my dog is un-house training himself!!! what to do??

we got our 6-mon pup last weekend and he was apparently house trained already, to our delight. except for peeing once that first night, he was great about holding it until he got outside...

then the work week came and when we go to work, he put him in an enclosed area... of course, he's not happy about that and puts up a fuss, but monday he did well in keeping with his house training ways. then last night he peed in the house!

my husband went home for lunch just now to walk and feed him... had already put him on the lease to go for a walk and he peed!!!!

what should i do? what does that mean? i'm afraid he's unhappy because we're leaving him alone for 4-5 hours at a time and he's trying to rebel through this. i know he knows how to hold it in and he didn't have an excessive amount of water or anything last nite or this morning... someone shed some light on this.

HELP!!!

Please understand that dogs eliminate because they need to. Puppies the age of yours age generally not marking.

There is a BOAT load of material on this site about house training, I'm sure you will find some great info if you do a search.

I agree, he's absolutely not peeing because he's "rebelling," dogs just dont' think that way. Just because a dog is house trained in one house with one family doesn't mean he's house trained everywhere. And I wouldn't trust many 6 month olds to be completely housetrained anywhere. Did his previous family do crate training? I noticed that you said "enclosed area," I'm guessing this is not a crate. Since crates are smaller and most dogs won't potty in the place they sleep, a crate is much more effective in teaching dogs to "hold it" than play pens or other larger enclosures. Could be why he peed there.

With your husband at the door - that could've been just an emergency, it could've been that he was just very excited about going out, it could've been that your husband did some subtle body language that scared the puppy since he's not used to your husband yet. Whenever I'm potty training a puppy, I like to carry him to the door, just to make sure they won't have an accident along the way.

Also - make sure that you don't leave any water with him while he's alone during the day. As long as your house is air-conditioned and he's not exercising, he doesn't really need water and can get his fill when you come home at night. Drinking, of course, makes him have to pee more.