Q:  Our 9-month-old Chihuahua was housebroken. Then suddenly a week ago, she wet on our bed (she was sleeping with us). She did it again a few days ago. She's sleeping in her own bed now. This morning, she pooped beside our bed. I took her outside in the backyard. She acted scared and had to be picked up and placed in the yard. She wouldn't go. I brought her in and put her in her pen. I took her out later on a leash and she did go. I don't have a clue what to do about this. She was doing so well.

A:  One possibility: your Chi wasn't quite as well housetrained as you thought she was. Many dogs aren't completely reliable till they're close to a year old, and small dogs in particular can be tricky to housetrain fully. Nobody's sure why that is — their bladders should be, proportionately, the same size as any other dog's. Maybe their metabolisms are a bit faster, or maybe it has to do with the fact that tiny dogs produce tiny puddles. It's much easier to miss a Chi-size pee than a Pit Bull-size pee, for instance.

Incomplete housetraining is the likeliest explanation for what's been going on. Consider going over your house with a blacklight to check for urine stains — if you find them, that will be a big clue! Clean any spots you find with an enzymatic cleanser specially formulated for the purpose. Then go right back to square one in housetraining.

Another possibility: you mention she acted scared. Could something have happened outside that frightened her enough so that she doesn't want to eliminate outdoors? This is quite a bit less likely, since she did eliminate when you brought her out on leash the second time. It may be that if you were (understandably) upset and angry when you brought her outdoors the first time, anxiety inhibited her from doing anything. Or she may just have been empty — maybe she peed somewhere indoors as well as pooping.

Finally, if you're absolutely sure your Chi was fully housetrained before this series of events, it's worth getting a vet check. A bladder infection would explain the peeing indoors, for example. (But it wouldn't explain the pooping.)

 

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