BehavioRx Case of the Month
for February 2004

Housetraining Pups - Feeding

Bill and Joan enrolled in our consultation program after spending several frustrating weeks trying to housetrain their new Springer Spaniel/mix puppy, whom they gotten at 7 weeks of age. "Tilly," now 10 weeks old, was pooping daily in her crate and at least once a day when free in the house. She was also having 2 BMs a day at her proper place in the yard. Her doctor said she was in excellent health, so a health-related cause was ruled out.

Joan and Bill had followed the breeder's advice to feed Tilly 3 times a day with the same dry kibble diet the litter had been fed. We discovered the stools were sometimes loose and very messy.

Tilly had not been trained, except to sit for a doggy treat, so it was no wonder that she may not have appreciated that she was supposed to learn for her owners. Bill and Joan appreciated this and enthusiastically initiated the BehavioRx Instruction's "No Free Lunch," Learn-to-Earm Praise and petting program and ceased feeding Tilly goodies. They saw the sense in getting Tilly our of her close-confinement for up to 17 hours a day and left Tilly in the kitchen when they were at work.

We also sent them our Feeding and Housetraining Instructions after explaining that Tilly was an animal-eating carnivore and should be a high meat protein diet. Joan and Bill were organic food devotees, so to attain this goal, they decided to feed her a 50/50 combination of Wysong's raw canned chicken and puppy kibble. They soaked Wysong's puppy kibble in hot tap water prior to mixing the foods to increase its appeal. They phased in the new food over 4 days, after which they found Tilly's stools firmed up, but she was still having four BMs a day.

To solve this problem Tilly was fed the same total food, but was switched to 4 meals a day to tune-up her input and outgo. Within a week Tilly was pooping only after being fed, which made housetraining simple for everyone, except for Bill, who had to get up early on weekends to hold to the same schedule as on work days. The 4 BMs diminished to 3 by the third week, so a schedule of morning, noon and evening meals made life easier for all. At 7 months of age Tilly had cut her BM schedule to twice daily and Joan no longer had to come home from work to feed a midday meal.

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