I have a 5mo old shih tzu who so far has been an absolute gem to potty train for the most part. We were to the point where we were going a few weeks without accidents, and when there was one it was definitely a moment where we failed him.
However, the last two weeks he has started to go potty on our rug and our other dog’s bed again like he did when he first came home at 9 weeks. He knows he’s supposed to go outside and he used to go to our back door and sit and cry or paw at the door and let us know he needed to go and we praised him for that and he was doing great. Now that he’s been regressing he doesn’t let us know he needs to go before he has an accident. A few times he has done it when he had been taken outside like 30 mins beforehand and he went then. He just walks on over to our rug and squats with no concern for the fact he’s been just about potty trained for the last two or so months before this started.
His eating habits haven’t changed, he is acting normal, there are two things that have changed: 1 being it’s started to get cold outside, he was born in May, and we live in Arkansas so the lows are starting to get into the 30’s and he is experiencing cold for the first time.. he doesn’t seem to totally hate it, but he doesn’t go out and run and play in the yard when it’s cold out. He’s not a big fan of being dressed up so I haven’t bothered to buy him a sweater or anything as I assume he will hate it. 2 I started taking him to daycare once a week to meet other dogs and make some friends as he was only being socialized with extra large dogs (his brother is 100+lbs) and I wanted him to have some smaller friends that were closer to his size and also just provide him some change of scenery. He seems to really like the daycare and he comes home super tired and sleeps like a champ afterwards. I toured the facility and they have strict cleaning protocols and they take the dogs outside often. But I’m wondering if maybe the daycare is causing him to regress? Maybe he just potties wherever when he is there and the workers just clean up as the dogs relieve themselves and that causes him to not care where he goes at home? If this is the case, I guess he just no longer goes to daycare, which I feel bad having to crate him when I’m working.
He gets fixed next month when he turns 6 months old, I’ve been told that could possibly help with it, but I’m wanting to know what other people have experience with and what I’m supposed to do. He was a really easy baby when he was younger, I was so afraid I would get puppy blues, and now that he’s regressing when he knows he’s supposed to go outside it makes me sad and frustrated!! I’m trying to be as positive as possible and I’ve been very successful so far training him without getting mad at him or yelling at him as I know that’s not helpful to him, but my patience is thinner now that he’s 5 months than it was when he was 10 weeks old and genuinely didn’t know any better! Anyone with similar stories or advice?
submitted by /u/Decent_Shelter_13
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