Shih Tzu Housetraining

Shih Tzu Information Center

Your Subtitle text

Top 8 Shih Tzu Dog Behavior Issues (cont'd)

Elimination Issues: Owners spend a lot of time and effort training their dog to go outside for their needs and it can be quite upsetting if your Shih Tzu keeps having accidents in the house. As with just about every topic or aspect of dog behavior, the behavior of improperly using the house as a bathroom can be fixed.

This can happen for several reasons:

A medical issue in which the dog cannot control their bladder or bowels
An older dog who develops medical issues in which they are unable to control their needs
Dogs not taken outside enough
Puppies left home alone too long
Urination caused by excitement

If your normally housebroken dog suddenly begins to make bowel movements or urinates inside your home more than several times in a month, it is time to bring your Shih Tzu to the veterinarian. Once a dog is trained to be housebroken, they will go outside without complaint; therefore a dog must have a through medical examination by their vet to check for health problems that would cause this to occur. Common reasons could be a bladder infection or bladder stones. Both must be treated by an experienced veterinarian.

Elderly dogs will lose their ability to hold their needs; this is quite common. Once a dog reaches a certain age, they cannot be expected to perform as they did when they were younger; most owners simply use dog diapers. This is an acceptable method to keep the home clean and not cause stress to an aging canine.

Medical issues and aging aside, the most frequent reason that a dog will make a puddle in the house is because they are not taken outside enough. In conjunction with this is when a puppy or even an adult dog is left home alone for too long. A dog can only hold themselves for so long!

The general rule is that a puppy can hold their needs for the hours that equal their age. For example, a 3 month old Shih Tzu can hold its needs for 3 hours and so forth. Once your Shih Tzu is 1 year old, they should be able to wait for 8 hours. If you will be gone for longer than that, it is best to have a friend, neighbor or family member bring your dog out for a walk.

Excitement can cause a dog to urinate and this most often occurs when the dog's owner finally comes home after a long day away. Even the best trained dogs will urine if they become too excited. Training your dog can fix this. Desensitizing must be done in this case. Just hearing the jiggle of the door knob can set a dog out of control. An owner must take some time to stand outside the door and move the handle for a moment and then enter. Upon walking into the home, they should calmly say hello and continue into another room. After several minutes, then attention should be paid to the dog. This should be done with all aspects: the car pulling into the driveway, the car door closing, etc. Repeating this over and over will train the dog that hearing these noises is not cause to lose control.

More Information - When caring for a Tzu, it is very important to have detailed information on: Training, Behavior, Health, Grooming, Heat, Pregnancy and More. To see where we have compiled all of this needed information, click here.

Previous Page 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8