Hello everyone, I wonder if anyone might be able to help us with this? Our male Labrador, Archer, is 8 months old. He is well behaved and goes to bed very happily in our kitchen and sleeps through until 6:30. He has a Fish4Dogs to eat at 7am and 6pm at the lower end in the quantity suggestion as we would like to keep him a healthy weight and he is not a working dog but has a walk of around an hour a day, mix of on and off the lead. He always has a poo in the garden in the morning after his breakfast and sometimes in the middle of the day but always again before we put him to bed. We go out with him to check that he has had a poo. However... most nights he has a wee and a poo in the kitchen. It seems to be done at some point overnight as it’s v cold by 6:30. He is otherwise perfectly toilet trained and we praise him when he goes outside. It feels to me like some kind of poo protest, like maybe he doesn’t want to be alone, although he doesn’t bark? We never tell him off, we just clean it up. For weeks we avoided starting puppy pads again but I got so tired of cleaning up wee that we use them again now. I have the disinfectant per cleaner that is recommended on this site to clean the floor, but as it is and old kitchen there are lots of nooks and crevices that wee could still be settling into. Maybe he can still smell it? Or maybe it is just habit/convenient in the night? Very greateful for any suggestions. Thank you, Lucy
Was he ever toilet trained overnight and this has just started or has this carried on from a puppy. My 5 month old puppy has been dry at night for the last month she used puppy pads. She goes out for a short walk at 10 pm sometime she poops then orher timed she don't we go to bed about 11pm she is let out at 7am. She was compleatly dry in the day but would wee and poo in the night. It takes some longer than others.
Hi @Lucy Biggs Praise is insufficient. Give your dog treats when he urinates or defecates. Take him out once through the night, on lead to spot where your dog decates. Wait do nothing else. If defecation occurs, then jackpot with treats. If your dog is defecating 3 times a day, then I suspect your dog food has lots of filler. If so, use a more expensive feed.
Sounds like he might have too much space and he can do what he needs to away from his bed area? Meg was still in a crate at that age with no problems overnight. As well as the great advice you have already got, could you reduce his sleeping area? Was he a crate ? worth a try
How about feeding earlier in the evening? Also, it may help to take some steps back and treat him as a small pup again and start again with house training. If he's been doing this for 3 months he's been practicing the behaviours, so it may help to repeat the training.
Thank you for your suggestions everyone. I’ll try that @Michael A Brooks re. getting up and treats, thank you. He is on Fish4Dogs which is expensive/high quality, 80% salmon, 20% peas. We also feed him the lower end of the quantity suggestion so I know he’s not having too much of it. The only other treats he has are Sprats when we are training him once a day. @Edp We used to crate him but used to have a lot of trouble with him waking us up with barking throughout the night, both with the door open and closed. However, once we tried removing his crate and just leaving his bed he has since slept through the night ♀️ But I don’t disagree he maybe had too much space - and as @Debs says he’s been practising the behaviours. We also used to feed him earlier Debs but then he seemed to wake earlier like he wanted feeding. Argh? It’s so tricky isn’t it. He also always poos outside before bed. We will give it a go through - thank you. Lucy
Thanks for the information. I don't know that dog food. Is there some reason why he is on such a limited range of food? How much of other food groups is he eating? Fish and just peas seems a bit limited. How much kibble?
