belly wrap things

[beasley's the best]

how do I keep those garment wrap things on my dog? I bought one because of his marking behavior but he does not like to wear it and starts to freak out when he has it on.. help?

[SaraFaust]

I suppose they aren't the most comfy things- it isn't too tight on him, is it?

My girls like to be "naked"- even if I put a collar on them they stop and scratch at it, even though I put them on loosely (just for decoration!)

If it isn't too tight, try having him sleep in it and then maybe he'll get used to it? I have only used one on my little rescue boy and it wasn't too tight- and he was used to wearing it...

[SaraFaust]

Check out the thread in this forum "Advice before 2nd pug- male or female?" someone posted a link to information about belly bands!

[karlanee]

I've tried so many sizes and widths of belly bands it's not funny. I've had to double the narrow ones up because the wide ones don't fit right since his chest is so much wider than his tummy (he's a thin, fit guy).

Somehow he usually manages to wiggle it free enough that he can still pee outside of it.

I'm about at my wits end with this marking business. We've had to go back to crating him during the day, instead of having him be in the kitchen during the day. And he's STILL marking!! This afternoon while my daughter was home with them, 5 minutes after bringing them all inside from pottying (and they all went), she had to go out of the room to get her cell phone. The other pug and the Lhasa went with her and Sam, the marker, stayed in the living room. Less than 30 seconds later she came back and he'd managed to mark on a table cloth while she was gone! UGH!! He's become so untrustworthy. He has to be glued to our side in order for him to not mark something. He doesn't have any physical issues, I've had him tested. It's all behavioral at this point. I'm convinced it's an assertion of dominance, especially since he rarely does it when my husband is home. It all started about 6 months ago when he started peeing on my husband's pillow after he got out of bed in the mornings. We put an end to that real quick - the dogs are no longer allowed to sleep with us. Most of the time he pees in "my areas" of the house. And it's just gotten worse and worse from there.

We are doing the big pug party after going outside - he even gets a special treat then that he doesn't get any other times. But nothing is working.

[ViralMD]

When was he neutered???

[karlanee]

Sam was neutered at whatever age is the earliest you can neuter - We got him when he was 8 weeks old and had him neutered at how many ever months it is when you first get it done. He never marked in the house until AFTER he was neutered. He was fully potty-trained. And the reason I'm convinced it's a dominance thing is that it's gotten considerably worse since Princess came to live with us in January (she's a very dominant girl even though we don't let her push everyone around). In the past few months especially it's gotten really bad. Our lifestyle hasn't changed, and we did all we could, following advice found here, in making the transition of bringing Princess home as smooth as could be.

I am simply not sure what to do next as far as trying to retrain him.

[Snifter]

For dominance issues a trainer who did a dog psychology course recently said that ignoring works a treat. Pack leaders ignore lower ranking dogs an awful lot.

When she gets a new dog for some live in training the first thing she does is ignore it totally for a couple of days. It gets taken out for pottying, fed etc, so all needs are met, but it does not get talked to or played with or anything. If you truly have a dominance issue here then you might try researching this possibility a bit more. I don't have enough experience to know whether it would work.

How does your hubby react to him - you say that he rarely marks when hubby is in the house? Maybe you can pick up some hints from this.

[karlanee]

Snifter - I think the ignoring training would work - if husband wasn't around. We'll never get through ignoring as long as husband is here.

He's perfectly behaved around husband and husband treats him pretty much the same as we all do. Thanks for the advice and the honesty of simply not knowing.

We'll continue crating him when we are gone until we get this figured out, in the meantime he's wearing bellybands even when we're home. I was able to get my mother-in-law to make a double width one for him and I bought a stack of cloth baby diapers, so now I am not wasting all those paper products! I wash them using a little no-color, no-scent detergent, Nature's Miracle stuff and hot water in the washing machine.