Reply to I finally got a dog for the family. It is the worse decision of my life.

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[quote=Anonymous]Animal biologist here. It seems you got a pet without having any interest in learning about the psychology of the species you were taking in. This is necessary if you are planning to live indoors with any other animal, including your own human family.

Peeing indoors is never acceptable, not even for puppies. When she has an accident inside, you raise your voice and do your best to have a very displeased tone. Dogs are very sensitive to tone, but don't have good memories, so you need to catch her in the act, or a few seconds after. That's when she'll make the connection between your anger and her peeing on the floor. You also need to use enzymatic cleaner on all the spots she's peed to get rid of the remaining molecules, otherwise she might believe it's OK to pee there.

The dog should not be so anxious and/or excited when it meets strangers. You need to train her to greet more strangers, outside, and reward her on the spot when she doesn't pee. In the meantime, if someone she doesn't know is planning to visit, they need to meet the dog outside first, to avoid her peeing indoors. You can wait for your guest outside, encourage her to pee before they arrive, then have the meet-and-greet outside before coming in. Reward her every time she meets someone without peeing. If that works (she doesn't pee for about 5-10 meetings in a row), you can give her a potty break before they come, bring her in, then ask that they come in very quietly, and you reward her for a well-behaved greeting. If that's successful, try an indoor meeting without a prior potty break.

As you can see, training a dog means immediate negative feedback when they do wrong, but gradual adjustments to the ultimate correct behavior, with lots of rewards along the way for incremental progress. Your goal is to always put them in a position to succeed, because timely food reinforcement is an extremely powerful tool.

I can't help you with your annoyance that she's always "there" - you can just ignore her, OP. But is there anything else that you think is not normal and that you need help with?

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