Hello I am the proud owner of a 7 month old newly spayed, female beagle pup. She is a sweet dog, but she has some problems. The biggest problem is that she constantly poops and pees on my sister in law's bed,(my sister in law currently lives with us) specifically her comforter. It is 20 bucks to dry clean it because it is a down comforter and it is getting expensive. Three times in three weeks! Why is she doing this? She is also bad about relieving herself other places in the house, but she seems to always go on this bed. We try to keep the door shut, but if she gets a chance, she is on the bed doing her thing. The funny thing is that she knows not to go in the house, because she hides after she goes in the house and acts very guilty. I try not to discipline her if I dont catch her in the act, bt sometimes I cant help but to yell at her after the fact, because she obviously knows that she has done wrong. We don't hit her, but I do yell at her in a deep voice when she breaks a rule and I believe this is why she gets so upset when she knows she has done wrong. It breaks my heart to discipline her, but I am at my wits end with this. We let her out and take her on walks frequently, but many times she will come inside after being outside and go inside anyway. Forget it if it is raining outside because she will not go then. Is it too late to start a new housebreaking regimen, such as paper training? I believe it is, but I am willing to try anything. Please help.

you're going to have to start from scratch with housetraining. use a crate. there is a lot of information on the internet about crates for housetraining. there are books in the library, too. you'll need to have her on a schedule of crate time and supervised time out of the crate, and scheduled feeding. do you go out with her when she goes outside and give lots and lots of praise when she goes outside? can't give too much praise with this. about the comforter, the drycleaning may not get out the odor of her previous mistakes. enzymatic cleaners available at pet supply places are all that will take out the odor completely. you may need to get new bedding (comforter) for the bed, maybe even a new mattress. absolutely do not let her in the bedroom; it's a lot of effort but you'll have to watch it like a hawk. yelling, even in a low voice, can scare the dog, and she doesn't really know right from wrong, she just can pick up on your vibes right away and is scared about that. she may associate pottying with yelling, but she doesn't associate pottying with outside yet. she'll hide because she knows pottying brings yelling and punishment, but hasn't learned potty outside. discipline after the fact will only make the process take longer. she needs to be supervised at all times if free in the house; it's best to keep them confined to one area, and you with them, while housebreaking. no free run of the house. if you find a mistake, if you have to, go in another room and take deep breaths to not discipline. some dogs can take until 1 year of age to reliably be housetrained. I'm not sure if beagles have a reputation of being hard to housebreak, they may. i haven't experienced not going in the rain. have you tried being out there with an umbrella? doesn't that sound wonderful! I have a pug who does not like to go in the snow; he is paper trained, and it has not affected his knowing to go outside, but some dogs it can. good luck!

Thanks for your advice. We do have a crate for her, although we are guilty of letting her roam free unattended. We do really need to start her on a regimen and stick with it. We were real good for about the first two months we had her, but now we have become lax and I think given her too much freedom too quick. The dog we had before her was a 19 year old, (yes, 19, you read correctly. He was my wife's dog growing up) mutt who was very active up until his last two months when his hip went out. He was so low maintenance, that I think we were spoiled. So, we have talked about it and have decided to go back to the strict regimen of no unattended roaming and regular feedings. If anyone else has any thought on this, I would love to hear them though. Thanks.

If anyone wants to see the little terror check this out http://www.beagles-on-the-web.com/kennel/kennel817.html BTW that isn't underwear in her mouth, its some sort of bag.

I agree with Pearl. More supervision, less ability to roam. If you need to, literally leash him to your waist when you're in the house with a 6 foot leash so he can't get far no matter what. When both my dogs were puppies, we had to close all the doors except for the kitchen/living room area so they had very limited access. Those $10 child gates that block off stairs and hallways work wonders as well. You guys need to get back to being consistent and watching him like a hawk. I've had 2 dogs that just hated to go outside in the rain, one i still own. I am mean, I just push him outside anyway. I keep an eye on the miserable looking dog while it's outside and eventually he does his business, then I give him a towelling off and much loving. Better wet dog than wet bed or carpet.

I know this is a really, really old post, but I figured it would be a good jumping off point for my beagle problem.

We adopted 9 year old Daisy 6 months ago. She had been a surrender to the Humane Society. She's our first dog, and we weren't sure we wanted to jump right into dog ownership with a hassles of a puppy, so an older dog appealed to us. Plus the HS had (reasonably accurately) profiled her personality as mellow, which also appealed to us. Kids are in our future, and we know about Beagles reputation with kids, so that was a factor as well

She had previously been with a Senior Citizen couple who said they couldn't deal with the standard dog maintenance. On the form, it said she wasn't housebroken. We thought 'how can a 9 year old, spayed female NOT be house trained?', it must be a clerical error.

We were wrong.

The sneaky carpet peeing started first night. She knows it's wrong. On the rare occassion we catch her doing it, she panics, and flees in terror.

Vet checked for UTI and bladder infection- both negative. He said take her out frequently, especially if she's just peed on the carpet to help her associate pee and outside. When she goes outside praise and treat her, and let her get used to you for a few weeks to rule out submissive urination. Vet said the only other test she can run is a Kidney Stones test, but she said that it's expensive, and if I spend the money for the test and it's negative, I'll wish I had simply bought lots of doggie diapers.

Absolutely no change. In fact, I think we might have even reinforced that if she pees on the carpet she gets rewarded with outside time.

Vet suggested going out even MORE frequently, hourly even. That works better (but not perfectly) just by virtue of her bladder always being empty. Plus, hourly is simply not practical.

We've been trying to stretch it to every 2 - 3 hours, with no success. Sometimes she'll pee on the carpet just 10 minutes after coming in from a walk where she's just peed on every mailbox on the block.

Plus, 2-3 hours is not too long. She can definitely hold it. She has no problem with the crate, and we've crated her for up to 6 hours at a time with no accidents. We lock her in the bedroom with us for up to 9 hours every night. She sleeps on the bed with us has not once had a single accident. It's just something about the carpet that she loses all control. We want to replace the carpet, but fear that she'll just do it on the new carpet as well.

There's no pattern to it. Some days it's 3 or 4 accidents a day, sometimes she'll go 4 or 5 days. Sometimes it's supersneaky, sometimes it's almost brazen. Totally inexplicable and random.

We tried the whole "leash her to your belt so can watch her at all times" method. It kinda works, but it's not foolproof. Unless you're literally making eye contact with her, she'll wait patiently for an opportune moment and discreetly pee. Get distracted for 5 seconds and you'll find a spot. It's almost comical: Look at the dog. Open the Fridge. Close the Fridge. No dog. Fresh spot where the dog used to be.

Strangers and house guests definitely make the situation worse. When there are people in the house, that's when there's poop accidents and pee away from her favorite spots. I know the deal about favorite spots. I've pet-stain-enzyme-formula-deep-steam cleaned the carpet in this house more in 6 months than most people do in 6 decades.

We're thinking about spending the big bucks for a pro trainer. We got a consultation from a vet-recommended trainer with a "success guarantee" and even she was kind of reluctant to engage us once we told her the situation. She thinks we might have a behavior so deeply ingrained that by the time we get this problem licked, we'll be at the end of the lifespan. Ouch.

We've all definitely bonded, but we're at our wits end. Can anyone help us?

I rescued a 2 year old female beagle that was not housebroken. We did have problems with her initially but we seemed to have worked most of them out with her over a period spanning about 9 months.

What made the difference for my dog I think was the positive reinforcement I was able to give her when she successfully went outside. Being there at the right place at the right time is key to making this work.

First off, she needs to have access to a door that she can use to get outside 24/7. If you do intend to confine her to a place she cannot escape, you need to be extremely attentive to her behavior that might indicate she needs to go out.

The typical scenario went like this... Dog got up before us and had to go. She would go in the upstairs hallway mostly out of laziness and because she didn't know any better. The key was me knowing when she got up, knowing when she needed to go out.

I used a trick where I half-closed the bedroom door. This made it so she could nose the door open which would make enough noise to wake me up to supervise. At this point she knew I'm watching her so she thinks twice about taking the lazy path of peeing outside the door.

I made sure she would go outside through her pet door (NOT opening a door for her) and then wait for her to finish her business to deliver the praise. After figuring out her morning pee-rituals I repeated this process for many many months. No more peeing, and I started to taper off the rewards. After a while she knew enough to go all the way outside and do it on her own every morning without any praise at all, she just learned it was the right thing to do.

What you don't want to rely on is catching her after the fact. Remember, dogs live in the moment and will get very confused if you dont catch them in the act but instead drag them back to the scene of the crime. If you do manage to catch them in the act by all means correct them and give them a stay in the crate, but make sure to ask yourself if you were there, why weren't you paying enough attention to them to stop them before it happened?

Rubbing their nose while punishing them is it is also not advisable. This further confuses the dog because they actually like their own smell, and you will sometimes find your dog enjoyably rubbing themselves in their own pee-spot as a way as helping to enhance their smell as a way of boosting their social scent towards other dogs, a fundamental form of animal communication. Stick to the firm touch on back of neck, harsh tone of voice, but do not terrorize the dog.

Finally, when going on your evening walks you should definitely not expect that your dog will evacuate all of it's urine in one shot. Dogs like to make sure to spread their message around, and they'll conserve at least 3 squirts to spread around the neighborhood. So make sure your taking them out for no less than 45 minutes of exercise at least 2 times a day. It's great for you too!

Hope some of these tips help you to teach your dog. Remember, it's never to late no mater how old your dog is, so don't give up on her!

First of all Bless you for rescuing a dog that old, most dogs that age never see another home...
Lets take factors inito conderation
1) poor thing is alreay a senior canine-63 in human yrs
2) the people who had her didn't try to housebreak her
3) can you trach an old dog new tricks?

Here are a few things to try~
for sure baby gates to keep her off the carpeted area unless you are with her.

pick up her water and food dishes~ she's an inside dog this will not hurt her not having water avialbale at all times.

get her on a schdule of going potting (usually about 10 mon-1/2 hour after you give her water)

get a soda can/bottle wash it out, let it dry out and put 4-5 pennies in it~ when you catch her going in the house shake it at her take her out and on the way out give her a FIRM NO~ BAD DOG/NAME keep her outside for at least 10 minutes.

Even if you have a fenced yard teach her to accoicate her leash with potty time, when you take her out either tap the door at her nose level or put a small bell at nose level and ring it every time you take her out,the first time she taps the door or rings the bell praise her like you've just won the lottery !! do this until it becomes second nature to her~ contuine praising her, at her age it may take a while but she WILL get it, with enough TLC and paitence you'll both do fine.

Same problem. Adopted 2 yr old female spayed beagle from humane society. Have tried crate training and taking out every hour. Stays in crate at night and when I'm not home b/c she chews everything. If I lock her in the kitchen while I'm gone she will eat the walls literally. As soon as I put her in crate she pees on the blanket. Sometimes I don't put a blanket in b/c I don't have enough for this. Had her 4 months now and shes graduated to peeing on my bed. I previously have had beagles, boarder collies and labs. Never had this problem before. I don't have a fence. She is little only 16 lbs so thought I was getting a little dog. She has a great personality and is sweet. When she is in the kitchen with a gate and you are home she will howl the whole time. I can't take more than 15 minutes of that. I can't do the dog door b/c I don't have a fence. I usually take her out with a leash attached but not holding the leash. I haven't taken her to the park lately cause I'm afraid she'll pee in the car.

" I know the cause which is one dog will have a bone,"
I know this is way out there, but have you ever thought about separating your dogs when they have bones?