[The Dogman Commeth]

So my 1 year old mini-doxie is housebroken -- has been for about 6 months.

I started by crating him while i was out. When I saw he was good with that, I put him in his own room, which has wood floors, so if he ever DID have an accident, it wasn't a big deal.

He's been in his room while no one is home for around 3 months. He's been doing terrific...however, lately (the past 2 weeks or so), when I come home, I find a nice little puddle of pee awaiting my clean-up!

Since i'm currently student teaching, my schedule is not the same every day -- i.e. he might be alone for 3 hours one day, and 6 hours another day. It's all schedule-based.

The interesting part is I decided to run an experiment: I left him with a free run of the house for about 3-4 hours about 6 times, just to see.

Results: PERFECT. No problems, no accidents, and nothing destroyed (he was never a big chewer anyway).

Could this be his nerves/anxiousness at work? I have a feeling when I leave him in the room, he gets extremely anxious and pees.

I know normally giving a dog freedom results in accidents, but i believe in my dog's case it's the OPPOSITE! More freedom = less anxiety = no accidents.

What do you guys think?

[lizziedog1]

He's been in his room while no one is home for around 3 months.

Talk about holding it!

[RBark]

It could be many things. Whatever works, works. If you have success with this then keep doing it. There are too many "why's" to factor in to have an idea of why there's such a change.

Just make sure the house is dogproofed. Last thing you want is for the dog to decide a plugged in wire is a playtoy and give it a good hard bite.