I had to move out of the house I raised my dog in from 6 wks until about 7 mnths old, she’s not even a year yet and she’s urinating/defecating in the new house I live in. She’s just actually urinated INSIDE the house itself today, on the bathroom rug. I can’t tell if it’s because she was anxious to get out (not a real fan of bathing, my dog) or because I had been working on her grooming for a long time and she couldn’t hold it. Anyway, I had it going good, she was doing all her business outside before we moved in; I took her to see the house and walked her around the acreage before letting her in. Then the first day she was to stay at this home, she’d just gotten back from a pet boarding kennel, my mother let her urinate and defecate in the glass-windowed sunroom. She’s urinated probably 5 more times in that room then on this month, and defecated twice. I have her sleep in my room so she can wake me up so I can get her outside ASAP, usually I get up the same time she does at around 8am and get her outside for a bike ride or let her free-run the 4-acre fenced area. I would let her out full time, but it’s too hot, wild animals and spiders present a danger, and she’s able to slip out by digging or squeezing through the fence gates if she really wanted. I even get woken up as early as 6am by her licking my hand or pawing at my toes, and I religiously take her out in the morning every time and feed her one cup of dry kibble.

Her problem is that she HATES being alone or confined. But it seems if I leave her in my room, I come back maybe half an hour later and she’s in her bed, sleeping. If I put her in the sunroom, she has her face pressed against the door and scratches at it while screaming. She jumps and screams if I put her in her playpen, too. She can sleep anywhere but in a room she doesn’t like, like the bathroom, garage, sunroom. I think she’s learned to hate the sunroom because we put her out there so we can leave the house for hours. I don’t like leaving her like that, but my parents demand I attend their every family activities.

If she’s seeing the sunroom and now the bathroom as a place for urine and feces right away, can I get her out of that habit? The house she lived in when she was a pup, she wouldn’t dare urinate or defecate anywhere, with hardly any urine in her pen. Puppy pads seem to make her pee inside more, and my father is beginning to threaten taking away the dog if she keeps urinating and defecating. I once put her pen outside in the shade of a tree during the day with grass and she did her business straight away, and in moments I heard no barking or screaming or whining.