Hi all, I'm really hoping I can get as much advice and ideas as possible on this subject as it's seriously getting us down. We have two male labs both neutered. The youngest is one. We've had him from 12 weeks old and have only ever had 3 totally dry nights. Both are not crated, they sleep in the kitchen. He poos in his bed as well as on the floor so not sure a crate would help. Both dogs have lots of exercise, 2 walks if I can manage sometimes 3. We've changed diets hundreds of times with every food possible. We've been to the vets to find underlying issues also but nothing found just told its behavioral. The only thing we haven't tried is feeding them just once a day. They are fed morning and afternoon before 4. We've tried having them in our room with us but they won't settle. Please please could anyone share some light on this subject?? Also forgot to say it's not just one poo overnight, sometimes there's quite a few. Also puddles of wee
Have you tried getting up in the night to let him out? Then making it later & later. For example if he goes to bed at 11pm, I'd try getting up at 2am and letting him out. See if he goes. If he does then I'd come down at 2.15 the next night and try and keep extending it. If he didn't go I'd maybe come down again at 4. Obviously it's not ideal as you'll be tired, but that's what we had to do with Stanley as a pup and we've not really had any accidents through the night
Hi Jen, This is something we've been talking about doing to see if this helps. Also, sometimes he will not go last thing at night then we go back up to kitchen 10 mins later to try again and he's been on floor. We thought he maybe scared of the dark but this is only sometimes this happens. We've also thought that tonight we may try popping the go pro in the kitchen to film overnight and see times he's going. Thank you for your advice, I guess it's worth a try just not ideal
Hmmmm... The thing is, he's obviously not really been toilet trained, since he thinks it's ok to poo (and sometimes wee) in the house at night. I'm not having a go at you; I'm sure that as far as you knew he was properly trained. But somehow, somewhere along the line, there has been a misunderstanding between you. Clearly, you want him to do his business last thing in the evening when you take him out. He thinks it's better to wait until everything is quiet and dark, and there's no-one around to witness him. Maybe he senses your stress levels around the whole toileting business, who knows? Personally, I'd go right back to the beginning. I'd buy a large crate, and slowly train him to be happy in it, just like you would a puppy. That may take several weeks of feeding him in there and giving him treats etc in there, but once he is happy in his crate and can be left overnight in it, it is very unlikely he would soil his bed space.
I can see why that would really get you down, it's obviously something that has to be solved, it can't be any fun. I agree with Karen, he is just not toilet trained for overnights. I think trying a crate is a good idea, but do the crate training carefully and definitely don't let him wee or poo in it! To be honest, if this were my dog, I'd put a camp bed in the kitchen and take him out every hour.
Well I almost wrote that about the camp bed too! It would mean very little sleep for a while... but worth it in the long run. Less stressful for your dog, probably...
My OH slept in a tent in the kitchen for 3 months to look after Charlie after his op. He got used to it quite quickly! Charlie thought it was great.
In addition to the sound toilet training advice above, perhaps you could feed him his dinner much later? Snowie always woke us up to be let out - he's always slept in our bedroom. We fed him dinner at 4pm, too, because that was convenient for me as I had work meetings from 4.30pm and needed him quiet. But then our vet pointed out that the time between dinner and breakfast was too long (we had other issues - we discovered he is epileptic and the vet was concerned about low blood sugar levels at 4am when he had his fits) so we gradually moved his dinner to 7pm (took a couple of weeks and nerves of steel to not give in to the hungry eyes at 4pm). As a happy consequence he also stopped waking us up to poo in the night and we concluded that his waking us up to poo was probably linked to how long it took for food to move through his system and also that he was satiated enough to keep him asleep all night (he gets a slightly bigger dinner than breakfast). That was some years ago when he was 1.5 years old. He's now 5 years old and we generally feed him at 6pm and 6am cos it fits in with our schedules. But he and we are flexible so meal times can vary but he very seldom wakes us to go out at night unless he has a dodgy tummy (he is a scavenger of note!!).
Thank you all soooo much for taking the time to reply with very good advice. Tonight we will try getting up in the night to let him out, and also think moving his food time is worth a go too! It really is getting us all down but want to try everything possible, I guess even the camp bed in the kitchen if we have too!
