Anyone else experience owners telling you at the last minute or drop off that their dog pees a lot or marks or is not potty trained although they stated otherwise on the rover website? It's getting frustrating bc of people being dishonest. I could prepare for a dog with certain behaviors or issues if owners were more honest and open.
From my experience, dogs act differently around their parents/owners than in front of strangers and in new places. While most parents will tell me if their dog is potty trained, puppies normally have the most accidents, and other dogs will naturally mark in spaces that other dogs have marked in the past (inside my home). To prevent this, I do use products with enzymes. The marking can happen even if it is not normal for that particular dog.
Thankfully I haven't. I've had a number of dogs have accidents in the house, usually right after arrival (I now take new dogs outside within the first couple minutes of being dropped off to prevent this), but only one dog who had repeated accidents. In his case, it wasn't the owner's dishonesty so much as stress. The dog was 8 and had never been left with a stranger before, so he was understandably a little upset.
If it's happened to you multiple times, I'd suggest adding a question at your M&Gs to address it. Rather than just asking if the dog is housetrained, I'd ask something more specific, like "how often does X have accidents at home?" and "does X ever mark or have accidents when you bring her to new places?" I'd also tell the owners you know it's common for dogs to have accidents when they're a little stressed and in a new place, and talk about the measures that you've put in place with other dogs (like starting off the stay with a strict potty schedule, using belly bands, etc) and asking the owners what they feel would be best for their dog. I think in a lot of instances owners may just be embarrassed to admit their dog isn't 100% with their housetraining, so it's hard for them to bring it up unless you give them a way to discuss it without judgment.
I’d like to have an answer for our situation.
I often see answers of “make sure to let the dogs out enough, for a long enough duration“, but we usually let the dogs out in the backyard, or take them for a walk, every couple of hours, and at least 20 minutes each. PLENTY of time for them to empty their bladders.
Yet males AND females, always come back in the house and pee. Several spots, throughout the day. It’s causing lots of tension in the house and stress.
I understand that the OCCASIONAL dog will pee as it’s a new place. Usually once. Maybe twice.
But dogs we have watched several times before, will pee all the time, everywhere.
We are very caring and loving. We do not yell at them. We don’t do anything that scares them.
We clean old pee spots up with enzyme remover and they still smell the old spots, as well as create new spots.
We don’t want to stop pet-sitting. As we need the income and we love animals. But this makes absolutely no sense to us that we let them out plenty, and they are familiar with our house, especially if they are repeat clients, yet they still Pee everywhere. Sometimes, the more we watch them, the more it seems they pee.
I see lots of people are saying to get doggie diapers, but wouldn’t this only work for males? Males AND females are peeing all over our house. As well as we often take photos and videos of the dogs we are watching, so the owners know that they are doing fine, and we don’t want them to see diapers on them and get upset with us. But it would be a pain in the butt to take them off every time we were going to take a photo or video, and then put them back on.