I don't know how recently you have moved to your new home, as you didn't mention.

Adult dogs can take a while to get used to new surroundings, during which time you would obviously make every effort to help him to adjust.
If needed I would attach him to me using a leash in the house, so he could not be looking to go toilet without me knowing about it. To me that would be a priority for the first few weeks or longer.

The sentence that really sent alarm bells ringing for me was the following:
"I try to crate him beforehand, but sometimes you just can't ruin the mood by going all over the place to catch the dog ( who doesn't want to go in his crate) and place him there."

Why on earth do you have to catch your dog? He should come to you straight away when called.
This leads me to the conclusion that you are and have been using the crate for punishment (which it should NEVER EVER be used for). The crate is meant to give your dog his own safe private "bedroom", to which he willingly goes to spend time in, even with the door open! That is achieved by positive crate training.

I fear you got the crate as a secure confinement unit for your JR.
I'm sorry that I cant offer anything more constructive, but I'm sure someone else will add to this topic.
Are your ferrets housebroken, do they not rub scent glands to mark their territory. I really know nothing about ferrets.
Just toying with an idea of dog and ferrets in a new home, which has none of their smells in it. Could it be that the ferrets are leaving some kind of scent and the dog is copying by leaving his "scent" (toilet) in the home too.
I'm grasping at straws there :)

As husband and wife, there shouldn't be any reason at all for embarrassment, but really time given to your JR's problem now, will give you more worry free "alone time" in the future.

Frustration is not a good state of mind, calm but assertive, that's the key. NO shouting or yelling, in fact the less talk the better.
If he has done "number 2" pick it up in a napkin or similar and take it outside. Put it in the place where you would like him to go and take the dog always there on your walks let him sniff around there and hopefully he will start going there soon.

I think you should also do some basic training with him again, you know, SIT,DOWN, COME, HEEL etc. That will begin laying the foundations on which to build on, to gain his TRUST and RESPECT.
I wish you all the best in your new home and good luck with JR.

Blizz

The other safe and trustworthy advisors are, K-Nine, Dawg Pro, Doggone, Sandie and Tracey

Hello! Maybe he isn't secure yet with your new home being a domicile yet. He probably doesn't realize that he HAS to go outside..

How old is your JRT?

Try original potty training techniques that you did when you house trained him in your first home.

Give him treats and praise him when he goes outside, and every time until it becomes the norm. Put the 'accidental No. 2" outside and let him sniff it outside.

He just needs to relearn, since you know he was housebroken in your old home, take peace in that and try not to be frustrated with him.

Mandi,

Your told us your problem, and K-Nice is right on about it. Dog dog it when Ferrits are out. He also mentions he has no problem with his and his dogs, that is training.

For this, training is pretty much that same as most might try with a cat. SOCILIZE the dog. Watch the dog, when the ferrits are out and repremand when needed.

Also if the ferrits get a run and chase game going with the dog, the is excitement, and maybe the ferrits are good, dog looses it some with excitement. For my dogs and a differents speaces of animal, then it is a calm and relaxed meeting, at first. MY dogs almost met some wild ducks, ducks decided they did not want to play with a dog. If I liked all our squirrels, I would socialize them, but for mine, squirrels are meat.

Like all things for a dog though, do it calm when doing something new. Excitement can be used more most things, maybe, but socializing, dog needs to be calm.

I try to always think pretty much all animals want to play. All have a differnt way of playing though. Animals need some time with a human umpire (world searies thing) to understand what games they can play together. Just know your animals and train appropriately.

BTW, I have told my dogs, when interested in a goose, go for it, would love to see them get their butt kicked by a bird.:-) So far they have been smart enough to stay away. Sorry if I made this statement a bit of a joke, it would be learning experience for my dogs, and one they will not forget.

Thank you for the quick response! I have a few things that I didn't touch upon in my first post. We moved in the middle of August, (so I've had to shampoo my carpet several times). My husband and I also have a three year old Alaskan Klee Kai. She has not had much difficulty adjusting to the new home.

My JRT is almost 5 years old. We rescued him when he was about six months old. From the time we got him we used a crate to train and for him to sleep in. He never really seemed to love the crate but my husband is a very light sleeper so it has never been an option for the dogs to sleep in bed. Our Alaskan Klee Kai is also crate trained. She really loves her crate and goes in with no problem.

At some point in time, our JRT just didn't want to go in the crate even though he sleeps there without incident every night. Sometimes around bed time he will go underneath our bed and refuse to come out. If he thinks he might be put into the crate he will try to go hide. I'm not really sure where the aversion to the crate has come from. Once he is in he relaxes and doesn't have a problem.
I almost feel like the accidents when my husband and I want to have alone time are because he is possesive of one of us or something. All of his accidents usually occur when one or both of us are unavailable to pay attention and engage with him.
I recently read Cesar Milan's first book and am working on becoming the pack leader but this issue and gaining control on walks are my biggest challenges.

Thank you for the advice, I think maybe I should try taking number 2's outside I usually just flush them.

Dog's do protest but they don't get jealous the way we think of it. The JRT is reacting to being left alone when it wants to be with you. If I decided to take a nap and close the door, my dogs will scratch and whimper for a minute or so but then it's passes without incident. That took some work to get that result though.

As odd as it seens you could modify a method we use for insecure dogs when the owners leave for work. Basically you and hubby put on an act. You both go to the bedroom and then return after a few seconds and pretend to settle in on the sofa. You repeat this over and over and increase the time you stay in the bedroom each time.

It boils down to boring your dog to death. You do this so often that it stops being interesting and worth getting worked up about. You also do not give the dog any loving or attention when you come back out or you'll give it a NEW reason to get all excited over it.

It's also another way to door train a dog not to get all excited and crowd the door. You make it boringly normal stuff. I rang my doorbell for 30 minutes before trick or treat was supposed to begin. By the time the kids started to ring it, it was such a big deal anymore.

Be Well and Train Well.

Sorry:
By the time the kids started to ring it, it WAS NOT such a big deal anymore.

That is a really good idea. We will try that.
I think that might work with a lot of the anxiety that he seems to have when we leave/ don't pay constant attention to him. I think that my dogs are spoiled because I have been consistently at home and available to them. I've been trying to find a new job and I really want to address these problems because I know that they need to be addressed before I start working and am gone more.

thank you for the advice, I will let you know how the techniques are going!