I have two black labrador sisters, who I adopted 18 months ago, and who have been very clean in the house until now. A while ago one of the girls had haemorrhagic gastroenteritis and was quite poorly for several days. Since then she has intermittently pooed in the kitchen overnight, despite plenty of opportunity to use the garden late at night. Initially I put it down to her tummy settling, and then to her scrumping apples from my tree... laden, and however frequently I pick up the fallen apples, more seem to appear. I'm more vigilant with this now, but the overnight messing continues, sometimes with a wee as well. I'm assuming it's the dog which eats the apples and had the gastric problem. Bella, the dog concerned, is also producing huge amounts of poo, whereas her sister is quite 'modest' in that department! It's not runny or mucoussy or worrying in that way, just a large volume. Strangely, I was with my mother over the summer and there was no issue at all. They slept in her kitchen and made no mess. I took them away to Devon to a strange house and they were fine. It was only on my return to our home that it all started again, so I'm wondering if the apples are the cause. I will be either cutting down the apple tree or making sure that all the fallers are picked up regularly throughout the day, so that I can eliminate that as a reason. Does anyone have any advice, please? They both seem in excellent health, are eating prepared raw food or a good quality kibble. Lots of energy and happy, so I'm wondering what's going on. I have read that it may help to feed the dinner meal quite late, so that it's morning before it works its way through, but they have been used to a 5pm meal, so I'm not sure how late I can actually leave it till I feed them. Any thoughts please?
I think you hit the nail on the head - keep on top of the windfalls. Coco used to scavenge the apples first year we had him - he didn't soil inside but he did have huge, loose poos. For some reason, he hasn't bothered this year....or maybe OH is on top of the apples...but I doubt it.
WE had similar problems with apples and being diligent about picking them up helped tremendously. I did look out once to find our dog, our ESS, climbing one of the trees to pick apples but she didn't get many that way. I didn't have a camera with video on it back then. Whisper did not poop inside but she must have been holding on for all she was worth as once outside she would nearly explode, poor little girl. I wonder too, for you, if the illness convinced your girl it was ok to toilet inside. Maybe a thorough enzyme cleaning inside and a bout of potty training over again, even at her age, would help.
We have a plum tree... Our first Labrador was a terror for scoffing plums and then depositing them in processed form on the carpet in the wee hours. Nightmare. He'd eat dozens in a day. Total nightmare. In the end we fenced off the plum tree. He'd still reach under the fence with his front feet to get to the plums but it hugely reduced his consumption and solved the problem.
