do it yourself dog psychology - part 2

We are new dog people. Soleil, our first canine ever, has lived with us for 2 1/2 years now, and we're figuring it out one step at a time.

Lately she's been peeing in the living room. It's digusting! Our new carpet does not show a dark spot when it's wet so sploosh! you just step in it. At least when she pees downstairs we can see it, and the carpet in the basement is in 12 inch square tiles that we can pick up and put into the laundry tub to wash. In general, she waits to pee outside but if she is sick or upset she sometimes pees in the house. It's very smelly and wet. Yuk.

We have a carpet-washing machine, which I have used a couple of times in recent weeks to attack the spot where she has gone, but I think she can still smell it (truth is I can still smell it and I'm not even a good smeller) and once a dog has a pee spot, she goes back to it. So how do we fix this? We never see her doing it, so she knows she's not supposed to. She's smart enough to wait until we're not looking. We don't want to yell at her because that is mean and it would just scare her and it would sound like, "BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA SOLEIL! BLA BLA BLA etc."

So I'm going with the same approach as the dog pajamas, which, by the way, have succeeded in curtailing her rump de-forestation habit very well. The living room rug has been washed again and liberally doused with "Nature's Miracle" smell-remover as recommended by the vet. The living room has been barricaded with chairs except when we are supervising the dog directly, so that the washed and treated rug can dry completely. When it is completely dry, I'm going to put down a plastic cover with towels over it. Hopefully this will prevent her from finding any lingering scent-trail that might induce repeat peeing. If she pees there, it'll be on the towels which will be easy to clean up, and the plastic will protect the rug. I'm hoping/predicting that a month with no access to the peeing field will break the cycle. We'll see.

question: why are dogs so doggone doggy?

mompoet - climbing over chairs to get to the couch