The potty game

[Skyesrocket]

Coyote activity has been picking up here. You might be right. He might be hearing something and wanting to check it out. If that isn't the case then maybe it's time for a vet check. Since it just started he might be getting a urinary tract infection or something like that.

 

[blue fire]

No Coyotes here to my knowledge. I think the amount of dogs in this area would scare any off. He had to go out at 5 this morning, which is perfectly fine with me, and it seems that he genuinely has to pee when he goes out. I let him out, he peed, drank the outside water, and then I tried to call him in the house, but apparently the was some serious backyard patrolling that was in order. We do have rabbits here and when I am outside he will lay down by the garage and stick his fat head under there and sometimes whine, like that will get the rabbits to come out

. Also something else he will do is if I go to my grandparents house, he can drink their tap water all day, but if I lay out some of ours he won't touch it. Smyrna water must be better than Murfreesboro water I suppose.

 

[Andi]

Good to see you got to sleep in until 5 this morning!

Just a thought on the water idea. At one point long ago when I lived somewhere else I had bought a new outdoor water dish that was rubber. I was thinking it would be a good idea for Minnesota Winters. It wouldn't crack and once the water had froze that it would be easy to pop out and refill. Well, he hated drinking out of it. He'd wait and drink out of the one in the house like he hadn't had a drink in a week. After switching dishes he was fine. The rubber dish ended up being used for dry dog food. There must have been something in the rubber dish that made the water taste funky.

Another water favoring thing that's happened in my house is the dogs preferring my aquarium water (or pond tubs outside) over nice fresh water in their dishes. (You should see the fronts of my aquariums that are on bottom shelves of the racking! Slobber drools!) I used to laugh and say they (I have 3 dogs now) preferred fish flavored water. I started to think about it and how I use water to do water changes on my aquariums. For aquariums I age the water. Basically I let the water set out for a day before using it in the aquariums. By doing that it allows the water to do what is called degassing. I've always hated the taste of my water and thought I'd try degassing a gallon on the counter for a day and see if the taste changed. It actually did. Before I was changing their water a couple times a day and giving them fresh water. It wasn't getting drank much. I've started putting degassed water in their inside dish and they now are leaving my aquariums alone (most of the time).

I don't know if you have city water or well water, but well water is more likely to contain higher sulfur gas levels, as well as others, and city water has chlorine and chloramines added to the water. Chlorine will dissipate during the degassing along with other trapped gasses. Chloramine you're stuck with, unless you feel like neutralizing it with aquarium conditioners all the time. (I don't think I'd be quite that ambitious.)

You could try an experiment using 2 dishes of water (use dishes he knows are okay to drink from or it may skew the results). In one dish use fresh tap water and the other use aged water that's set out for a day. See if he shows a preference. Just an idea. Who knows. Maybe Smyrna's water just is better.

 

[FireTigeris]

take him out, on a leash- to a potty place (wherever he usually goes) then bring him right back in, don't stop at the outside water...

if he doesn't go in 5-7 min bring him back in, if he goes praise him a little and bring him in...

he'll get it even as a senior.

 

[TipsyDog]

Since this is a new habit at his age - is he drinking more? I would consider a physical reason the dog has changed such as diabetes or kidney/liver issues. Maybe a quick check-up at the vet is in order? Some blood work would show if he's developing sugar or liver problems. Good luck!

P.S. - this is the #1 reason I think the doggie door is one of the greatest inventions!

ETA: I just remembered my poodle was doing this a few years ago and it was a mild bladder infection.