{"id":612,"date":"2016-06-14T08:54:44","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T07:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tailsdogblog.com\/?p=612"},"modified":"2021-01-11T19:45:02","modified_gmt":"2021-01-11T19:45:02","slug":"why-do-dogs-break-their-toilet-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tails.com\/blog\/why-do-dogs-break-their-toilet-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do dogs break their toilet training?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Housetraining can be a challenging part of training a new puppy, but with plenty of reward and effort on our part we can achieve good results relatively quickly in most cases. However, sometimes adult dogs who we assume to be completely housetrained will suddenly surprise us by urinating indoors in the most surprising of circumstances. Usually, if we examine when and where this happens some common factors are involved. Places where many other dogs congregate, especially unknown dogs, are the most common sites for \u2018accidents\u2019 to happen; at the vets, groomers, doggy day care and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dogs will mainly start to urinate indoors even if they are fully house trained when they feel they need to leave a scent marker for other dogs. If one breaks the rules and there are lots of other dogs around then this can rapidly escalate into more dogs urinating inside or on the same spot. It becomes very tempting for the rest of ‘the pack’ to join in and mark territory, especially if the odour of urine remains in that area when not cleaned up properly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Dogs have a truly incredible sense of smell. They have a staggering 300 million scent receptors in their nose compared to our 6 million, and the part of the brain devoted to interpreting smell is 40 times bigger than ours. So, even a few molecules of urine scent left behind can trigger an urge to add to this social signpost. The more dogs in a small space, the more tempting it is to break house training in these scenarios and effectively say: “Hey, it’s my territory too”. <\/span><\/p>\n

Here are tails.com\u2019s top tips for preventing housetraining accidents when you have doggy visitors to your home, at the vets and groomers or whenever your dog is in an environment with lots of other dogs indoors: <\/span><\/p>\n