Living in hope of house training

After we returned from Mum and Dads I was full of hope with the house training problems we'd been having with Henry.

Other Half clearly didn't beleive that there had been no accidents having caught me out on several occasions when I'd tried to pretend that Henry had been doing better than he had.

On our return though Henry got back into his usual routine. Waking before us, wandering around and weeing somewhere downstairs. So I got back into my own routine of waking before Henry, getting him up and putting him outside so early that he probably did it all in his sleep, I know I was barely awake. For a few days it seemed that no matter what time I got up Henry had woken before me and left a message for my descent downstairs. It was truly doing my head in, I'd now started to wake at 4.30 am to pre-empt Henry's bladder and it was taking it's toll on my sanity.

In desperation I spoke to the loveley ladies at Greyhounds Galore. Just talking to someone made me feel better, Other Half was getting less and less patient with Henry and I could see his point but on one or two occasions it was mentioned that the dog had to go if he didn't make a significant improvement. This caused rather a large argument every time which probably didn't help the situation as a whole.

The lovely lady at Greyhounds Galore gave me some good hints and tips and was just generally so nice that I felt re-charged and ready to resume the battle of the bladder once again.

So it was back to the big routine. I'd not stopped the routine but I confess I had slipped. I think it was really more down to being worn out and exhausted. I was waking at 4.30am, sometimes going back to bed and sometimes doing some work. I was then waking to let Henry out at 6.00 am and again at 7.30 and again at 8.30am and despite all that Henry was still weeing in the house. I also couldnt go to bed until at the earliest 10.30 pm as if I went too early Henry would pee within an hour of my sleeping. I was truly exhausted, grumpy and at the end of my tether, over the last four years I'd cared for two ageing dogs one after the other who had me up during the night and really stressed me just by being old and frail and after thinking it was all over I was finding it to be even harder with this new dog. I dont think being tired was helping.

Somehow after my talk I felt a bit energised and decdided to take a harder line. I would get up at 6.00am and no earlier, and stick to the routine that I'd earlier devised. I realised that Henry had manipulated me into doing what he wanted and it had to stop before I lost the plot.

I also invested a huge amount of money on anti pee spray and mega impressive anti pee smell spray. Both worked, for two days.

However, I started taking the dogs on longer and longer walks with our neighbour. Both of us had managed to slow down and put on weight and generally get unfit so we stepped up our daily walk to 8 miles a day. Henry and Molly of course took it in their strides but they also became much calmer around the house. I noticed an almost immediate change in Henry and he became allot better with the house training, maybe we had turned a corner.....

A few months after this I am writing this having spent the last three and a half weeks with absolutely no accidents whatsoever. Hopefully we are finally there and Henry has finally got the idea that weeing in the house is not good. Other Half seems to have come around to him after a long period of dislike due to the peeing and life seems to be going fine - long may it continue, especially as the Vax machine is broken, probably due to overuse.