soiled newspaper, clean the floor underneath with vinegar, and save a small piece for the smell. Place some clean newspaper in another corner of the room, away from her food, and place the smelly piece of newspaper in the corner. Keep newspaper on the rest of the floor.

5. The next day she should have tried to go to the bathroom close to the smelly corner. Repeat the process from above, clean the floor, use new paper, place a new smelly piece of paper in the corner opposite her food.

You are trying to teach her where her toilet is by placing a large blinking sign that says bathroom. Since your dog can't read, you are using a small piece of paper for the same purpose. Your dog has a good sense of smell, so the smelly paper doesn't have to be very large or disgusting. Just a few inches.

6. Keep doing this for a few days, until your dog goes to the bathroom consistently in the same 5' x 5' area. If you are patient and loving, and if she is not too damaged, then she may learn to go in an area less than 2' x 2' in less than 4 days, but don't push it.

7. If things are on track after 5 or 6 days, then remove all of the paper, except a 5' x 5' area in the corner, with a small smelly piece of paper.

8. Advanced: If she is relaxing, then you might slowly reduce the area to about 1' x 1', then you can train her to use a kitty litter box inside... but that may be pushing things.

9. When she is consistent, then remove all the paper, and move the smelly piece of paper to the outside to show her where her bathroom is. She may have a few accidents, so try to understand what happened and why she had the accident.
But this method should work for most puppies and dogs.

10. Things to remember:
A. You can remove the paper when you are home and watching her. You only need the paper during the training period of about two weeks, and only when no one is home to watch her, while she is confined in the kitchen/bathroom.
B. Always clean up the floor under any mess or mistake with lots of vinegar to remove the smell.
C. Remember that the smell to a dog is like a blinking sign to people.
D. Always get rid of soiled newspaper, except for a tiny peice with smell. Replace the soiled newspaper with clean newspaper for the first few days.

Also, walk her, pet her, and talk to her softly... so that she will learn the difference between a neglectful home, and a loving one.

Answer 2

There are some excellent suggestions for housetraining, so I don't need to add any. I just have a couple of comments.

She is likely eating her stool because she was confined to a crate and forced to eliminate in it. She ate her stool to keep her space clean. It has since become habit. Once she is trained, this will be a moot point.

Small breeds have VERY small bladders. She will need to eliminate more often than a larger dog would - probably five to seven times a day. You may just need to take her out another time or two each day, especially if she is having accidents an hour or so after she has been out.

Last, make sure you are not feeding her too much, and that you are giving her meals rather than leaving her food out all the time.

Answer 3

Positive reinforcement is the only way to teach her, and you need to keep training her. I am also not a fan of crate training, I feel at her age and with everything she could have been through it might well cause other issues. I'm no expert on it though, just my 2c.
Try and get a pattern for when she does her inside eliminations, and keep her outside until she eliminates, so that she is always outside when the need comes, then praise her a lot, so she learns from that. When you take her outside take her straight to where she had eliminated, so she can see it and reinforces it in her mind. Every time, I found this did the trick with so many dogs.You break an opld habit by creating a new one, remember that. Do not let her be in a position to eat her faeces, and she'll stop at some stage, and after training is done and she no longer 'goes' inside, clean it up every time she has been outside, straight afterwards. Try and spend most of the time outdoors if you can, it makes it so much easier.

Your mom needs to realise that a abused animal is like a abused child, they need a longer-term approach, things aren't all simple, things will have set-backs from time to time, it simply comes with the territory. I spent years living on a big farm and rehabilitated abused animals, it takes something else, besides normal practices to get them to behave the same, in most cases it just takes longer, and lots of patience. She will, with abuse as backdrop to her lie, be wanting praise and love for doing stuff, so also give her other things to do, little things like sitting before feeding her, calming her down, etc.

Answer 4

Training with a crate is not cruel - quite the opposite, in fact. Crating when you cannot watch the dog is the clearest message you can send to the dog, as most dogs will not eliminate in a space where they sleep. If you cannot get her used to a crate then you need to tether her to you when you cannot watch her, or get and X-pen
http://www.petsmart.com/global/search/search_results.jsp?Ntt=x+pen&In=Dog&previousText=x+pen&N=2023689
ehich should seem much less crate-like for your dog. Obviously, put it in a place where her peeing won't be an issue.
Adding Prozyme (natural supplement) to your dog's food should stop the poop-eating. Remember that your dog came from a very bad situation and can't be blamed for the problems she has. It is frustrating, but managing the problem now will avert the disaster of you having to return her.

Answer 5

The first thing you need to do is a thorough cleaning to get all traces of the smell out of your house. As long as she can smell it, you won't be able to keep her from going back there. By the way, don't use ammonia - to a dog it smells like pee and they think they're supposed to go there.

When you take her out, do you take her out, say "go pee" and give lots and lots of praise when she does, then come right back in? That's what you need to do. You need to teach her the correct thing to do or how's she supposed to know when she does it right? Lots of praise, then right back in, so she knows it's not play time.

You also have to put her in a crate when you're not there. She is so in the habit of peeing in the house you won't be able to stop her otherwise. And crating her is not cruel, even given her history. If you do it right, she'll think of her crate as her safe place. Put some toys in it, a couple of treats and she'll be fine. You may only have to use it as a temporary measure until she's retrained. But she'll probably go in it on her own if you keep it in the room you're most often in with the door open.

Answer 6

Hi, I understand that you are looking for some advice or resources to help fully train your dog or fix behavior problems. If a professional dog trainer is not an option at this time, or if you want to trt training your dog on your own (a great way to bond), I'd suggest you https://bitly.im/aL4D7

A friend recommened it to me a few years ago, and I was amazed how quickly it worked, which is why I recommend it to others. The dog training academy also has as an excellent home training course.

Answer 7

Actually, given her history, she very well may find having a crate to retreat too when the world get to be too much is probably going to be a HUGE comfort to her. Many racing greyhounds and dogs other lage scale handling situations (such as yours) NEED a crate around for their mental stability... Look at it this way which is going to be harder for her - a few hours in a crate (which is similar to what she's used to) OR a whole new home, new rules, new people, or possibly being put to sleep? Give you a hint we took in a dog that it turne out we were her 4th home in 1 month - she was nerotic probaly from so .much moving...

Answer 8

Talk to Vet,pup may have dietary issue,maybe doggie downers might help. Try book on dog behaviours they can give great insite. There are products that you can spray that dogs dont like to mess on. Good Luck.

Answer 9

Have you tried puppy pee pads? Dogs usually go in one specific place. Put a pee pad there and praise her for going on it.. Then choose a place where you want her to go, and slowly move the pee pads to that area. She will learn to go on them. I love the breed. Chis are like babies. They love to be with you. We have 5, and we have 3 boxes with pee pads in 3 different areas of our home. They go on them or outside on the walk. We just call them our babies diapers. Your dog eats her feces because she taught herself to keep her bed clean. Mothers do that in the den to keep it clean. That's very sad that she had to resort to that to keep her own cage clean.

Answer 10

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