Can We Housetrain An 8 Year Old Dog?

This is a question I was asked recently and of course, I said, absolutely. This dog had literally been peeing and pooping in the house all its life. The elderly lady that owned it simply never took the time to housetrain her dog.

She felt that this breed was difficult to housebreak so why bother. However it turns out that she said that about every dog she ever owned. Now she is in hospice care and her daughter has agreed to take the dog if we could get it housetrained.

It seemed pretty straightforward and yes we have housetrained dogs this old before however there is now a twist in the problem. We always use a crate and I also like to get the dog out of the house and on the grass as much as possible so that the grass becomes the preference of where it does its business.

But guess what? This dog has recently been diagnosed as being allergic to grass. Well we were not going to quit just because of that. We actually helped the client create a potty area using a small hard plastic kid's swimming pool. Inside the pool we installed some artificial turf that you can get at any of the big box building material stores.

Then we bought a puppy exercise pen and stuck the potty pool inside. Now we have an enclosure that she can put her dog in until it does its business.

But wait we are not finished, there is still more.

We want the dog to be in one of three places for the next 4 - 6 weeks to create the new house training habit. The dog MUST be in one of these places at all times:

1. The crate

2. The potty pool area

3. Attached to the dog owner with a leash so that it cannot wander off and do it business in the house.

After 5 ½ weeks of training, she started allowing the dog to have some freedom in the house. She also followed my directions and removed the puppy x pen from around the pool so that the dog had access to it without having to be placed in the pool.

SUCCESS!!! Yes, this 8-year-old dog is now house trained and living a happy life with the new owner instead of being sent away to a shelter.

If your older dog needs potty training take the time to do it. It's never too late.

Source:http://ezinearticles.com/?Can-We-Housetrain-An-8-Year-Old-Dog?&id=9021148