Separation anxiety

I have a 2 year old 'rescued' rott, she came from an old work colleague who bought her as a pup and immediately became pregnant (the owner not the dog!) and so the dog got left to its own devices pretty much. She gave her to me because she couldn't cope with her (this was about 9 months ago) and one of the things she struggled with was her weeing and pooing in the house when left.

I crated her for the first few months and she was clean and quite happy to go in there and will lie in there with the door open when I am home. After 9 months of trying I still can't seem to break the habit of her messing if I leave her out of her crate. I leave the TV on, I have a plug in DAP diffuser, I don't make a big fuss when I leave/return and I don't respond to demands for attention when I am home, I have even left the back door open and she still did it in the house. She's not left for long, I work 3 mornings a week for 2 - 3 hours at a time so its not like she's being left all day and I've got 2 other rotts so she's not on her own. She does it overnight too. I have gone back to basics with the toilet training, rewarding her for doing it outside.

I don't know what else I can do! I have cured her other problems - pulling on the lead, terrible recall, over excitement - but I just can't seem to get on top of the messing

Hi there,

well I think if you have sorted all the other problems you are doing well and hopefully she will get there with this last thing.

For the time being I'd use the crate when you have to go out to work and overnight because the more times she goes in the house the more she will think it is the natural thing to do.

I'd then build up very slowly on the time I left her alone out of the crate - start off with just a couple of minutes (but do whatever routine you would normally do for leaving her longer - except for shutting her in the crate).

Two of mine were not house trained as pups and they will never tell me they need to go out (which they couldn't do anyway if I wasn't there!) I therefore always make sure that I know their poo 'regime' and that they've had one outside before I leave them. From this point of view, routine can be quite good as they get used to going at the same time every day and you know whether or not they've been...but if your own life isn't very routine and you chop and change walk times etc. it can be a drawback.

As you say, going back to treating her like a pup and rewarding for doing it outside is a good step.

Good luck, I'm sure she will get there in the end.