Behavior Challenge: 10-month-old Yorki-Poo is not housetrained; still having several accidents per week.
Failure Factors: Lack of commitment to management protocols; anxious dog.
Risk Factors: Damage to carpeting and floors; owner losing patience with dog and rehoming or euthanizing.
Management Solution: Manage his environment so he doesnt have the opportunity to urinate or defecate in the house. The umbilical cord approach (keeping your dog leashed to you at all times) is very useful. When hes not attached to you, crate him but never for so long that hes forced to soil his crate. If he must be left crated all day while you are at work, make arrangements for a pet sitter to come midday to take him out.
Training Solution: Take your dog out more often than he has to go initially every hour on the hour. Take him on leash to his designated bathroom spot, and wait quietly there until he goes. When he does, give him a Yes! and a treat and then play with him. If he doesnt, no play take him back inside and crate him or keep him leashed to you, then take him out again in 20 minutes and try again. When you know hes empty he can have 10-20 minutes of house freedom, then leash or crate him again until his next bathroom break. As long as he is successful, gradually increase the time between potty trips and house freedom time. If he has an accident, proceed more slowly.
Behavior Challenge: Your newly adopted 8-year-old rescue Pomeranian fiercely resource-guards his food bowl.
Failure Factors: Intensity of behavior.
Risk Factors: Someone could be badly bitten.
Mitigating Factors: Despite intensity of behavior, your dogs bites have never broken skin; the behavior is very predictable it happens only with his food bowl and high-value resources; household consists of two adults, very little activity.
Management Solution: Feed him in his own space (such as a laundry room) with the door closed, and leave him alone when he has a high-value resource. If you do need to take something away from him, trade him for a very high-value treat.
Training Solution: Implement a behavior-modification protocol if you feel its necessary, dropping high-value treats as you approach and pass by, to convince him that you are not a threat to his good stuff, but rather that you make more good stuff happen! However, opting for management only in this case, as the risks are low, is a perfectly acceptable solution in this case.
