Question regarding animal urine and hardwood floors (clean, housebreak, train)
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As some of you know, my husband and I are on the search for a rescued dog. We moved into our home in November and picked up all the carpets in the living room and hallway and had them sanded and polyeurothaned (sp?) and they look absolutely beautiful.
I'm a little concerned now being the dog we get will probably not be housebroken already (at least the dog we saw and liked is not housetrained and he is 5 or 6 years old and neutered). What are the chances that our beautiful hardwood floors are going to get stained if the dog urinates on our floors? Also, we both work 8 hours out of the day and I plan on letting the dog have the run of the house (not crated). I am considering having a dog walker come in once a day as well in hopes that this will help the dog not to relieve him/herself in our home.
Also, to the dog owners, do you believe that for an older dog it is necessary to have a dog walker come in 1x per day? When my family had my last dog (years ago), our dog was able to hold it for the entire day while everyone was out at work. My sister in law's dog holds it for 12 hours! To me that's an extremely long time! The dog is a small dog too.
Any info you can provide, would be very helpful to me. Thank you.
ETA: I kind of feel if I have to housebreak an adult dog, why can't I just get a puppy b/c I would have to housebreak a puppy as well. Unless an adult catches on faster?
Is there any reason you're intent on giving the dog full reign of the house? If you're not comfortable crating (and 8 hours straight is too long for a crate--you would need a mid-day dog walker), then why not limit her access to a certain room, like the kitchen until she is house trained? With a new dog, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them full reign....think of all the trouble they can get into. It's more humane to crate or puppy proof one room than give them full reign---think electrical cords, trash cans (with sharp tin, raw chicken, onions, chocolate).
In other words-- I would strongly advise against bringing a dog home, playing with it for the weekend, then leaving it alone for 8 hours on Monday. Who knows what you'll come home to---maybe just a spilled garbage can, but maybe a dog that needs emergency surgery because it swallowed something sharp.
Research crate training--its not as simple as putting the dog in there and leaving.
As far as the length of time without going outside, every dog is different. My girl is 2 now and can hold it for about 10 hours if needed. When she was younger, it was like 4 hours. Young puppies need to relieve themselves almost every hour.
Adopting an older dog is great! Many times they're out of their chewing phase, don't need to go out as frequently, and have hopefully calmed down---all this depending on their prior living conditions.
I'm not sure of the effect of urine on hardwood--but I can tell you once they pee on the carpet, if its not cleaned immediately, that carpet and the pad are stained permanently.
Is there any reason you're intent on giving the dog full reign of the house? If you're not comfortable crating (and 8 hours straight is too long for a crate--you would need a mid-day dog walker), then why not limit her access to a certain room, like the kitchen until she is house trained? With a new dog, I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them full reign....think of all the trouble they can get into. It's more humane to crate or puppy proof one room than give them full reign---think electrical cords, trash cans (with sharp tin, raw chicken, onions, chocolate).
In other words-- I would strongly advise against bringing a dog home, playing with it for the weekend, then leaving it alone for 8 hours on Monday. Who knows what you'll come home to---maybe just a spilled garbage can, but maybe a dog that needs emergency surgery because it swallowed something sharp.
Research crate training--its not as simple as putting the dog in there and leaving.
As far as the length of time without going outside, every dog is different. My girl is 2 now and can hold it for about 10 hours if needed. When she was younger, it was like 4 hours. Young puppies need to relieve themselves almost every hour.
Adopting an older dog is great! Many times they're out of their chewing phase, don't need to go out as frequently, and have hopefully calmed down---all this depending on their prior living conditions.
I'm not sure of the effect of urine on hardwood--but I can tell you once they pee on the carpet, if its not cleaned immediately, that carpet and the pad are stained permanently.
Best of luck finding your new housemate!
I did not want to crate b/c I felt bad being the dog is in the rescue home and has his roam of the house. I know my mother crate trained our puppy when I was younger but I did not think you do that with an older dog. The thought has come to mind to gate the dog in our kitchen while we are at work. In all honesty, the dog we are looking at is a VERY lazy dog. From what I understand he sleeps most of the day. The foster parent even laughs about it. I do understand what you are saying about not giving the dog the full run of the house. When I questioned someone about gating my kitchen they said that they had seen dogs chew cabinets and they questioned as to why I would do something like that. I guess that's why I had thrown out the kitchen idea in full. But now that may be something I will consider again. It's not a huge kitchen but it's enough room.
Do you think after this dog is done being housebroken I would still need to have a dog walker come bye in the middle of the day? I was kind of hoping with an adult dog, they could hold it longer once they are trained and then I wouldn't have to worry about that anymore. The dog would be home alone for 8 hours Tues-Fri.
As far as the carpet, I have plans to have a brand new carpet installed in 3 weeks. I'd hope nothing would happen to it. I know my cats are known to vomit on everything and my carpets usually come clean. I guess pee is much different. Most of my house is hardwood floors except for the bedrooms and our basement.
My adult dogs were crated 8-10 hrs/day when I was working, no problems. Until the dog is house-trained, can you take vacation? Puppies don't have the bladder control that an older dog has. The older dog is more likely to learn quickly - and have the bladder control, too!
My adult dogs were crated 8-10 hrs/day when I was working, no problems. Until the dog is house-trained, can you take vacation? Puppies don't have the bladder control that an older dog has. The older dog is more likely to learn quickly - and have the bladder control, too!
I personally cant take vacation. My husband is due for a weeks vacation and I asked him if he could take it the week we get a dog and I explained to him that he will have to be firm with everything. (If you saw his cat that he brought home, you would understand why I stress to him that he needs to be firm with training). My cats are more well behaved than the one he brought home. So the answer is yes, if we find a dog and can have a foster keep it for an additional week so we ca give his company notice for a vacation week, then he can be home to train the dog, yes, he can take off of work. I am usually home Sat-Mon so I could definitely start the housetrainig effect but he will have to finish the 4 days and then I will be off again for another 3 days. I don't think my husband has it in him to train though. I think he's nervous. I wish I could be the one to take off but I'm trying to save my time in case I get pregnant.
So you kept your adult dogs crate trained all the time until you got home from work or until they were housetrained? I'd hate to leave a dog in his crate all that time. The dog walker also told me that she sould not deal with us if we kept the dog in a crate all day as she felt it was not a nice thing to do. I tend to agree with her. I can understand in the beginning but the entire lifetime of the dog? That's a long time.
I'm not a fan of crating a dog all day long either, and my dogs were always able to roam the house if we weren't home. Some dogs are better able to hold their urine than others, though. (I'm talking out of the crate, I won't hazard a guess at what a crated dog for that length of time would do) I would go cautiously at first, at the very least get a dog walker once a day to start with. As the training progresses, in time you will get to know the dog better and learn how long he can hold it. And keep the dog isolated in one room, so he won't have full reign, until you get to know him. Most older dogs don't chew, but you never know. If you find yours does, you can buy "Bitter Apple" to discourage their chewing, it worked for our puppies.
As for the hardwood floors, we've trained two with them. As long as the spill doesn't sit, you can wipe it up with a pet urine odor neutralizer, and it shouldn't harm your floor. Although, from what I've seen on CD, some of the new hardwood floors are thinner and not as rugged as the older floors. But for us, urine never stained. Left long enough though, urine will stain the wood, and even sanding it will not usually remove it.
Yes, it was all day M-F as one was a chewer and the other was never fully house-trained (due to spinal issues). He never had an accident in the crate but if he was walking around, he would. Sometimes one of my cats would end up in the crate with them (for a Gt. Dane originally) as he liked to sit in there and if I was in a hurry, I didn't always see him at the back on the bed. They had a big yard to run around in and were out of the crate every minute I was home. But they were like 8 y/o and 3 y/o.
We closed on our vintage, hardwood-floored home the same week we adopted our dog, an adult, crate-trained beagle mix. We crate him when we are not home, as he is a problem chewer, has separation anxiety, and is fairly destructive when unsupervised. On a workday, this means 8 hours in the crate. It wouldn't be safe for him to be unsupervised and roaming freely in the house for eight hours, so the crate is necessary. We did initially try confining him to a select portion of the house, but there isn't any one area in our house where it's possible to proof it enough that he can't do damage that could hurt him. When we started crating him, my SO took a week to work from home so that it was able to be phased in more gradually.
His crate is wire, and it's kept on linoleum in the kitchen, not in the hardwood floored portions of the house. He doesn't really have accidents when uncrated and supervised indoors, although due to separation anxiety, he routinely pees when crated, even if he's just peed. But he doesn't pee in the crate, he lifts his leg and sprays just outside it. He's very rarely ever peed inside except to spray out of the crate, which goes onto the linoleum, so we haven't had any real issue with urine damage to hardwood.
What we have experienced, though, is his nails, even when freshly trimmed, doing a number on the finish of our hardwood. Depending on the size of dog/activity level, you may want to consider that. He's pretty active, and his running around on the hardwood floors has done some minor but all-over scratching, which does make the floors look duller than they were.
I have an oak floor that was new in 2001. I used to use only pet enzyme stuff on any urine accidents, but now I mop up with an old towel, and spill a water glass bit of water with some bleach in it and mop that up with a towel.
I do use the enzyme if any accidents on bedroom carpet. I used to put throw rugs under living room tables, but once there was a single accident, it became irresistible despite enzyme stuff.
My builder tells me that the oak floors will be fine to be refinished any time I want them to be, bleach and all.
At present, I have only one lazy girl, who was kept outside for months with minimal care. Housebreaking is not her strong suit. Everyone else has been fine despite being adopted from various problems.
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I'd hope nothing would happen to it. I know my cats are known to vomit on everything and my carpets usually come clean. I guess pee is much different. Most of my house is hardwood floors except for the bedrooms and our basement.
