Going to the washroom where he shouldn't

[jennifer]

Mickey goes to the washroom on his pee pads about 70% of the time. Even if we have a clean pad out for him he seems to like to go pee in the same room all the time on the carpet. We try to keep the door closed as much as possible. We've bought natures miracle to clean the carpets to breakdown the bacteria that causes the smell but he keeps going back, now that rooms stinks horribly, think I'm going to half to replace the carpet.

Any suggestions to stop him from doing this?

[Romans Mom]

HI Jennifer, My first suggestion, I would not allow Mickey to go in that room for a while while you retrain him. During this time, shampoo the carpet. There are products that will help this. If that's not really possible at this time, you can put a potty pad there for him. If he's going to go there, he may as well have a pad there to protect the carpet from further damage. Roman did this too because he didn't seem to want to take the walk way out to his spot we chose for him to his regular spot to go, so I brought the pad to him and it works perfectly. No more accidents! :clap: Then you can always move that pad gradually towards the place he's supposed to go. This is common with Chihuahuas due to their size. For example, when they go potty behind the sofa, they really think they are going far away from everybody.

The hard part, but not impossible, is now Mickey has a bad habit to break, so you will have to start over with potty training him. It can be done, but it will take a little longer since you first have to break the bad habit. If you crate trained Mickey, it will be good to do it again if his leg allows him to be in his crate. If not, timed confinement to the kitchen or another spot will work. Then you can use the crate training method guidelines if it suits his recovering knee. And with his recent surgery, just walking across a room may be discomfort for the little guy. He must have had too much freedom of roaming for now until he gets it under control.

Here's the link to the the crate training thread posted in Training forum that goes into it in more depth of some training methods:

http://www.clubchihuahua.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4

It will be work, but Mickey is smart and will catch on. Chihuahuas can't wait to please us! :wub: Let us know how he's doing and if you have any questions about this. :D