We’ve been having a rather rough time of it with Chester lately. We had the return of diarrhea & frequent poops, which required me getting up at all hours of the night to take him out, and both of us losing a lot of sleep.
Then he decided that he liked using me as his personal ferry service, and began requesting to go outside — when it seemed clear he didn’t really need to go. If I bring him out and put him by the back door and he frantically jumps up, I know he needs to go out.
On the other hand, if he starts running around the house (as he did one morning at 1 am), I know he just wants attention. I decided he could sleep in his crate for a few nights after that, which he did with no incident.
When he got bed priveleges again, and started to paw at me in the wee hours, I decided to put him in his crate. Which was fine for a couple of nights. Yesterday, however, he was restless and pawing at me, so I put him in his crate. Unfortunately, when I came to get him — early, even, as my husband had left early that morning on a business trip and our daycare person was coming down early to pick them up — I found him whimpering. It turned out he’d pee’d in his crate. And when I took him out, he pee’d again.
Yet I had a sense that he doesn’t have an infection. While he does pee a lot, he doesn’t strain and he can go through most of the night. I’m not really sure what the problem is. I felt badly, obviously, as he really needed to go this time — but how am I supposed to tell?
Last night, when they came home from daycare, she said Lola had pee’d before they left. I took them out at 8:30 pm, and they both pee’d, after which we went to bed. This was the first time it was just me, with Chester uncrated while I did my nightly chores. He mostly just followed me around the house.
Around 11 pm, I heard Lola circling in her crate. Very unusual. Chester seemed restless, too, so I took them out (I thought it was much later in the night when I first heard them). I was very surprised when they both pee’d again.
Then early in the morning, Chester began to get restless again. He sat up several times, and was licking my arm. Turned out it was 5 am, about the time I normally get up (but until the last week, he’s never needed to go out then outside of when he was a little puppy). Since I had to get up anyway, I took him out.
Only this time, for the very first time at night, I just let him go out on his own. It was quite a bit cooler last night. He did, indeed, run right out, do his business, and come right back. What a good boy! I found out later that he’d pooped. I really don’t know what’s going on with this dog.
I really am a big fan of being there when they go potty, especially when you’re housetraining them. How are you going to know if they’re having problems if you don’t see what they’re doing? And if they’re not housetrained, and you’re not there to praise them, it’s only going to take them longer to get housetrained.
Chester is housetrained, though, outside of this recent spat of needing to go out at all hours of the night. I was tired, and it was cold, so I decided he could go out on his own. I was happy that he proved me right.
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