I have 2 3 year old chihuahuas that are brothers. It has been impossible to potty train them. They sleep with us at night and I do have them trained at night to go out and potty. We are gone most of the day so it has been impossible to train them I have had them since they were 3 months old. They urinate all over their bedding and such. What can I do. I have tried cutting back on their water intake and have eliminated food in the morning to cut down on the mess. We cannot let them even run around the house without lifting their leg to urinate.

Chihuahuas are difficult to housetrain as puppies, and even harder if left this long.

My mother has an 11 year old Chihuahua that she rescued when the dog was 7 years old from a kennel. She was never housetrained. Even now, she is not fully housetrained.

Basically, she let her out every few hours, after meals, playing etc etc like a puppy. Praise was given every time she went out to pee or poo usually with a treat.
Do not scold them when they do urinate or defecate in the house - unless you catch them IN the act they will not make the connection. And even if you do catch them in the act this may make them nervous about going to the bathroom around you - even outside
Make sure the areas they have urinated on are cleaned THOROUGHLY. Being able to smell urine, even residual, may make them want to pee there again/
While this helped, she is only semi potty trained and there are accidents around the house every other day or so.


Have you tried paper training? I don't like the idea of it, but people do use this method. Since I have never done this with a dog, here is a link on how to:

Paper Training A Dog - 10 Practical Tips

On another note - are they neutered?

No they are not neutered. My husband won't allow it. I have tried the potty pads, but that didn't work either. They just wanted to tear them up. I don keep them in one area of the house that is tiled. Cutting back on the water and food has helped quite a bit. I will continue with them and hope that they will get trained. Thanks for the help.

Well, if they aren't neutered, they are marking, and any amount of housetraining won't help.

They really need to be neutered.

Some male dogs really can be disgusting when left unaltered.

My boy I have here used to have quite a few 'accidents' in the house. Now that he's neutered we haven't had a problem at all.