Male Neutered Cockapoo marking in House

My 1.5 year old neutered male cockapoo has begun to mark in the house. Buckland has been housetrained successfully for nearly a year. He is a very social pup and enjoys being with the family. The entire process is very strange: he will leave the room where the family is and go upstairs alone. He will then do his marking on either of my sons' bedroom rugs and come back downstairs. At first I thought he hadn't been out often enough, so we've been taking him out more often. Last night, after he went out, he disappeared and marked my son's bedroom carpet for the second time in a week (different spot). This is the fourth time he's done this in 2 weeks, with the last two being on consecutive nights (2 different rooms). We're keeping the gate up and watching him more closely, but I'm wondering what the root of the problem may be. It doesn't seem normal that he's become "unhousetrained". He is not under stress as the vet asked. Any suggestions? He is acting normally otherwise. Thank you for your help!

Comments

Aidan's picture

Hi, definitely get an

Hi, definitely get an enzyme based cleaner such as Nature's Miracle and clean the rug and carpet underneath following the instructions very carefully.

Gating is an excellent strategy. If a dog is only marking in specific rooms, then obviously blocking access to those rooms is the first step. If he starts marking in other rooms, you have a bigger problem.

I'm not sure what might have started it, it would take a bit of detective work to find out. If there is no medical problem, no obvious cause of stress, and he has otherwise been well house-trained then I would just block access to those rooms, make sure he has plenty of opportunities to go outside and hope the problem goes away after a while.

Regards,
Aidan
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