Now that Daisy is older, (6 months) I expect her to be able to hold it for more than an hour! At this age Gambit went out every 3 hours and never had an accident. But while Daisy knows to go to the backdoor if she has to go out, and she knows the routine of when we go for walks in the morning and the evening, she still is having lots of accidents.
I think the concern is that she is still very blase about it. Sometimes she will go to the basement, and I'll let her out. But sometimes she won't even make the effort. If we are in the bedroom or the living room, she doesn't even head for the stairs. Sometimes there isn't even any sign of sniffing or circling. She just runs around playing, pauses, pees or even POOPS and then resumes play like all is well. She doesnt' cry or whimper or act agitated. I just don't understand. I'm trying very hard to get her on a routine but after all this time it's hard to keep taking her out every 1.5 hours; it really interferes with my evening. I expected this through early puppyhood, but not into 6 months and up.
I know that her daytime situation sucks right now. My husband used to leave at 10:30 and I was usually home at 4:30. Now he has an earlier shift, and the person who drives me home after work has taken on more responsibilities which delay her taking me home on time. Now the puppies go from about 7:45 to about 5 by themselves, which for Gambit is fine but is too long to expect Daisy to hold it every day (though she sometimes does, little champ!)
I wonder if being forced to pee in her crate 2 or 3 days out of 5 is causing her to just be totally cool about just peeing in the house (and POOPING!) whenever she has to? She always acts ashamed afterwards, and she is told "NO!" and praised like crazy when she goes outside, but has she just learned that you just go where you go?
How can I break her of this? She's very smart and loves getting into trouble, and I wonder if she is just going to be super stubborn about this? I've heard bostons can be hard to housebreak, but honest to god, Gambit was NEVER like this. I can't remember the last time he had an accident since he was about 5 months old, excpet the winter last year where I couldn't shovel out the walk fast enough and he cried and pooped in the front hall cause he just had to go that badly. And even when he was a pup, he would try to go as close to the door as possible, out of shame. Daisy will just whizz wherever. Bed? yup. living room? yup. Couch? yup. She's even pooped/peed on her way down the stairs and kept going, walking through it and tracking it all down my stairs and not seeming to notice/mind.
Could something be wrong?
