Mike’s Doghouse

This has been covered in several posts (house training) so I won’t give much background other than links throughout this post. ‘Kay?

On Saturday, Mike had to stay in his crate about 9 hrs because I was gone and Lorna had to work. Lorna took out the divider panel from the big crate so he had more room. She also gave him plenty of chew toys. When she got home, he ran straight outside, played for just a few seconds, the proceeded to pee a river.

AND Mike hiked his leg to do it! My boy is growing up so fast! sniff

There was no pee in the crate and no pee artwork on the way out the door. This is a HUGE advancement for Mike. He’s been on the urge incontinence med for a while now and sometimes we think there is improvement, and other times we don’t see any difference. His artwork has decreased, yes, but only when he has no access to water. Jo and I were at the vet’s last week for her yearly checkup and Dr. Knepshield and I briefly discussed Mike’s bladder problems. She feels that if he is still growing, still healthy, then keeping his water amount limited obviously isn’t harming him any. If keeping his water limited is what it takes to help him get over this, then it will be fine to keep doing it.

We’ve also started letting him out the back door vs taking him out front on the leash. He seems to like this more and always does his business while out there. As soon as he does both, I let him play a bit then we all come back in. His desire to eat stuff (sticks, walnut hulls, wet bark from the maple tree, etc) means he can’t be out unsupervised. I have noticed, though, that the more we are letting him out, the less he seems to be eating. We still have to watch him closely though. The dog ramp will be fixed soon which will make it easier to get him out there more often. I don’t want him just let out without being watched as I want him to be reinforced for doing his business.