canis - Articles
Lack or loss of housetraining
Introduction
- Common reason for inappropriate toileting.
- Usually happens out of sight of owners.
Print off the owner factsheets House training your puppy and Inappropriate elimination to give to your client.
Presenting signs
- Defecation or urination in the house.
- Elimination usually not in presence of owner.
- Defecation or urination during the night.
- Loss of housetraining caused by illness or changes in circumstances, onset of puberty and maintained after resolution of primary cause.
- May occur in one location only which could be confused with marking.
Acute presentation
- Breakdown of relationship between dog and owner due to defecation and/or urination in several sites of the house, together with partial or total refusal of dog to relieve itself outside.
Age predisposition
- More common in young dogs who have been inadequately trained or have had lack of proper access to appropriate area.
- Temporary loss of housetraining can occur in bitches at time of first season or when spayed after multiple estrus.
- Lack of housetraining common in ex-brood bitches and stud dogs which have been kept in kennels and, at the end of their working life, have been sold on as pets.
- Loss of learned behavior, including housetraining, following general anesthetic - cerebral anoxia implicated.
- Lissencephaly (agyria).
Pathogenesis
Etiology
- Lack of proper education when a puppy - failure to go outside with puppy regularly and frequently; failure to reward behavior when puppy eliminates outside house; failure to monitor closely for early warning signals that elimination is imminent.
- Problem exacerbated by punishment delivered at the time of elimination which causes animals to avoid eliminating in the presence of humans or in a certain location, resulting in limited opportunities for correct teaching.
Predisposing factors
General
- Puppies kept in dirty conditions where the bedding becomes soiled and it becomes difficult for them to distinguish between the sleeping and exercise areas.
- Puppies kept in a flat/apartment with no easy access to a garden or outside yard and whose owners fail to take them outside regularly or often enough.
- At around 8.5 weeks of age, dogs start to develop substrate preferences for elimination, ie learn to eliminate on grass rather than carpets.
Early exposure to a variety of substances for elimination is essential if you wish the dog to be comfortable with them later on. - Animals that mark more may have a lack of inhibition to inappropriate substances.
- Puppies whose owners leave them unattended for many hours each day without appropariately sized confinement. Confinement should be small enough that the dog is unable to escape from the soiled area so as to deter the desire to soil.
- Puppies who are slow to learn.
- Strays/rescues may learn to be uninhibited about elimination.
- Small breed dogs have been shown to be harder to fully house train than large breed dogs.
- Lissencephaly Lissencephaly. Very rare. Developmental.
Timecourse
- Presentation is generally at 6-12 months, when puppy is thought to have been housetrained and indoor elimination continues to occur.
Diagnosis
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Treatment
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Prevention
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Outcomes
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Further Reading
Publications
Refereed papers
- Recent references from PubMed and VetMedResource.
- Yeon S C, Erb H N & Houpt K A (1999) A retrospective study of canine house soiling: diagnosis and treatment. JAVMA 35, 101-106 PubMed.
- Hart B (1974) Normal behavior and behavioral problems associated with sexual function, urination and defecation. Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract 4 (3), 589-606 PubMed.
- Sprague R & Anisko J (1973) Elimination patterns in the laboratory beagle. Behavior 47 (3), 257-267 PubMed.
Other sources of information
- Horowitz D F & Mills D S (2018) BSAVA Manual of Canine and Feline Behavioural Medicine. 2nd edn.
- Horowitz D F (2019) Blackwell's Five Minute Veterinary Consult Clinical Companion Canine and Feline Behavior. 2nd edn.
- Landsberg G, Hunthausen W, Ackerman L (1997) Handbook of behavior problems of the dog and cat. 79, 81-88, 94, 185-186, 189-191.
- Overall K L (1997) Clinical behavioral medicine for small animals. 15, 195-199, 208, 245-246, 279-280, 342.
- Askew H (1996) Treatment of behavior problems in dogs and cats. 228-229, 233, 295, 302.
- De Lahunta A Neuroanatomy and Clinical Neurology. 2nd edn. Philadelphia: W B Saunders.
- Vollmer P J (1977) Inappropriate elimination by the older dog. Vet Med/Small Animal Clinician October. pp 1577-1578.
Organisation(s)
- Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors, PO BOX 46, Worcester WR8 9YS, UK. Tel/Fax: +44 (0) 1386 751151; Website: www.apbc.org.uk.