DOG QUESTION: I have two, two
year old large sized neutered male dogs. Because their
urine was killing so many spots of grass in our backyard, I
installed a 6 foot wide X 30 foot long wire run for them to
use as a bathroom area. Once they have done their
business, I let them out into the rest of the yard to play
and enjoy themselves. After a month, I started not only
picking up their droppings to keep this wire run clean
(which I had always been doing) but also taking the hose and
washing the ground down, to keep it clean. So I know it is
clean but then they started to refuse to go to the bathroom
in it, holding it in forever until I let them out into the
rest of the backyard. Why are they doing this to me? Both
dogs were neutered at six weeks of age by the breeder if
that makes any difference. The grass also all died so it is
just dirt now.
ANSWER: We may not realize it and
think dogs will go to the bathroom anywhere, anytime, but
that is wrong. What happened here was simple. By hosing
the run down, you were not so much cleaning it as washing
their urine scent all over every square inch of it. So now
they cannot pick a spot they think is perfect for them
because the entire run smells the same. Every square inch
of it. Worse, you mingled two INDIVIDUAL dog scents from
their urine into one which neither dog recognizes anymore.
For all they know, that run is now the territory of another
male dog because of their scent being combined by the water
into a strangers scent.
Being neutered at that young of age also tells me that
they may never have developed an intact male dogs desire to
place his scent over top of other male dogs.
Go back to just cleaning up their
droppings, but stop hosing the run down. It may take up to
a month, but they will resume thinking of the run as their
own potty area and finding the perfect spot to go on.
When hosing down kennel runs with cement floors, the cement
does not seem to hold the mixed scent the same as dirt
does. Also most breeders use a disinfectant on the cement
floors of their kennels which removes a lot of the smell.
Sadly most kenneled dogs have no choice but to go right
there in their kennel runs, no luck of holding it long
enough to ever get out and do it elsewhere.
