It's currently 3:51 am, and I've just cleaned up dog urine from in front of my bedroom door. Sawyer is nearly 10 months old and she still goes in the house if we don't watch her close enough. She will pee in the kitchen if I'm not watching her and paying attention to her all the time. She goes so far as to walk to the corner of the kitchen that I can't see from the living room and do her business (pee AND poo) under the table, and then come back to me all happy, only to wonder why I'm yelling at her, though CLEARLY she knows otherwise she wouldn't be doing it. We have that bell strap hanging by the back door for her to tell us she needs out and she uses it 30% of the time. Maybe. But in the bedroom is a whole other story, my bed is lifted pretty high, but not high enough that its easy for my to maneuver underneath it. What she does is she will jump off our bed (she's been sleeping with me since she first came home) and go to the door and sit. I'll get up to grab her so I can leash her up to take her outside because god knows she's not going to pee quickly and then come back in, that would be too easy. Instead as soon as I take one step towards her, she scurries under my bed, if I inch towards her, I can be just about touching her and as I go to grab her, she scoots back. It's a daily battle. But it never ends like it did today. Usually she scratches at the door until I take her out, because to be honest I thought she just wanted to play considering if she really needs to go out, she doesn't do that. Hardly. I was laying in bed waiting for her to give up and come back to bed when I smelled the pee. She didn't even TRY to get out. Help me. Oh and another thing. When she does something wrong, she thinks it's a game. So unless I grab her collar and give her a good couple of smacks on the bottom, she thinks I'm playing. I tried to put her on leash to take her out anyway, and she ran away from me in the living room. What the hell am I supposed to do? My boyfriend never ever gets up for her in the night to let her out, because he doesn't notice her get up, and when I wake him to take her out, he is moody and hardly speaks to me for the rest of the day. He will take her out when HE gets up and let's me stay in bed a while longer to "make up for it" but lets be honest. When you're woken up on a daily basis at 3-6 am, you can't make up for the sleep loss. Please help me. I'm running out of ideas. And she knows she's starting to get the best of me. I'm half tempted to send her away to doggie boarding school until she's a proper pooch.

What do I do? :(

Obedience school is always a good option since you don't have the ability to train

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

Obedience school is always a good option since you don't have the ability to train

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Except she's been through obedience classes TWICE already. It's not that I don't have the ability. Beagles are stubborn and will do anything to get their way.

Well, you're going about this all wrong (e.g. the bell hanging by the back door). We have several excellent dog experts on this site, and they will be along to post responses and help you understand what you are doing wrong and how to make it right. Dogs want to please their owners, so take heart! Please check back for some very helpful responses. (Alty owns a beagle, so be sure to listen to her advice!)

It's well known in dog obedience circles that it isn't the dog, it's the owners that need training. You are smacking the dog for going in the house, so of course she's going to be furtive about it. By 10 months she should be totally housebroken, and if she isn't, you are the one who is doing something wrong.
Get a medium sized crate for your bedroom at nighttime and take her out at a set time before you go to bed. In fact take her out at set times all day, if you can. Dogs love routine, and have better clocks than NASA does (OK, slight exaggeration). They also don't want to go in their confined space. PRAISE her when she goes outside. Clean and bleach the spots she now thinks are pee places.

That's for starters. I'd get a book, because the rest can take pages and pages.

The dog isn't trying to control you - dogs try to please their owners. The dog doesn't understand.

I don't think you're following through on what they taught you in obedience classes, so no matter how many times you go - it doesn't work if you don't do it.

Go back to the basics - crate training. A schedule.

- The crate should be large enough to turn around in, no bigger. Otherwise the dog will pee and poop in one end and sleep in the other. Dogs don't go where they sleep, so if there's only room to sleep the dog will learn to hold it until it has a chance to go out.

- Take the dog outside every few hours. If you have to work away from home, until the dog is reliable for longer periods, get a dog walker to stop in mid-day and take the dog out for you. Do not fuss over the dog when you let it out of the crate, quietly and calmly put it on a leash and take it outside. AFTER it does it's business (have a commend like "go potty" or "do business" or whatever), praise and reward the dog. Play with the dog for a while - 15 minutes or longer. If you let the dog out of the crate in the house before it's housebroken reliably, you will need to limit where the dog can be - I would recommend a place with easy-clean floors like the kitchen. Put up baby gates and let the dog run around for a while, then you can put him back in his crate. Give him a treat when he goes in his crate and never put him in there out of anger.

You will need to clean and deodorize the carpets where he's had accidents or he will continue going back to them. Do not let him in those areas of your house unsupervised.

I think it's a mistake to let him sleep with you. You won't get decent sleep doing this and you will be half-awake hoping that he doesn't get out of bed and pee on your carpet. He can sleep in his crate. He will learn not to poop or pee overnight because he won't have room to do it. The responsibility is that you can't decide to sleep until noon and leave him in there too long- you need to get up reliably at the same time each day to let him out.

If you establish a routine, he will know what to expect and will find security in it. A regular schedule of meals, going outside, walks, playtime and rest will keep him happy and if you stick to it and put up with inevitable howling until he understands what's going on, you will find he'll settle in and calm down. The thing is, you have to outlast him - kind of like training kids.

As he gets older, it will be easier, but you have to be really, really vigilant the first two to three years with a puppy. And choosing a beagle - they are really energetic dogs. You need to play with him a lot and walk him or he will be restess and destructive. It's not his fault - it's how he's wired.

Beagles are stubborn, but not impossible to train. I've been through this with my beagle--adopted at 9 months with zero training. We started training in the house with a leash. We went outside every half hour at first, then every hour. When I went to work, we put him in the laundry room with a baby gate. Puppy pads were there in case he had an accident.
Never allow the dog to roam the house... always use a leash to make sure she gets where she's supposed to go.
I'm not hearing about walking your beagle! They need to get out and smell the world! This is imperative! Your puppy will love the long walks and get excited to go outside on the leash. Just the jingle of the leash or the word "walk" gets my beagle fired up.
Hang in there...