How long can a 5 month old Great Dane Hold it?

by Jen
(Tacoma, WA, USA)

Hello, we have a 5 month old Great Dane. He is house trained to the point where he'll sit by the door and whine when he needs to go out, however he wants to go out all the time.

We will take him out and he'll go pee, and 5 minutes after bringing him back in he'll be whining again to go out. We take him out and he goes poop. Bring him back in and 5 minutes later he needs to go again, one or the other. Almost every time he goes (there are a few times he doesn't).

My question is that it seems like at 5 months old he should be able to hold it for longer. He will sleep through the night without going 8 hours or more but during the day he is constantly wanting to go out.

Also when we put him in his room and leave him for 4 hours for work, take him out at lunch and leave him again for another 4 hours he is fine and doesn't have an accident. I'm curious if we are training him to go out constantly because we always take him when he whines. We have tried to make him wait and sometimes he will lay down and forget about it, but other times he'll have an accident in the house. It is hard for us to tell if he is whining cuz he really needs to go, or if he is just doing it for attention or entertainment.

If we wait, he'll have an accident, but if we take him out are we training him to never hold it? How often should a 5 month old Great Dane really have to go? How do we teach him to hold it for longer?

Also, his stool is very very soft. Is this normal?




Hi Jen
It may seem a bit of a pain right now, but actually your pup is doing extremely well and is right on track in terms of training.

The fact that he can go all night, and for two 4-hour stretches during the day shows that he is learning bladder/bowel control and is using it. The constant wanting to go outside 'now' is pretty normal and as it seems he really does want to go and often has an accident indoors if you don't let him out, it's much better that you let him out and not worry about him going so often.

As he gets older and more mature, he'll stop doing this so much.

Two questions come to mind though. One is that I wonder if you're 'free feeding' him, ie leaving his bowl of food down all the time and letting him snack on it when he wants to. This is not advisable as that way his digestive system never gets into any kind of routine or schedule and he's constantly needing to eat and eliminate. Of course, you may not be doing this but I just wanted to check!

The other thing relates to his soft stools. I'm not sure what food you're giving him, but it may be that it doesn't 'agree with him' totally. He could be sensitive to, or intolerant of, any of the ingredients. Also some of the grocery store brand foods have less nutritional value per cup, and as less of it is usable/digestable there is more to come out the other end!

You may want to check out these pages as they have information and advice on recognizing and dealing with dog food allergies, as well as a lot of information on how to rate dog food according to the quality of it's ingredients, and details on some of the top foods on the market.

Dog Food Allergies

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