help with rescue dog and housetraining

Bonnie_dog

Hi. We have adopted a 12 month old rescue dog who is lovely but (there is always a but). He can't seem to hold his pee, we will take him out at 11pm but when we get up at 6 30 there is a massive puddle on the floor, he is fine during the day but the door is open fir him then
Has anyone any ideas, he does drink a lot but he may still be a bit stressed

krlyr

Treat him like a pup - set an alarm (alternate if there's two of you) to get up through the night for toilet breaks. Simple pop him on lead and lead him out, ignore him until he pees and give lots of praise (keep some titbit treats by the door to use to reward him too) then go back in and to bed - these are toileting breaks only, don't let him try to play or keep you up for entertainment.
I would be initially offering toilet breaks at 11pm, 2am and 5am for now - if you come down to accidents at 2am or 5am then offer more frequent breaks, then increase the time once he's being clean between those times. It's not a fun task but in the longrun it will speed things up if he's consistantly going in the garden, rather than having accidents indoors daily.

Personally I would stop with leaving the door open during the day - this can hamper toilet training as the garden then becomes just another room of the house - albeit with strange grass and a very tall ceiling! The action of opening a door and letting him out helps define where he should and shouldn't toilet.
Putting a verbal command to the toileting can help too. Every time you see him pee outside, give a command - e.g. "go potty" - and praise him. Eventually you'll be able to give the command and it prompt him to pee if he needs to

If it continues then there may be a medical reason behind it, e.g. a UTI or diabetes (if the excessive drinking is not just due to stress). Diet can play a part of incontinence in dogs too, it would be unusual to see it in a 1 year old dog but it can happen. I know of a dog that suffers from incontinence when fed grains, it has to be fed on a grain-free dog food.

elsien

Mine was like that when I got her at a similar age.
Have you tried taking the water up a bit earlier in the evening, and making sure the floor is washed with something that takes the smell away.
The other thing that occurs to me is that if the door is open during the day and he can wander in and out, he doesn't actually learn that he needs to hold it for a bit longer. Could you leave the door shut and take him out regularly and praise him up to the skies when he goes outside? When I got mutt I was taking her out hourly during the day, then slowly extending the times until she was fully trained.

(I have to say though, the night time did take longer and it was probably a good few months before she managed to go all night even when she was fine in the day. She always was a slow learner.)

krlyr

I don't think it's advised to take water up - aside from meaning they can't have a drink if they wake in the night thirsty, but it can encourage them to drink more as they know the bowl is going to be gone at a set time, and then they end up with a full bladder and have more accidents in the night.

Wellyboots6

Good suggestions so far

With my old pooch we used to take his water up at 7pm after he had eaten, then take him out for a wee at about 8pm. Put his water back down at 9pm, take it up again at 9.30pm and then take him out for his last wee at 11pm at bed time.

He used to always gulp down a bowl of water when you put a fresh one down as in the kennels he often knocked it over and so went a long time with no water, and so made the most of it when he had it.

We had to start by putting down water every couple of hours and then gradually increasing how often he had it, as he would just finish a whole bowl. He eventually stopped gulping down the whole lot and so we could leave his water down all the time. His toileting then became a lot more controlled too.

He did used to wet when he was left though, so he would would wee if shut in the kitchen at night etc.