6 month old Frenchie with some bad habits :/ Discussions

Discussion in 'French Bulldog' started by cesarina, Mar 15, 2018.

  1. cesarina

    cesarina New Member

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    6 month old Frenchie with some bad habits :/

    Hi all,

    We have a male Frenchie who just recently turned 6 months old. We've had him since he was 9 weeks old and had been teaching him basic commands and tricks. He is a quick learner as he is very, very food-motivated. We live in a high rise apartment and have set up a fixed pen as his room by our balcony and installed a dog door for him to go out to the patio to potty on the astro turf. We'd think he's definitely living very comfortably as a puppy. However, here are some behaviors we are having trouble with:

    1. He knows to go outside to potty most of the time but sometimes when we wake up in the morning or coming home from work, we'd find that he's peed on his bed. He had some separation anxiety issues before (where he pooped all over the hardwood floor after we left the apartment, the problem was now addressed and eliminated with multiple puzzle toys) and I don't know if this is the same thing. When we are in the living room with him he definitely knows to run outside to pee. I'm wondering if when he wets his bed in the middle of the night is out of laziness, disorientation, anxiety, or just for the sake of being bad. Shouldn't dogs naturally want to keep their sleeping areas cleans? He's been smelling like urine because of this issue :(

    2. He's always had problem with coprophagia. We tried Copraban, probiotics, etc and none of those worked. It's gotten so bad that he even tries to eat his own poop before it's touched the ground lol. We try to run to him to clean up as soon as he goes and now that he's learned the pattern, he tries to hold in his poop for as long as he can until we are out of sight---so that he can enjoy eating the poo without worries. We've been pretending to leave the apartment or to go to our room and secretly spying on him, watching him looking around to make sure we are really gone (he sticks his head out to peek everywhere), starting to potty, and that's when we pop out to surprise-clean his poop. He is not very happy with what we are doing and has been holding it in for longer and longer, and has been even more sneaky about it. He knows the game all too well now. The past couple of days he really outsmarted us by using our brief 30 seconds bathroom break (from a hour-long spying activity) to quickly defecate and inhale the feces. Yikes! Should we try harder to stop him, or just let him be? (Are we just too judgey as humans? Are we missing out? lol)

    3. He seems to stop paying attention to our commands lately; or just simply ignores them. It takes multiple calls for the same commands for the action to happen or to eventually get his attention. We heard about teenage flakiness and fear periods of a dog. Could that be what it is?

    We are first time dog owners and we're not sure what behaviors are normal/acceptable and what not. If anyone has similar experiences or suggestions please share! Anything helps, thank you!
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2018
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  3. GsdSlave

    GsdSlave Member

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    When you are at work how long is he left alone.
    Does he go out for regular walks every day?
  4. cesarina

    cesarina New Member

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    hi, we leave him alone for 5-7 hours daily and he has access to the patio to potty and run around and enough room to stretch and play with his toys in his pen. We either walk him or play fetch with him for a while before we leave in the morning and after dinner to make sure he has enough exercise and to encourage him to potty. For a while it worked and he had regular potty schedule until he started to hold it in :/
  5. GsdSlave

    GsdSlave Member

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    Pork1epe1 likes this.
    QUOTE) The past couple of days he really outsmarted us by using our brief 30 seconds bathroom break (from a hour-long spying activity) to quickly defecate and inhale the feces.
    Rather than spying on him it would have been more productive to take him out for a good walk.

    5-7 hours daily is far too long for a puppy to be left on his own every day, can you come home at lunchtime to walk him or get someone else to take him out for a walk in-between times?
    Dogs like routine and you really need to go back to basics taking him out at regular intervals.

    Time varies but you need to walk him about an hour after he has eaten and stay out until he has done a poo, I would keep him onlead until he has done it that way you can remove him and pick it up before he eats it.

    The longer the habit continues the harder it will be to break.

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