Dog pooping in house after three months of attempted training

[robp2175]

We got a 14 month old chihuahua and have now had him for three months and he still poops in the house daily. It should also be noted that he poops in his crate. We have put him on a regular feeding schedule, take him on regular walks, taken him to the vet where he received a clean bill of health, but nothing has worked and we are getting to the point where we are very frustrated. We will take him on a walk for 30 minutes and he will proceed to poop in the house within twenty minutes of coming back in the house. We take him on walks at least every two hours and praise him like crazy with treats and petting when he goes outside. However, he will sometimes go outside, then as I said will go again in the house 20 minutes after we get in. When he does poop in the house, he gives himself away because he will go to a corner of the house and have this doggy look of guilt. This leads us to believe he knows what he is doing is wrong, but I am no authority on the subject. So to sum up, crate training has failed, regular feeding, walking, praising have failed, correcting him has not worked, he has no health problems. PLEASE HELP!

[squirtsmom]

I feel for you, my daughters dog Squirt was terrible about going in the house, although that was her fault for not being consistant. I can't give you great advice, but someone on here will. We have some awesome trainers. Good luck.

[Zoom]

If you know he goes inside after 20 minutes....take him outside every 15-20 minutes...beat him to the punch. How big is your crate? And one final question...what are you doing to prevent your dog from wandering out of your sight in order to poop in the house? He can't poop if you're constantly watching him. I like tethering untrained dogs to me via a leash and carabiner so they can't sneak off.

[girlbuffalo1]

Do you catch him in the act every single time? That is the only way to get through the training. Catch him as he starts to squat--use your correction term "no" or "uh-uh!" or whatever pick him up and take him outside to finish--when he finishes Praise and treat! You must praise and treat like an imbecile every single time even if you feel silly!
He should NEVER ever ever be out of sight--seriously stare at him--do not let him go around a corner unless you are going to. If you have to go to the bathroom take him with you or put him in the crate.

Also the crate must be really really really small for a chi for potty training. I would imagine something like 12 inches by 6 inches or so....also I would take out any bedding...

[robp2175]

Yes, he has gotten out of our sight, so we will definately try tethering him to us. His crate is small and we use a divider, but he has just enough room to go in the far corner and retreat the the other far corner, but he has at times gotten some feces on him and did not seem to care so we were worried about him being in the habit of being dirty. I will rig something up to make it smaller and see if that helps. However, we did recently try over the past few days putting his bed in the crate. The bed fills the entire area and he has not gone in his crate since, so maybe this has worked. Thank you for the great advice, keep it coming, we are beginners at this and need all the help we can get.

Thank You, Thank You

[girlbuffalo1]

That's good that the bed is helping him to stop. I know it can be frustrating to stare at them constantly (I found I couldn't even really watch TV during this)--but keep at it and you will have him trained in no time. If you have him off tether he is not allowed to go in another room, go around the corner, hide under a table--nothing--has to be in PLAIN sight! :)