Hi! I have a 9 month old Bichon Frise who I absolutely adore called Bella. We brought her home at 8 weeks and started training straight away. We had puppy pads, we were taking her out in the garden on the lead, praising her when she went the toilet outside, I was waking up every hour or so to take her out for the toilet (she was really good with this and from an early age began sleeping right through the night). However, as she has gotten older her 'accidents' have become worse and it seems to be out of laziness. I admit, when we first got her she was spoilt - pretty much from day 1 she was sleeping in our room until she was big enough to sleep in our bed without the risk of being squashed, she had full roam of the house (she's been quite good in the sense of chewing hasn't been a major issue), she was allowed to sleep on the couch etc. But now she will just 'go potty' absolutely anywhere - there doesn't even seem to be any consistency of where she goes. We have bought a crate and have been crate training her for about 2 weeks now, for the last 2 nights she has slept in her crate with it locked and the last two days has started getting used to the crate being locked (this was difficult at first, she couldn't stand 30 seconds in it at one point). We thought it had started to help her with her accidents but the problem seems to have resurfaced again... So, yesterday morning I was making my bed and noticed a urine stain on our bed - we have now decided to not let her on our bed at all or in our bedroom if we are not around (she ha had accidents on our bed previously, so this was not new). Last night, I took her out for the toilet at half 8 as we were going to bed at 9 - she went the toilet and then went to bed (she had no food or water after her last toilet session), she slept in her crate until half 1 in the morning and then barked to be let out, I got up with her and took her outside to go the toilet on the lead (she can get distracted sometimes, so we have found taking her on the lead is the best option) but she refused, to the point where she was nearly choking herself trying to pull me back inside. So, I took her back inside and straight away she ran into our living room and had a wee and then ran onto our stairs and had a poo. I just don't understand? Then today, I went into the kitchen and there was a huge wee at the backdoor - but she did not bark or let me know that she needed to go. I'm honestly just at a loss... I feel like we have tried everything. We have praised her when she has gone outside, we have shouted at her when she has gone inside, we have ignored her when she has gone inside incase it is just for attention, we have taken her out on the lead so she doesn't get distracted. Is there anything else anybody can suggest or do I just need to start accepting that she may never be fully housetrained? I am aware that Bichon Frise's are nortorious for being difficult to housetrain but I never in a million years expected it to be this bad and I just want to make sure we aren't hindering her progress!! Thank you in advance to anyone who can offer any suggestions!!!!
