Keep out of certain rooms

[courtneyrose]

Last night Spooky and Dinky, the family Frenchie, scared the living daylights out of me. Dinky jumped from the high bed in my in-law's room right onto Spooky. He was thankfully fine and it was an accident, but I think Spooky is the only person in the house who is over it.

We had to move Dinky and Minnie's food into the room on top of the bed a few days ago to keep Spooky out of it but still allow them to eat, so now Dinky is on the bed more often and Spooky goes in there frequently to see if the food was left down or to see Dinky. To add more to the problem, Spooky has now taken to going pee on their green, grassy looking rugs in that room as of two days ago. We can't block it because that defeats that also blocks Dinky and Minnie. While I do have a large portion of the house to myself and could isolate him easily, the dogs all play together well and Spooky cries when he's not around them for long periods. I'd rather him learn the rules than isolate him.

I take him out of the room, stay away from it myself, have him sit when he makes a run for it, and everything I did to teach Minnie to stay out of my room, but it's not working well. He just waits for me to look away or tries to outrun me. Just this morning, I turned my back on Dinky, so she ran into my room to eat his food and steal his toys. While shooing her out of my room, Spooky ran down the hall and peed in Dinky's room. Any ideas?

[Sendiulino]

In order to keep Sam out of the room where the cat food is (because boy will she eat it all!), we put low boxes in front of the door. The cat can jump them but the puppy can't.. or should I say "couldn't". She can now But it worked for a good two months at least.

Now we've started feeding the cat in the window-sil, and we've taken to corralling the litter box between two baby-gates in the hallway -- again the cat can jump the gates but the dog can't (and never will, most likely).

So maybe try to find something the dogs can jump over but the puppy can't. Otherwise, you'll be looking at umbilical-cord with a leash, or isolation as you mentioned.

The reason the puppy is pee'ing in the other rooms is most likely because he has too much space though, I'll say that much. That's the reason Sam had accidents in the beginning. When the puppies are young, confining them to a very small location, as well as leashing them to you when they aren't in that location, is key in a lot of ways. Your pup is so young, he can't really control his bladder yet after all.. so if he needs to go, and he's in another room, and he spots something grass-like.. hey, it all makes sense to him!

I personally think isolating him into a smaller area is your best bet. Up until recently, all Sam got was the kitchen, and then we slowly opened her up into the living room. Then we tried giving her the hallway, but she started pooping in it -- that's when we realized we gave her too much too fast. We reduced the area she got, and she went back to behaving. Now she's getting more space again.