My 2 year old, 14 lb. (yea, you read that right, 14 lbs.)female, yorkie is driving me crazy!  I crate trained her as a puppy and she's good and will not go in her crate. She's in her crate for about 4 hours in the morning while I'm at work.   Now, when I take her outside, she knows why she's there.  But, usually she'll just stand on the deck so I go out with her and tell her to go down (meaning the steps) and "hurry up".  She'll try to come back up the steps but I keep telling her to hurry up and eventually she will pee.  She obviously knows why she's out but won't go unless I force her.  If I don't, she'll come in the house and immediately pee on the carpet.  The last  two weeks or so I've been very diligent and not let her out of my sight and I don't think she's pee'd in the house plus once in awhile she will actually sit by the door.  But now that she hasn't pee'd on the carpet, while someone else in the family was watching her, she snuck into the living room and left a little pile two times. She hasn't done that in atleast a year.  Also, in the morning I have to carry her from my bedroom (where she sleeps with me) to outside.  If I don't she'll scoot away and pee in the living room.  She knows that I'm going right to the door because my other dog is running to the door.  We don't vary the routine.  Same thing everyday even on weekends.

I also have a 10 y/o male poodle who is the alpha dog.  My vet thinks she may be doing this to a)mark territory since she does share her home with another dog and, b) doing it to get the poodle's attention.  Disgusting as it is to us, he like to lick her after she's pee'd.

So, does anyone have any suggestions?  We are also looking for another yorkie to adopt.  I must be crazy but I love 'em.  I've heard that yorkies are notoriously hard to train.  If we get a really small yorkie, I'm planning to litterbox train this puppy.

Thanks for any help.  Sharon

Hi!

Well there could be a few different reasons why she's going inside. First off, does it seem like she's hesitent to go outside, not just to go to the bathroom? She could have had a bad experience outside and no longer wants to elimanate outside because she is frightened. If that is the case you might have to go back to the begining, pretned she was never potty trained, and train her with a clean slate. A good idea would be to keep a written record of the times when she does go. After a while you will be able to get a sense of when she needs to go and take her out a little before that. You might also want to try a different cleaner. Natures Miricle is really good. Sometimes other products don't completely get the scent out even though they are advertised as "pet cleaners".  And just some reminder tips, never yell at her for leaving a mess after the fact. If you find it after it's been done she's already forgotten about it and she thinks you are yelling at her for no reason and becomes afraid of you. Also give her lots of praise and attention when she goes potty in the right spot to let her know she's done the right thing, and silently stop her from peeing inside when she does have an accident inside.  And if you get another puppy and it's a female, be carful litter box training her. If she is a low squatter she might get litter inside of her and if she can't get it out might get a UTI, so be cautious. Hope this helped a little!