Housetrain your dog

If your schedule allows you to spend a few weeks home most of the day housetraining your puppy or dog, that's great. Especially for an adult dog, if you can make it home every 4 hours or so (say, before leaving for work, at lunch, and after work), that should suffice.

But what if that isn't possible? You don't want to crate your dog so long that they are forced to go to the bathroom in their crate (this will just cause them to unlearn the concept of not soiling their den).

One solution may be to hire someone to walk your dog mid-day, or take them to doggy day care. Some day care facilities even offer specialized puppy day care aimed at puppies which may still be learning housetraining.

Another solution is to teach your dog to use newspapers (or some other designated indoor place, such as a box with sod in it). This is not a first choice - you are first teaching them to use the box, and then later transferring them to the outdoors. To use this technique, when you are away you'll confine your dog to a bathroom, kitchen, or other room with an easily cleaned floor. Train your dog to use the newspapers or sod box as you would train them to go to the bathroom outside. As the puppy gets older and is able to go longer between trips to the bathroom, phase out the box in favor of trips outside.

Sometimes you don't actually have a housetraining problem, which can be addressed using housetraining techniques, but a different kind of problem.

If your previously housetrained dog starts having accidents, or if housetraining doesn't seem to be working, take your dog to a vet to check for a medical cause. Urinary tract infections or other illnesses can cause a dog to loose control over their bladder or bowels.

Behavioral urination is often associated with submission, fear, or excitement. If urination (generally small in quantity) seems to be triggered by situations such as these, you need to address the behavioral issue. Scolding or punishing is especially bad here, as it will increase submission and fear.

Territorial marking is generally urine, generally small in quantity, and often sprayed on a vertical surface such as a wall. It can occur in both male and female dogs. Spaying or neutering your dog and addressing conflicts with other animals (your own pets or animals visible through windows) can help.

Of course, with these other causes you can still practice techniques like cleaning up the spot with an enzyme cleaner and taking your dog out to their potty spot if you catch them in the act.