Hi everyone,
I have a 4 year old Pug whom we are having a lot of issues with lately.
Here is some background...
When we (my girlfriend and I) first welcomed him into our home at 3 month's old we were renting a house. We had your typical puppy issues which soon dissipated. 2 years later, we decided to both move home to save money to purchase our first home. She took the pug with her to her parents place. No real issues during this time other than the fact that the pug was absolutely spoiled by my girlfriend's mom, sister, and little brothers. Anyway, we finally bought our house early this May and moved in the same month. Also, at this time our schedules at work changed so there were a lot of changes in general for ourselves and the pug.
... and the issues...
1) He has become very territorial. He barks any time somebody is walking on the sidewalk in front of the house. Mind you, the sidewalk is much closer in this house than any of the other places he has lived in. However, he now also barks at guests when they are leaving the house. I look this behaviour up and have been told that this is a territorial issue.
2) He gets into the garbage and rips everything to pieces. He does this when nobody is at home. We could be gone for a half hour and come home to garbage all over the place.
3) The worst issue is his potty issue. He pisses and dumps in the house constantly. It seems like every week I am scrubbing the carpet because of him. I offer to let him out before early morning and early afternoon before I go to work. There is a schedule overlap of 2 hours between mine (evening shift) and my girlfriends (morning shift) so he is never alone for very long except for the weekends when we go out at night. He refuses to go outside some days only to leave a big mess on the floor by the time my girlfriend gets home.
4) He gets into the cat litter. He eats the cat poo!! The litter box is tucked away in our storage room in the back of the house. He never likes to go into that room but lately I have caught him chewing on something near the litter box and there is litter and pieces of poo all over the ground.
5) He is the biggest mooch. This was most likely because of her little brothers and mom who gave him human food all the time. Anytime we sit down for a meal or a snack he sits as close as possible to us and stares. When we put the plate down, he tries to smell and lick it right away.
...in the beginning we thought that this was because of all of the changes so we disciplined him as necessary and didn't consider it something to worry about. But it's been 5 months now and the problems are not going away.
I feel like he doesn't know why he gets disciplined. I would hold his face an inch or so away from the mess and give him a few slaps on the nose while yelling 'no!'. Only to have him wag his tail in a playful way when I let go of him. I do this as soon as I get home and discover the misdeed.
What are we doing wrong? Or, is it the pug who needs to go to behavior classes? Would he be too old at 4 to learn anything new?
Sorry for the long post but I don't know what else to do at the moment. Thank you for taking the time to read and I would appreciate any replies and suggestions.
I have a 4 year old Pug whom we are having a lot of issues with lately.
Here is some background...
When we (my girlfriend and I) first welcomed him into our home at 3 month's old we were renting a house. We had your typical puppy issues which soon dissipated. 2 years later, we decided to both move home to save money to purchase our first home. She took the pug with her to her parents place. No real issues during this time other than the fact that the pug was absolutely spoiled by my girlfriend's mom, sister, and little brothers. Anyway, we finally bought our house early this May and moved in the same month. Also, at this time our schedules at work changed so there were a lot of changes in general for ourselves and the pug.
... and the issues...
1) He has become very territorial. He barks any time somebody is walking on the sidewalk in front of the house. Mind you, the sidewalk is much closer in this house than any of the other places he has lived in. However, he now also barks at guests when they are leaving the house. I look this behaviour up and have been told that this is a territorial issue.
2) He gets into the garbage and rips everything to pieces. He does this when nobody is at home. We could be gone for a half hour and come home to garbage all over the place.
3) The worst issue is his potty issue. He pisses and dumps in the house constantly. It seems like every week I am scrubbing the carpet because of him. I offer to let him out before early morning and early afternoon before I go to work. There is a schedule overlap of 2 hours between mine (evening shift) and my girlfriends (morning shift) so he is never alone for very long except for the weekends when we go out at night. He refuses to go outside some days only to leave a big mess on the floor by the time my girlfriend gets home.
4) He gets into the cat litter. He eats the cat poo!! The litter box is tucked away in our storage room in the back of the house. He never likes to go into that room but lately I have caught him chewing on something near the litter box and there is litter and pieces of poo all over the ground.
5) He is the biggest mooch. This was most likely because of her little brothers and mom who gave him human food all the time. Anytime we sit down for a meal or a snack he sits as close as possible to us and stares. When we put the plate down, he tries to smell and lick it right away.
...in the beginning we thought that this was because of all of the changes so we disciplined him as necessary and didn't consider it something to worry about. But it's been 5 months now and the problems are not going away.
I feel like he doesn't know why he gets disciplined. I would hold his face an inch or so away from the mess and give him a few slaps on the nose while yelling 'no!'. Only to have him wag his tail in a playful way when I let go of him. I do this as soon as I get home and discover the misdeed.
What are we doing wrong? Or, is it the pug who needs to go to behavior classes? Would he be too old at 4 to learn anything new?
Sorry for the long post but I don't know what else to do at the moment. Thank you for taking the time to read and I would appreciate any replies and suggestions.