Elderly Dogs

A bit of a different topic this week. I've recently run into a problem for the first time I thought I'd tell you about.

It's not strictly speaking a training issue, and I sincerely hope it's something you never have to deal with yourself but I decided to share the story with you all the same. If you *do* ever find yourself in the same situation it might be helpful for you to know how I'm tackling it.

Several months ago I was suddenly coming downstairs in the morning to be greeted with a big puddle on the floor. I was dismayed to think that Tufter, my young pup, had suddenly taken a big backward step in his house training. I'd been convinced that he'd got the whole toilet training thing well and truly sussed and I couldn't understand what had suddenly gone wrong.

At this stage he was probably about 3 months old and I'd had him for just over a month. It's not at all uncommon for 3 month old pups to still be learning the ropes and have frequent 'accidents', but if you remember I commented in a newsletter back in the summer about how incredibly quickly his house training had been accomplished.

I'd remarked on the incredible fact that, aged 7 weeks, his very first night after I brought him home had been completely accident free. I've never had a puppy do that before.

In my experience once a puppy 'gets' the house training idea, it never looks back. My biggest ever house training headache was with Teasel, my second dog. She seemed to have a total aversion to going to the toilet outside! I distinctly remember taking her out into the garden in my dressing gown last thing at night. I'd wait and wait and wait.....then wait some more. Some nights I'd be out there as long as an hour waiting in vain for her to go to the toilet.

Eventually, through tiredness and exhaustion, I'd give up, assuming that maybe she just didn't need to go.

I'd bring her back inside, and the very moment I'd shut the door she'd promptly do it all over the floor! It absolutely drove me to distraction. This carried on until she was getting on for about 9 months old. By this stage I was at my wits end and had pretty much come to the conclusion that she was un house-trainable.

Then for no apparent reason the penny just dropped. Literally overnight she went from a complete liability in the house to being perfectly house trained. I've no idea what caused the sudden transformation, but from the day everything 'clicked' until the day she finally breathed her last with us, she never had another accident.

And the weird thing is she seemed to go from one extreme to another. She developed an apparent iron bladder and quite frequently would go for periods as long as 18 hours without emptying it.

She wasn't shut up for that length of time - we'd go out for walks but she just didn't seem to need to empty her bladder very frequently. I have to say that in my experience she was very much the exception not the rule. Never before, nor since, have I come across a dog that a) proved such a headache to house train b) developed such an extraordinary toilet routine as she got older.

But the point I'm trying to make is this - once you get a dog to the point of being completely house trained that's it, you're there and as a rule you never look back from that point on.

Which is why I was so puzzled by Tufter's apparent regression. The penny had already dropped with him and I've never before come across a pup that takes a big backward step like that.

I decided to just give it a few more nights in the hope that it had been some sort of freak accident. But it kept happening each night. And what was really bizarre was that as soon as I let the dogs out in the morning Tufter was having a colossal wee - he looked almost fit to burst.

This should have given the game away but I was too blind to see what was right in front of my eyes.

After about a week or so I decided to put Tufter into a crate at night. Dogs hate getting their bed wet and will do their utmost to avoid it.

The first morning thereafter when I came down there was a big puddle beside the crate yet his actual bed was tinder dry. I was really flummoxed by this. How on earth had he managed to direct it out of the crate so accurately? I'd never known anything like it!

The next morning there was a puddle about four feet from his crate. It was a physical impossibility for him to have managed that. It was only at that point that reality finally dawned on me....

It wasn't Tufter at all. Like I thought all along he really *was* house trained. No, the guilty party was Bracken and had been all the time. But because she's a mature adult the thought it could have been her never even crossed my mind.

Once I'd established what was going on the first thing I decided to do was to separate them at night. For one thing I didn't want Bracken setting that example to Tufter, and for another my wife wondered if there might be some sort of phsychological reason why it was happening. Bracken had been our only dog since Ripple died in January and maybe she'd got used to having the dog room to herself and somehow objected to suddenly having to share it with a pesky puppy and this was her way of showing it.

I have to say I was rather dubious about that theory but I conceded it was possible, and besides, I was prepared to try anything.

So Tufter stayed in the dogs room at night and Bracken found herself in the kitchen instead.

The first few nights she was dry. It looked like I'd be eating my words as my wife had been right all along. But then on the 4th night it all went pear shaped. A big puddle was waiting for me on the kitchen floor in the morning.

And so it continued, night after night.

So the next step was to take Bracken for a check up at the vets. It was possible she had some sort of physical condition that was causing it. They carried out all sorts of tests on her checking liver and kidney function and this and that, but all to no avail.

She got a clean bill of health!

Either she was just getting lazy or she'd become incontinent in her old age. Now I should add that she's not *that* old - she just turned 9 a couple of weeks ago. My gut feeling was that it was the latter. Ever since I'd (belatedly!) woken up to the fact that she, not Tufter, was the problem, I'd been paying a lot more attention to her.

And I'd noticed she was going to the toilet *far* more frequently than ever before. And she was often getting very fidgety indoors and would want to be let out. She'd rush to have a wee then want to come straight back in again. I became convinced that she was just no longer capable of controlling her bladder the way she used to.

I have to say I do have a certain amount of sympathy for her. In common with a lot of men I've begun to develop prostate problems. I can no longer last the whole night without having to take a trip to the toilet and I also find myself having to go far more frequently during the day than ever before. If what she's developed is anything like what I've got then I can completely understand why she just *has* to take a leak in the night.

Unfortunately for Bracken, however, my wife and I decided we couldn't let things continue the way they were. Bracken was doing her wees in one of two chosen spots (and some nights in both of them, I'm afraid), both of which were adjacent to the wooden bases of the kitchen units.

The bases are made of chipboard with a veneer finish. The chipboard was acting like a sponge and soaking up the urine. And because it was so wet, the veneer was beginning to peel away.

It's at times like this that I suppose your true 'dog-friendliness' shows through. Maybe you're very stoic about things like this and would just grin and bear it. I'm afraid I'm not prepared to. I can't afford to put in new kitchen units and I certainly wouldn't dream of doing so if they were only going to get the same treatment.

And my time is precious. Spending up to half an hour each morning cleaning up one or two puddles as well as trying my best to dry out the chipboard comes to maybe 3 or 4 hours a week that I could be spending far more productively. And I have to say it was also taking away a great deal of the pleasure of dog ownership. And as she's only just reached her ninth birthday this could quite conceivably be going on for another 3, 4, 5 or even 6 years!

I should add that I don't have the slightest problem with having to clear up after a young puppy. That goes with the territory. But this problem with Bracken was a completely different kettle of fish as far as I was concerned.

So the only alternative I could think of which might work was for me to make a bed for her in the garage. By leaving the door open she could take herself in and out to go to the toilet as she needed. Hopefully that would be a workable compromise.

I knew Bracken would hate the idea. She loves her creature comforts and has never been kennelled in her life. When we light the fire in winter she gets as close to it as she can, even though the heat it throws out can be intense. And she really doesn't enjoy the rain; on the homeward leg of any rainy walks she's always racing ahead, keen to get back to the warmth of her bed as soon as possible!!

But there really wasn't any other option my wife and I could see that we both felt happy with.

So a couple of weeks ago I set to work. I ended up making her what in effect is an insulated box. I started with a pallet laid on the floor as the base, completely covered by a solid piece of board. It's important the base is raised off the ground slightly, especially on a concrete floor like our garage.

I put the base in a back corner of the garage. Then, using a second pallet turned on its side parallel to the back wall of the garage I made the 3rd side of the box. This pallet was 12" longer than the first, and also had a completely solid base. So the effect of standing it on its side was to create a solid wall that projected far enough beyond the edge of the bed to give shelter should the wind blow directly into the garage.

Then I made the 4th side. I cut a piece of board the same height as the pallet on its side and the same width as the base pallet. This gave me a solid piece that would completely enclose the box. I then cut a 'U' shaped entrance into it about 14" wide with the bottom of the 'U' about 4" above the base of the box to make sure her bedding would stay in. By fixing battens to the back and side walls of the garage I was then able to fix both of the 2 wooden 'walls' to the blockwork of the garage.

To make sure it was absolutely rigid I then screwed the entrance section to the long pallet on its side, and I also put half a dozen screws through the bottom of the pallet on its side and into the edge of the base pallet in order to hold it firm along the bottom.

Next I set to work making it as cosy as I could. I cut up some old carpet and tacked a piece onto the inside of the pallet on its side. And I also laid a piece on the base of the box. Then, using some polystyrene sheets I had lying about, I cut them to the external dimensions of the pallet on its side and fixed them to it. So it now had about 2" of insulation on the outside as well as the carpet on the inside.

Then I boarded over the top to give it a roof. I then insulated that using old curtains and more bits of leftover carpet and underlay. I probably ended up with a thickness of 2 - 3". I then added even further to the roof insulation by utilising the space to store various boxes on top.

The finishing touch was a deep layer of straw inside the box, with the rest of the bale up tight against the polystyrene on the external wooden side so as to give even more insulation.

So she's ended up with a superbly insulated box that even has a projecting baffle to shelter the entrance hole. And I'm pleased that I managed to build the whole thing out of scrap and old materials I had lying around, and I haven't really ended up losing any storage space as the roof of the box acts like a big shelf.

She's been out there for about 10 days now. And I have to say she's not particularly impressed. She wakes early and comes and whines outside the back door. But our kitchen units have been spared, as has our mop. And more importantly she can go to the toilet as soon as she feels any discomfort.

I truly believe she's got an extremely snug bed now. Even in the bitterest winter weather once she gets inside it her own body heat will soon warm it up, and the high level of insulation I provided will ensure she stays warm.

She's still indoors during the daytime and evening. But last thing at night I'm afraid I turn her out and lock the door. For the first few nights I took her out there and got her comfortably bedded down, but now I know for certain that she's well aware what the score is, I just leave her to her own devices; she's a big girl and doesn't need me holding her hand!

But I do so in the belief that I've done the best for her I possibly can.

I hope you never have to deal with a problem like this. But if you do, I hope the solution I've described might help you come up with an idea of how to resolve it without too much trauma.

Recommended reading "Dog Training Blueprint To Success".

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