Help! dog pooping inside!

[wendyj]

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hi all, just joined up after trying to find a answer to my problem & came across this site, i have owned dogs for the last 30 years,(boxers) shown them & bred them also, toilet trained all the pups, when our last boxer died we decided to downsize & get a pug, lovely little dog, always happy & full of fun, we collected her at 8 weeks old, house trained her without a problem at all, never even had a accident indoors!!, she was raised on james wellbeloved kibble, puppy food, junior etc, she is 19 months old now & on james wellbeloved adult and we have a massive problem with this dog!!! she now decides to poop overnight!!! , when she was younger we gave her 2 meals a day 9am & 4 pm, no problems at all, now she is on 1 meal a day, given at 830 am & she still toilets overnight, she gets walked 3 times a day & i honestly cant understand how she has food left in her 17 hours later or so, never a problem on j/w puppy or junior, its just happened since we started the adult food, this is causing massive friction between me & my hubby & we are at our wits end, we love this little pug but just cant understand why this is happening at all, any advice appreciated before all our hair is pulled out lol

 

[gypsysmum2]

ExcuseMe might be along with some dietary advice. Not sure if dogs on James Wellbeloved produce a large amount of waste. I know James Wellbeloved got taken over by one of the larger manufacturers a while back.

The "massive friction" comment might be a big clue here.

Some dogs pick up vibes around poo that we humans do not like it (!) This can come about when they have a genuine accident and someone gets cross with them. This leads them to believe that they should not be around people when they poo, in case the human gets angry again, and so they hold on to it until they are alone. This means they do it at night or when we go out. They, at the time, do not think that we will find it later. It is just important not to be near people and poo as they remember the "scene" from before so they wait until they are alone.

When I say "someone gets cross with them" this can be, to a sensitive dog, something as small as a sigh when the poo is discovered. Alarm bells go off in the dog's head and they try very hard to avoid people and poo in the future.

It can be hard to deal with this problem because we, understandably, want to check that the dog is empty before we go to bed. The dog is reluctant top produce a poo because he remembers the reaction around his accidental poo.

The best way of dealing with it is to work out a way of giving a high value reward when the dog does a poo outside of the house. The reward must be very quick in response to the poo so that the dog makes the connection. It is no good, for instance, if the dog has come in to the house or even just approached you. He will have forgotten why he got the reward and you are wasting your time.

It may be that your dog prefers to go when on a walk rather than in the garden. If this is the case then a late night walk might help. Be pleased if he poos and give a fantastic treat. It may also be that he is scared of the dark. Pooing is a vulnerable position for a dog and some will avoid doing it in scary situations.

I once helped the new owner of a rescue dog deal with the same problem and she learned to clicker train first. Then she went upstairs and lent out of the window while waiting for the dog to poo in the garden. She would click and rush down to treat the dog. The dog would not poo if she was present in the garden but needed a reward when it did.

Some dogs need a huge space between them and humans and will only go when the humans are in bed or when let off lead so that they can distance themselves to a "safe" place.

I am not saying that he has been hurt in any way, just that he is very sensitive to mood.

Or it could be fear of the dark?

 

[JoanneF]

Gypsysmum gives great advice above. There is something else you could try if you think she genuinely cant hold on all night. Put a few pieces of sweet corn on her food and watch for them coming out - that will let you see the rate she digests her food and passed her poo. You could then adjust the time of her last meal if that is something that might help. James Wellbeloved isn't the worst food but there are better ones. Excuseme is our food guru but in the meantime you could look at the independent dog food comparison website www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk which independently ranks food out of 5. You can enter your dog's age and exercise levels etc then order the foods according to the score. I am now feeding Gentle which scores 4.9 out of 5.

 

[wendyj]

Gypsysmum gives great advice above. There is something else you could try if you think she genuinely cant hold on all night. Put a few pieces of sweet corn on her food and watch for them coming out - that will let you see the rate she digests her food and passed her poo. You could then adjust the time of her last meal if that is something that might help. James Wellbeloved isn't the worst food but there are better ones. Excuseme is our food guru but in the meantime you could look at the independent dog food comparison website www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk which independently ranks food out of 5. You can enter your dog's age and exercise levels etc then order the foods according to the score. I am now feeding Gentle which scores 4.9 out of 5.

she gets one meal a day at 08:30 am

ExcuseMe might be along with some dietary advice. Not sure if dogs on James Wellbeloved produce a large amount of waste. I know James Wellbeloved got taken over by one of the larger manufacturers a while back.

The "massive friction" comment might be a big clue here.

Some dogs pick up vibes around poo that we humans do not like it (!) This can come about when they have a genuine accident and someone gets cross with them. This leads them to believe that they should not be around people when they poo, in case the human gets angry again, and so they hold on to it until they are alone. This means they do it at night or when we go out. They, at the time, do not think that we will find it later. It is just important not to be near people and poo as they remember the "scene" from before so they wait until they are alone.

When I say "someone gets cross with them" this can be, to a sensitive dog, something as small as a sigh when the poo is discovered. Alarm bells go off in the dog's head and they try very hard to avoid people and poo in the future.

It can be hard to deal with this problem because we, understandably, want to check that the dog is empty before we go to bed. The dog is reluctant top produce a poo because he remembers the reaction around his accidental poo.

The best way of dealing with it is to work out a way of giving a high value reward when the dog does a poo outside of the house. The reward must be very quick in response to the poo so that the dog makes the connection. It is no good, for instance, if the dog has come in to the house or even just approached you. He will have forgotten why he got the reward and you are wasting your time.

It may be that your dog prefers to go when on a walk rather than in the garden. If this is the case then a late night walk might help. Be pleased if he poos and give a fantastic treat. It may also be that he is scared of the dark. Pooing is a vulnerable position for a dog and some will avoid doing it in scary situations.

I once helped the new owner of a rescue dog deal with the same problem and she learned to clicker train first. Then she went upstairs and lent out of the window while waiting for the dog to poo in the garden. She would click and rush down to treat the dog. The dog would not poo if she was present in the garden but needed a reward when it did.

Some dogs need a huge space between them and humans and will only go when the humans are in bed or when let off lead so that they can distance themselves to a "safe" place.

I am not saying that he has been hurt in any way, just that he is very sensitive to mood.

Or it could be fear of the dark?

she never has a problem with toileting outside during the day while on walks at all, i just cant understand this problem

 

[JoanneF]

Perhaps then she is physically unable to hold on all night. Try changing her mealtime to earlier in the day and set your alarm clock for during the night. But importantly never react to accidents for the reasons Gypsysmum gave above.

 

[wendyj]

Perhaps then she is physically unable to hold on all night. Try changing her mealtime to earlier in the day and set your alarm clock for during the night. But importantly never react to accidents for the reasons Gypsysmum gave above.

sorry, don't mean to sound "off" with you here but have you read my post? she gets 1 meal a day at 0830am (morning) walked 3 times a day ( & toilets at least twice ) but 17 hrs later she toilets on the floor !!!

how can i make her mealtime any earlier would you not say that 17 hrs would be enough time for a small pug bitch who has a meal off kibble to be empty within 17 hrs or so? as for setting the alarm tbh i don't think that's a good idea at all, anyway , thanks for the advice . she is due a vet visit soon will just ask him

 

[JoanneF]

Sorry I did misread it when you said she got 2 meals. I wish you luck at the vet. But why not get up in the night if it means you can let her out? Every avoidable accident indoors is a step back in toilet training.

 

[gypsysmum2]

It does sound strange that she still has contents in her bowel after all that time.

Is she scavenging somewhere? Is someone giving her extra food?

I found that bones will do it to my dog. If I give him a bone to chew on his bowel reacts to it and he has to empty during the night. Not diarrhoea, I think it just irritates his bowel so he has to empty it. I would imagine that some chews might do the same?

 

[wendyj]

Sorry I did misread it when you said she got 2 meals. I wish you luck at the vet. But why not get up in the night if it means you can let her out? Every avoidable accident indoors is a step back in toilet training.

that's ok joanne, thing is , if we start that , it would lead to her NEEDING to be up at lets say 2am in the morning as it would become routine & i dont want that ( sorry for the late reply , been at work)

It does sound strange that she still has contents in her bowel after all that time.

Is she scavenging somewhere? Is someone giving her extra food?

I found that bones will do it to my dog. If I give him a bone to chew on his bowel reacts to it and he has to empty during the night. Not diarrhoea, I think it just irritates his bowel so he has to empty it. I would imagine that some chews might do the same?

that's the problem , i cant believe she has anything left after so long, she gets no food after that & she is quite happy, never scavenges or hangs around for food when we are eating etc, i know dogs ( like i posted , had boxers for 30 years or so) just never ever had this problem

 

[JoanneF]

If her metabolism is that slow and she is pooing from the food 17 hours earlier, if you fed her at, say, early afternoon would she poo before bed then be able to hold until morning? This is where the sweetcorn trick can help.

 

[Cash_Dolly]

Or try an evening meal and see if then she will go all night and poo in the Morning?

 

[gypsysmum2]

No bones? As I said above it was the reason my latest rescue was pooing at night. The bones weighed heavy in his bowel and he could not hold on until morning. We stopped the bones and he, mostly, stopped the pooing.

It still points, to me, that she is deliberately holding it in for some reason. Dogs can go a long time between poos if they decide to do so. She must be deciding to hold on to it, all day, for some reason. She then, either cannot hold on any longer, or is just waiting to be alone.

Some dogs will happily poo away from home but become anxious in the home environment about getting it "wrong". If they poo when alone they cannot, in their eyes, get it wrong. They do not have the capacity to think beyond that immediate emotion. i.e. "is it safe to poo? Yes, so I will do it now". OR "no. I will hold on until I am alone".

I dog sat for some people with a Labrador. She had a reputation for pooing at night. It turned out that, if she could go off lead and leave a big distance between her human and herself she would poo. If she stayed on lead she would hold on and then poo when owners had gone to bed.