Greetings to all. *this is very long* I am new here and have been looking for others with similar issues with their Dalmatian or puppy in general. We have been cat owners for over 30 years and have been total empty nesters for over a year since our last cat passed. We said we’d not get another pet. But’’’’ We were graced with getting Perdy in our life about 5 months ago. She was a rescue, dropped off with her 3 sisters at a dog rescue adoption event. The rescue group held her for two weeks then let us “foster” her for a few days. She was very loving and playful, inquisitive to everyone and everything during that time. Both her parents are papered Dalmatians so she is pure bloodline. We took her back to the rescue people because we had to before we could adopt her. She was three months old when they took her in to be spayed, which is the states adoption requirement. A week later we were able to adopt her and bring her home. (Early February) She played similar to before however we noticed she was much more standoffish to me (dad) and other men. But she would still play with me. Fast forward to June, she has now become extremely scared of me. When she first wakes up in the morning she will be affectionate and playful with me for about 20 minutes, then a switch is flipped and she becomes scared, tail between legs and peeing. Thought the day she will be “ok” to be near me, but usually will drop her ears and tail between legs and avoid me. I have never hit her or thrown anything at her. I have 3 time picked her up by the scruff of her neck and taken her outside after she “blatantly “ pee’d in the house in front of us. During house training she had many accidents that she was not disciplined for but was corrected. We have read that the hormones can be severally messed up if spayed too early, and I think this may be part of it. But I feel there may be more here. We have been going to a professional trainer and she usually behaves great while there, even with me. But I am still noticing more withdrawal from me. Now mom on the other hand is the world to her. She will not leave her side. If mom gets up, she gets up, etc… and usually she looking back at me with a where is he look. She will not go outside now unless mom is with her. But with all of this, I am the only one she will be active with outside. Go for walks (both structured and play/sniffing), play chase. I do 90% of her actual training. I know I’ve got to be doing something wrong. I am trying to “ignore her” most of the time as the trainer has told me to do. But I wanted to see if anyone else has ever had an issue like this? She’s now 9 months old. The photos are the day she was dropped off, and a more recent one. She is a beautiful little girl.
OK. First off, if you haven't had her checked out by a vet, do so. Make sure she doesn't have any health issue going on. With that confirmed, no puppy "blatantly" pees in the house. They simply don't understand the rules or can't hold it. NEVER correct a puppy/dog for peeing. NEVER grab a puppy/dog by the scruff to get your point across. She was a puppy. Her bladder was small. She didn't know she had to pee until she WAS peeing. You punished her for it. Yes, "correcting" IS discipline and punishment. You didn't make the rules clear OR you weren't taking her out often enough for her needs OR you didn't make sure she was going pee outside before bringing her back in. That's YOUR mistake. She just did what is natural to a puppy - she peed when she had to pee. At 9 months old, she is still young and she can still have mistakes. If she pees inside, just clean it up and take a step back in your potty training. Put her on a schedule - every hour she goes outside to pee. After every playtime, she goes out to pee. After every meal, she goes out to pee. When she first gets up, she goes out to pee. Right before bed, she goes out to pee. And each time, watch her to be sure she goes pee. If she doesn't, bring her back inside and take her out again in 5 minutes or as soon as she acts like she's about to pee. No raised voice, no scruffing, no dragging, no correction. If she pees inside, just clean it up. Don't tell her she was bad or get upset. Once she isn't having any accidents, you can extend the time between potty breaks to 2 hours. If there is an accident, go back to every hour. If there are still no accidents, you can extend the time again. Make peeing outside the priority. No playtime with you until she pees. No getting mad at her if she doesn't pee - just a cheerful reminder "go pee". There will be times she won't pee. She'll get caught up in a smell, etc and will forget to go. It is YOUR job to positively remind her. My Tornado-dog forgot to pee many times over his first 3 years. I just kept saying in a cheerful voice "go pee" every time he went pee and every time we went outside. At some point, he connected the words to the action. Now, at 3-1/2 years, I can just let him out on his own. When he comes to the door, I say "did you go pee?" Sometimes, he runs off and pees and comes back - because he was so busy trying to find the resident vole that he forgot. (P.S. you can do the same thing with "go poop" and they will connect those words too). Note: her first winter, with cold weather, she may relapse in her potty training. This is normal. Just be positive and take a step back in the training and go out with her to be sure she goes potty (don't assume she did because she has for several months). Dalmations are very sensitive to negative feedback. They don't like it. They don't respond well to it. She is now confused by you and scared. It has nothing to do with being spayed. It has to do with your behavior towards her. She doesn't trust you. Sometimes you are nice and other times you grab her by the scruff, etc, and scare her. So, you need to change your approach. No more corrections - period. You need to teach her that you are trustworthy. And that means POSITIVE training techniques only. No corrections. Use redirection and praise. If she does something wrong, redirect her to the behavior you want and then praise her when she redirects. If you are playing with her and you know she is going to become scared after 20 minutes, then stop playing before that switch happens. Play with her for 5 minutes and then praise her and then do something else. Make every interaction a positive one. Get down on the ground with her. Use a toy or treats to encourage her to come to you. Don't force her to do anything if she comes, just let her get to know you again in a positive manner. Don't raise your voice at her. Learn dog body language. www.dogdecoder.com has a great app that can help you learn. Watch her for these signs. If she displays any negative body language, change up what you are doing. If she is fearful, don't force her to interact. Talk to her. There was a great video of a Best Friends dog trainer who sat outside a very abused and scared dog's kennel and read to the dog. Every day, he sat outside and read. Over time, the dog stopped cringing in fear at his approach. He started stepping just inside the kennel, sitting and reading. He never forced the dog to interact, he just showed the dog that he was trustworthy. That the dog could decide if and when to approach him. Tell her what you are doing. Ask her questions. Say things like "I'm going to get a drink" or "should I go do the laundry?" Let her get used to you in a nondirect manner. Let her hear your voice in conversational tones not just when you are commanding her. If you are going to approach her, tell her why. "Let's put your leash on so we can go for a walk", etc. And, again, get down on her level. Don't lean over her - that is very intimidating even if you don't mean to be. Don't corner her. Don't force her. You mentioned a professional trainer. Make sure they use only positive based training methods. No corrections. Correcting a fearful dog can create a dangerous dog. If she signals that she is afraid, and is then forced to perform, she will stop signalling - she will just react. And that will likely be a bite. She is a beautiful girl. Give her love and understanding - that will never create a problem.
A good response from @Toedtoes . This is how I approach housetraining too. The only difference is that I go OTT with the praise and treat-reward when I get the wee or poop. The anticipation of a reward does make them 'go' a bit quicker, but has the downside that they think every loo-break needs to be witnessed. In my experience the girls do take longer than the boys to become completely reliable. My rescue boy had been in several kennel type situations before ending up in rescue. He was quite sensitive for a Beagle, and only really had eyes for his food and the blanket that he came with. He couldn't bear eye contact, especially when he had done something wrong - even though he was not actually being punished. These sensitive souls are best treated calmly and almost casually. Don't repeatedly ask for contact, but respond quietly when she does come to you. I am a big believer in premium food rewards which you could offer, at first on an open hand, then by adding the word 'Touch', as a reward for a nose to hand touch. Remember too that she is approaching the time when she would have been having her first season. My females are not usually spayed until they are about six years but I could usually tell when their season would have been due - some of them have even been of interest to my males. Her hormone levels could well be a little out of kilter. BTW. She is lovely - very Disneyesque. I hope it isn't long before she is treating both adoptive parents the same way.
Absolutely on the OTT with praise and treats for going potty. I do that too. Every time she does it the way you want, give you all the positive reinforcement you can. I'll add that since I've had Tornado-dog, I am not as fond of ignoring the dog for behavior I didn't like. He is very people oriented and craves attention. Ignoring him is, honestly, cruel in his mind. So, if he's doing something I don't like, I don't ignore it. I redirect him to something I do like and then give him a lot of attention. So, if he's barking, I don't ignore it. I just say "where's your ball?" He stops barking, rushes to find it and bring it to me, and then we play. I get a quick stop to the unwanted behavior, he focuses on something different, and he gets rewarded for doing so. Also, with a scared dog, it is OK to comfort them. You'll hear people say that comforting a scared dog is reinforcing bad behavior. But fear is NOT a behavior, it's an emotion. And dogs have a right to their emotions just like we do. My Cat-dog is deathly afraid of other dogs. If we go somewhere and she sees one, she will start shaking in fear. How can anyone just ignore that? She's terrified! She needs to know that I am there and won't let anything happen to her. I put myself between her and the dog and I tell her I won't let that dog come near her. I pet her, I put my arm around her, I comfort her and be her support. I don't just ignore her to deal with it herself so she'll "toughen up".
When I was house training my pup I also done as toedtoes has advised to you, as soon as I got up open the door and out they go for a wee, back in for their food and as soon as they finished back out again for the dump. They now just do it automatically in the morning, if they have been in house for a few hours they will either sit at my feet and look at me to let me know they need to go or I will just say calmly who needs a wee and they get up and go out and do what they need to do. Same again before bedtime. So I say bedtime and they get up stand at the door even if they don’t go they know they have one last time before I lock up and then they get in their beds. Same routine everyday and it works.
Thank all so very very much. I do love my little girl and know I have screwed up massively with her. I will continue to work hard and slowly at restoring her trust in me. It is so difficult for me cause I sometimes just want to hold here and comfort her and me, but I know that won’t work at this point. I have slept on the floor next to her room many nights and obviously that’s not much help to her. There have been a large multitude of times that she piddled in the house and it was just cleaned up with nothing said. We do take her out quite frequently to go, however it has not been the winter that is causing the setbacks, but the heat. We live in the Arizona desert. But she loves to be outside and playing. I just never thought about her getting sidetracked. I will continue to work on myself for her. Again, thank you all. If there is more thoughts, please let me know. here’s some other pics of our pretty Perdy.
