Clients are often intolerant of house soiling, such as indoor urination, defecation or marking in adult dogs. Puppy owners may arbitrarily impose a deadline for house training without seeking veterinary advice and may relinquish the puppy if expectations are not satisfied. Ellen Lindell, VMD, DACVB, discusses diagnosis’ and treatments.
Source: Clinician’s Brief, February 2017.
Treatment at a glance:
- Medical condition: Identify and treat primary disease.
- Cognitive dysfunction syndrome: Supervise and provide cognitive enrichment.
- Incomplete house training: Supervise and reward appropriately.
- House-training lapse: Re-establish location or substrate preference.
- Anxiety: Identify triggers for anxiety. Remove triggers when possible. Reduce emotional response to triggers (i.e. desensitization).
- Submissive or excitement-related urination: Downplay greeting. Offer a toy instead of petting. Train dog to retrieve a toy (i.e. response substitution).
- Urine and fecal marking: Identify triggers. Assess social interactions. Supervise and humanely interrupt.